Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

As for the tweet, Baron-Cohen's language in that tweet seems to be a cry of triumph, using language that he presumably realizes (or ought to) would be inflammatory. There are good reasons that this is a sensitive subject. And how you present and talk about the results is a big part of why.

Science--particularly psychology and neuroscience--has a long-established history of unscientific lies and willful misinterpretations about differences due to sex (and race and other things) that have been demonstrably harmful to millions of people. Only the confidence of ultimate privilege could make you think that now we've finally turned a corner and can be totally objective about such things.

When the biggest names in such research lecture other people about how important it is to be serious about studying oh-so-scientific proof of sex differences while simultaneously cheering on their long-preferred outcome like it's a sporting event is... unprofessional at best. A good scientist should be humble about their own instincts and should be thoughtful and careful about succumbing to confirmation bias. But here we had Simon Baron-Cohen crowing over a single result in the most obnoxiously oversimplified way possible.

There's a huge amount of context here that I am (and probably you are) missing, and I certainly can't judge these people's motives. But I'll say it again: serious scientists who really care about finding out the facts about sex differences in brain development should probably not be crowing about single studies on Twitter in inflammatory ways.

1: Simon-Baron Cohen has become world famous for promoting his "extreme male brain" theory of Autism to the point its hard to imagine he's NOT emotionally attached to it.

2: It is notable women with Autism get diagnosed later and its broadly believed by those familiar with Autism that they are underdiagnosed. The extreme male brain theory however bega the questiom that maybe women possibly lack as extreme male of a brain as the men and thus are less autistic and that explains the diagnosis discrepancy? Which is obviously controversial.

3: Autistic womens brains AREN'T LIKE typical male brains. So the nomenclature of saying they have "male brains" in itself is controversial. Especially when girls grew up bullied for being different often being accused of not being sufficiently girly.

4: Generally the people who advocate for autistic men have grievances against some aspects of masculinity. Yet autistic men in certain ways act hypermasculine (isolation, indifference to pain, etc.) Male autistics are likely to be raised in an unusually feminine environment and ardn't always considered manly and can yearn for some sort of masculine identity. So there is this awkward dynamic.

The group most commonly diagnosed as autistic, white men tend to get no love from their allies in regards to other aspects of their identity. This leads to high functioning autistics like James Damore who literally want to tear down affirmative action policies that nominally benefit autistic people. Men like these proceed to get burned at the stake by their allies. This leads to angry resentful autistics inflaming discussions like this.

5: There is a strong correlation between autism and transgenderism and nobody really knows why. Transwomen are autistic at rates far above the general population. This really pisses off autistic transwomen. Generally autism seems to have a significant impact on gender identity.

There is a surprising amount of tension here anyways.

Given the topic, I took that as an argument that the neurological differences are not as pronounced as what is created by external factors, and I was responding to the lack of evidence provided for that view (which I interpret as the opposite of the view you suggested).

I actually lean towards your position, but I wasn't trying to express that as an argument (I'm unqualified to). I was just trying to point out what I saw as at best very loose reasoning (at least when provided without evidence).