Controversial Commentary

By Simon Baron-Cohen
Professor of Developmental Psychopathology
and Co-Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University.

We feel that this essay is an affront to persons on the autism spectrum and their families, and we have expressed our feelings to Simon Baron-Cohen personally.
We generally do not editorialize at AutismInfo.com, and we feel that when presented with balanced information, individuals are capable of making their own judgement.

Because Baron-Cohen is regarded by some as one of the world's leading experts in autism, we found it necessary to object. With a "twelve-fold" increase in the rates of autism there are many more significant topics worth discussing.
The Editor

Start of essay:

People with autism can be affected to varying degrees, but their principal mental characteristics are that they have difficulty in fitting in with other people or figuring out people's feelings and perspectives (a disability) whilst they have a natural flair for analysing the non-social world in fine detail, and in understanding non-social systems (a talent). So whilst they may appear socially odd to their peer-group within their own culture, their long hours focused on understanding a system like mathematics or calendars, car engines or music, navigation or computer-programming, grammar and vocabulary, can lead them to high levels of expertise within narrow domains of knowledge.

People with autism are usually male, and these men would traditionally have not competed well in the competition for mates, as appearing socially odd might have either put off prospective females from choosing them, or put off prospective parents-in-law from arranging such a marriage for their daughters.

And then two massive changes hit the planet: the airplane and the computer.

The airplane has allowed unprecedented opportunities for changing your culture. And when you go from your native culture into another one, your social oddness may be far less obvious. "Oh, he behaves like that because he's English", a Brazilian might say, or vice-versa.

Social oddity can be minimised to some extent by moving cultures because we are all experts in knowing the subtle body language and intonation of our own cultures but might just mistakenly assume that a foreigner's different body language or intonation is due to their different culture. We might overlook what to people in their culture would appear odd and off-putting. So someone with autism might find it far easier to be accepted, even by the opposite sex, when they are abroad, compared to when they are in their native country.

The computer has penetrated every work-place. In just 50 short years, there is now no office in the developed world where computers are not essential, and we need those people with the cool, razor-sharp logic to fix them, reconfigure them, develop them, adapt them, program them. The autistic mind was sitting around for centuries, even millennia, under-employed, because how many jobs were there for mathematicians and scientists, who also needed this style of thinking? Drops in the ocean. And then the market opened up for computer-scientists - the most in-demand of workers in the modern age. Tidal waves in the ocean.

Computer-scientists, irrespective of their social skills, could now hop on a plane and find a job, get rich, and have something to offer a girl: social status, a salary, a niche in which they fit, and even be accepted as normal for a foreigner - for who of us can judge what is normal for a foreigner? Or even if they just stayed in their own culture, they were now more valued and accepted than before.

This is not to say that all computer-scientists lack social skill. Far from it. We all know computer-scientists who are good socializers. Nor is it to say that those severely affected by autism could suddenly shift and become a successful programmer. But those who had a dash of autism could.

No longer the socially isolated, unemployed, "weird" guy who could list every prime number up to 10,000 in minutes, but who couldn't have even a semblance of a conversation with a girl at a party. Now the successful computer scientist, well-paid, whose talent at "systemising" has enabled him to learn a foreign language and be accepted, and even find a date and a mate.

Autism is genetic: it runs in families. But whereas in 1970 the rate of autism was 4 in 10,000 people, today it is 1 in 200 people. The rate has gone up more than twelve-fold.

Twelve-fold? Is this an epidemic? Some have rashly thought this might be because of some pollutant or even vaccine damage, but the evidence for this is thin. Certainly, the increase in autism is in part because of better detection and awareness, thanks to the tireless work of autism charities throughout the world.

But could it also be that this has also been a result of the most rapid evolutionary change to the human brain that we have witnessed? A recent issue of Wired Magazine in December 2001 reported that the rate of autism was hitting record rates in Silicon Valley, where a new evolutionary niche was opening up for people to fly in from around the planet, sell their mathematical and systemising talent, and find reproductive success which would otherwise have remained beyond reach. Our experimental research is consistent with this interpretation, and warrants further testing.

If this evolutionary change is real, should we fear it? On the contrary, we should welcome and celebrate it. Good socializers have always found it easy to survive and reproduce, but we need our good systemisers too, for the benefit of the planet. These are the guys (men and women) who are going to push science and technology forward, and create our future. Thank Darwin that life is now a bit easier for them too.

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and Co-Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His research spans the developmental neuropsychology of autism, early diagnosis, psychological intervention and neuroimaging in autism. He previously held a senior academic post at London University (at the Institute of Psychiatry). He was awarded the British Psychological Society's Spearman Medal, and the American Psychological Association's McAndless Award, for outstanding contributions to research. He is author of numerous articles in scientific journals on the subject of autism, including Autism: The Facts,1993 The Maladapted Mind: Classic Readings in Evolutionary Psychopathology; and Mindblindness : An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind (Learning, Development and Conceptual Change).

Originally published in The Edge.org:
http://www.edge.org/q2002/q_baroncohen.html
Because of strong objections, the essay was quickly withdrawn from The Edge.