Posted on 02/22/2008 10:44:32 AM PST by BGHater
Many leading figures in the fields of science, politics and the arts have achieved success because they had autism, a leading psychiatrist has claimed.
Michael Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, argued the characteristics linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were the same as those associated with creative genius.
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Prof Fitzgerald cited Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, George Orwell, H G Wells and Ludwig Wittgenstein as examples of famous and brilliant individuals who showed signs of ASDs including Asperger syndrome.
Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen and Immanuel Kant have also received post mortem diagnoses of Asperger's.
Speaking at a Royal College of Psychiatrists' Academic Psychiatry conference in London, Prof Fitzgerald said argued the link between ASD's, creativity and genius were caused by common genetic causes.
"Psychiatric disorders can also have positive dimensions. I'm arguing the genes for autism/Asperger's, and creativity are essentially the same.
"We don't know which genes they are yet or how many there are, but we are talking about multiple genes of small effect. Every case is unique because people have varying numbers of the genes involved.
"These produce people who are highly focused, don't fit into the school system, and who often have poor social relationships and eye contact. They can be quite paranoid and oppositional, and usually highly moral and ethical.
"They can persist with a topic for 20-30 years without being distracted by what other people think. And they can produce in one lifetime the work of three or four other people."
Prof Fitzgerald said traits such as a need to be dominant and in control and autistic repetitiveness were critical to the success of politicians such as Charles de Gaulle, who famously said "I am France", US president Thomas Jefferson and Enoch Powell.
Another example he said was science fiction writer H G Wells, whom he described as socially insecure, controlling, lonely, cruel and emotionally immature.
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Prof Fitzgerald reached his conclusion after comparing the characteristics of around 1,600 people he has diagnosed with ASDs and the known biographical details of famous people.
He said Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein demonstrated how many with Asperger's traits could work for long periods on topics without taking note of others' views.
Isaac Newton, he said, was known to work non-stop for three days without recognising day or night, often forgetting to eat, and Einstein worked in a patent office because he was too disruptive to get a university job.
Prof Fitzgerald's book "Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World" was published at the end of last year,
Estimates of the prevalence of ASDs in the general population vary widely from 60-120 cases per 10,000 people.
Amanda Batten, of the National Autistic Society said: "It is important to avoid stereotypes of people with autism as geniuses or otherwise, as everyone has individual character traits, strengths and needs.
"These might include attention to detail and the ability to pursue something for long periods of time, however apparent ability in some areas may lead people to underestimate the challenges individuals face in other parts of their lives."
Oh, I see. All the genius in the world came from autism. Not hard work and simple genius. God forbid really smart people be recognized as such. It would offend the stupid.
This verifies what I have been claiming all along. I am a genius, in my own way.
Some can go through an entire lifetime without being distracted by what anybody thinks.
I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking this guy must be speaking from experience rather than knowledge.
It's called political correctness.
Psychology once again states: people who are self-confident, read, are not sex-crazed, and don’t believe in collectivist policies have SOME sort of mental illness.
Allow me to skewer this soft science with something learned in high-level math classes: all measurement is done from a base: be it a point, line, or plane.
Why should psychologists, who are all pretty screwed up, use themselves as the reference point?
Some can go through an entire lifetime without being distracted by what anybody thinks.
So now disruptiveness = autism/Asperger's?
That example will do since probably nobody here has ever heard of the family that lives across the street up the road.
I have noticed that the super successful people I know personally all literally have OCD. My son has asperger’s. He is getting his doctor of pharmacy degree while completing his requirements for his black belt in karate. He has never had a date. As someone who has been involved with autism spectrum disorders, I can see it with Einstein. Asperger’s is sometimes known as the Absent Minded Professor Syndrom.
His disease was megalomania, with a special French gene variant that makes the disease especially severe, not autism.
I know a couple of guys diagnosed with Asperger's. They are two of the best code writers in the biz. Another person I know of sustained a brain injury and all of the sudden could learn to play several musical instruments. He had no noticible musical talent prior to the injury.
Achievements in life come from a sum of all our parts and efforts. Why not acknowledge that our makeup sometimes enhances our abilities towards certain achievements?
The author doesn’t have a clue. Einstein worked in a patent office initially because he didn’t have a doctoral degree. After he received his doctorate, Einstein held positions in several prominent universities - including Princeton after he left Germany in 1933. Einstein certainly “disrupted” Newtonian physics, but I don’t remember any of the biographies of him or his contemporaries that I have read stating that he was an especially “difficult” or “disruptive” colleague.
My problem is that I’m not OCD enough.
People. Lighten. Up.
I don’t see all the P.C., pinko liberalism some of you appear to see in this article. And the article DOES NOT SAY that being autistic CAUSES genius, let alone ALL genius.
I’ve seen this happen before. Some Freepers jump on any article about psychology, with ready-to-paste boilerplate about how psychology is about nothing but excusing criminals and unruly children. Even when there isn’t a hint of such stuff in the article.
I have Asperger’s. I have experienced most of what is described in this article—except the part about writing tons of books and being a genius.
What I have experienced is that having some of these characteristics can help with tasks I’m good at, and makes other tasks just about impossible.
He couldn't get into a program that led to a doctorate because he marched to his own drumbeat. Not "disruptive", he just didn't jump through the flaming poodle hoop that was presented to him in school.
Once he was in the patent office, he could breeze through work that would take a lesser man all day to do, and spend the rest of the time reading physics journals.
Seems to me that, in theory, if a big bump on the head can do that, there ought to be surgeries that could unleash prodigious talent.
There are Freepers who get their undies in a knot whenever anyone suggests that accomplishment, wealth, great learning, or any such thing is caused by anything other than good old Protestant hard work, reciting the Pledge every morning, sitting still in your desk, and doing what the government school teacher says. Anybody who does things in a way that’s at all eccentric must be a hippie.
Or to say it another way, as Mark Twain did, "We are all ignorant, just about different things."
Because we all do. It is inescapable. We are only aware of the world through ourselves so that has to be our base. For high order mathematics the mathematician is assuming the role of such and, according to his particular value system, again one that is internalized, he is playing an intellectual game, solving an intellectual puzzle, and in that he is objective. Yet, he is being subjectively objective in that it, objectivity, conforms to his subjective values.
In other parts of his life he is probably not so objective.
Good point. If PC convention had been adhered to, FR wouldn't even be here.
Kinda had me going there, till it got to Kant. ;-`
Lingering effects?
Immanuel Kant’s reply “Immanuel can.”
Stuff and nonsense ... a few years ago, they were drafting conveniently dead people into the ranks of “ADHD sufferers”.
He was quite profoundly autistic as a little guy but seems to have outgrown most of the autistic traits. He is doing very well, socially and popular among his classmates.
I'm trying to figure out if he's flawed or if he's a designer baby and there's really no downside to his "disorder", if it really is a disorder.
The key here is the reference to “ASD”. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a hoax, a fiction. All they mean is that some people enjoy solitude and doing mechanical tasks.
Just about describes all of us, doesn't it?
That’s not what we’re objecting to. What we object to is the ridiculous idea that anyone with an exceptional talent has something “wrong” with them.
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable
Heidegger Heidegger was a boozy begger who could think you under the table
David Hume could outconsume Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
And Renny Descartes was a drunken fart who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
See there. Yer gettin' smarter already. lol
LOL,
now THAT is genius. Well done, sir.
Says something about my 15 year math problem besides the “geek” tag. Maybe I can get disability??
Good point! Never thought of that. However, it might be too offensive to say it.
PING
And have you ever noticed how many programmers, myself included, have dyslexia to some degree? I swear sometimes it helps. And maybe that translates into being able to look at a problem from a different angle than others do.
I think this article makes a lot of interesting points and is probably on to something. Maybe brains that function differently than what's "normal" should not be medicated into oblivion.
An interesting psychological note on this subject is an odd one. There has been speculation that, at some time in the human species’ primitive past, that to reduce risk, people evolved a technique to prevent themselves from getting either too focused, or too unfocused.
It is “talking to ourselves”, or “the internal dialogue”.
Simply put, as a safety mechanism, when the mind becomes focused or unfocused, talking to ourselves breaks up the concentration needed to continue. If focused, it unfocuses us; if unfocused, it focuses us. This keeps us from being eaten by a tiger or walking off a cliff.
From infancy, we are trained in this learned technique of talking to ourselves by every adult we meet. And in truth, in a survival situation, it works.
However, this technique actually inhibits both the attention needed to complete complex intellectual tasks, *and* the ability to become unfocused for creative and artistic “leaps” of the imagination.
Not often being chased by tigers or wandering on cliff edges these days, many other techniques have been evolved, specifically to turn *off* that noise in our heads, so that we *can* become focused or unfocused for greater lengths of time. It is an essential part of most meditations to begin by “stop talking to yourself.”
Interestingly, it can be shown that if you do develop the ability to shut off your internal dialogue for a length of time, your greater focus gives you apparently greater intelligence, solely because you can focus on a problem long enough to solve it correctly.
I say this as background to the Asperger’s “geniuses”. They might simply be people who, by dint of their autism, do not *have* an internal dialogue. They only appear to be geniuses because of their dramatically longer focus.
From personal experience, I met a “California surfer dude”, who was just the opposite. His internal dialogue was so effective that he could barely complete a sentence without being distracted. This made him appear to be an airhead.
With just a few weeks practice with a technique to control his “internal dialogue”, he appeared to have increased his IQ by 30 points. He was thrilled that for the first time in his life he could speak coherent paragraphs, *and* he could finally finish ordinary tasks, something impossible for him before, because he would be distracted.
Lots of "hard workers" out there give up too soon. Story of life in fact.
Autism and Bipolar Disorder appear to have selective value. It's just that we don't always know what the purpose is.
Similar situation involves folks who have double the normal number of genes for red cones (for color vision). Although you can sight a good looking red-head at over 10 miles, it appears you can sight well camouflaged game animals through the bush with ease.
Humanity doesn't need a lot of guys outfitted like that (thank goodness because there are a limited number of really hot redheads), but 1 out of 30 gives you the lead hunter on point to sustain the hunt to keep the tribe alive.
Having seen Britney Spears quick slide down the pole I'm wondering if early expression of some types of autism lead invariably to bipolar disorder, or even schizophrenia.
No, but I could understand how that may work better. My little bit of time trying to write nested do loops in college classes made me wish that my brain worked a whole lot differently than it does.
I think this article makes a lot of interesting points and is probably on to something. Maybe brains that function differently than what's "normal" should not be medicated into oblivion.
I agree 100%. We can't all be round pegs, fitting nicely in society's round holes.
My own brother said I showed some signs growing up that might now be considered autistic. I’d come home from school when I was nine or ten and just lay on the sofa thinking up stories in my head for hours at a time. I didn’t write them down (except for a few); I just stared into space and lived them.
Thank goodness they didn’t drug kids back then. My careers in information science and my avocation of playwrighting are both going pretty well. I’m no genius, but I think some of my unusual (”autistic?”) tendencies as a child helped me with my creative outlets as an adult.
I don't think that accurately describes this lady. There's obviously something very unusually different about her.
This book by her is very interesting.
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Interesting book.
People wonder why I have never done drugs. I tell them I don’t need to do drugs, with my brain I can barely keep the wild horse under control as it is!
I guess I’m somewhat autistic according to this article, I have a number of those characteristics to varying degrees though they’ve diminished some with age.
The combination of high intelligence plus the ability to super-focus on a problem for extended periods of time plus the stubbornness to keep working on something in the face of disparagement = genius
it is an interesting book and interesting lady.
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