A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity. Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from … in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution.
How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species’s inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn’t just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
Simon Baron-Cohen a Cambridge University psychologist reveals to us an acceptance and understanding of the autistic brain. is essential .The author finds the autistic mind with its emphasis on patterns is often instrumental in discovery and innovation!The writer quotes Alan Turning who wrote Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine .The author shows us the importance of providing education and job opportunities which foster the autistic minds growth.The Israeli army has a special unit for autistic people who want to serve their country .The 9900 unit whose excellent detail to pattern seeking can detect anomalies in satellite images of locations on Earth ,to spot any patterns that look unusual.Employment for autistic adults may turn out to be a far more effective intervention than any medical treatment because it confers dignity and a sense of inclusion .Greta Thunberg the Swedish teenager .has a strong narrow interest in climate breakdown and has succeeded in raising awareness of the urgency of this issue for the future of the planet.The author explains their novel ideas can become innovations,but only with our support!
Intriguing Theory. Full disclosure up front: I *am* Autistic, and thus these types of books tend to demand my attention as I attempt to understand my own mind and body. That noted, Baron-Cohen (no apparent relation to the actor of the same surname) here proposes a theory that those who are “high systemizers” – those he defines as people driven by a process many in programming will recognize as a version of Agile Programming – are the ones who have driven human innovation from the dawn of the species. It is a theory that has at least some degree of merit, but perhaps has a few weaknesses that the author omits – though he does make a point of discussing some competing theories, it is possible that there are other explanations that fit at least some of the data better according to Occam’s Razor. Still, he makes a repeated point that even those suspected of being Autistic should not seek a diagnosis unless their abilities are somehow causing problems, which is a point that many in the Autism literature – at least that which I have read – fail to make or even contradict, and for that reason alone this book is a refreshing change of pace. (It also opens with one of my favorite quotes, from The Imitation Game – the story of Alan Turing, the father of Computer Science and a suspected Autistic – that “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”)
Overall a a must-read book for those seeking to understand Autistics, as it really does make a lot of very solid points – points that were affecting me nearly as much as my first viewing of The Imitation Game. This is yet another one that I will absolutely be recommending those seeking to work with me professionally read, as it can give them many clues both how to understand me – and how to use me much more effectively. Very much recommended.