RE: Elon Musk, Asperger's and Autism Spectrum Disorder
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Excellent article. I wonder if Tesla also suffered from some form of functional autism. Newton as well. I read his biography, Never at Rest, and Newton has all the classic symptoms. An often unhealthy obsession with numbers, rules, laws, and mysticism. He hated social interaction and is one of the reasons he didn't want to publish his experimental results. It is likely he made other discoveries, but the man was so prickly that we'll never know for sure. His laboratory burned down at one point and his work of 20 years along with it.
You make a good point that actually pinning down Asperger's syndrome as a clinical phenomenon is difficult. The concept starts becoming meaningless when you can take any human being on the planet, observe their behavior, and conclude that they have Asperger's syndrome when they are actually just behaving normally.
Well researched and written article. Right on!
Hello @litguru. I think the greatest value of the Asperger's diagnosis for many people was the clarity it gave them in understanding themselves and in explaining their peculiar characteristics to others. Isn't that what language does? Gives us clarity and understanding. Sure a lot of people misdiagnosed themselves. People do that with metabolism (to explain away obesity) and many other 'conditions'. So long as the doctors had a firm grip on the parameters of this diagnosis it worked OK. Of course, firm grip is an aspiration, never a fact.😆
Anyway, following the discussion on Twitter was fascinating. So many open wounds apparently on this subject (and the issue of ableism). I just had to take this on.
Thanks so much for reading. Always a pleasure to hear from you.