Interesting speculation: atheis, autist or both?

[tonisz]

I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this, but anyway, I find it interesting...  The author of this article states:

1. No, I'm not saying that all atheists are autistic. (The evidence seems to show that is not true.)
2. No, I'm not saying that autistic people tend to be atheists. (I have no idea whether they are or not.)
3. No, I don't think that autism causes atheism or vice versa. (I think there is a correlation, not a causal relationship between the two.)
4. No, I'm not trying to offer an argument. I'm merely raising what I think is an intriguing question.
5. Yes, the title of this post is intentionally provocative and ultimately answered by an empathic "no."

He (she) doesn't say if he (she) is religious or not, but in this case, silence comes as a confirmation...
There is a link there to a page where you can take a test to see how autistic you are (btw, I scored 30, which means I'm almost at the borderline...)
There's also a "clarification" for this article here.
If you take a look in Wikipedia at Asperges syndrome, you'll find out that "Asperger syndrome is one of five neurobiological pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and is characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills, normal to above normal intelligence, standard language development,and repetitive or restrictive patterns of thought and behavior."
So atheists (aka autists) may got it right though!

[Whitney]

I tried to take the test but got a page which looks like script which should have calculated the score:

here is it if someone wants to figure out my score...I couldn't figure out if I should count the 1s or the 0s to get the score:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

use CGI;

print "Content-type: text/html\n\r\n\r";

my %qs = (
'1' => "I prefer to do things with others rather than on my own.",
'2' => "I prefer to do things the same way over and over again.",
'3' => "If I try to imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind.",
'4' => "I frequently get so strongly absorbed in one thing that I lose sight of other things.",
'5' => "I often notice small sounds when others do not.",
'6' => "I usually notice car number plates or similar strings of information.",
'7' => "Other people frequently tell me that what I've said is impolite, even though I think it is polite.",
'8' => "When I'm reading a story, I can easily imagine what the characters might look like.",
'9' => "I am fascinated by dates.",
'10' => "In a social group, I can easily keep track of several different people's conversations.",
'11' => "I find social situations easy.",
'12' => "I tend to notice details that others do not.",
'13' => "I would rather go to a library than to a party.",
'14' => "I find making up stories easy.",
'15' => "I find myself drawn more strongly to people than to things.",
'16' => "I tend to have very strong interests, which I get upset about if I can't pursue.",
'17' => "I enjoy social chitchat.",
'18' => "When I talk, it isn't always easy for others to get a word in edgewise.",
'19' => "I am fascinated by numbers.",
'20' => "When I'm reading a story, I find it difficult to work out the characters' intentions.",
'21' => "I don't particularly enjoy reading fiction.",
'22' => "I find it hard to make new friends.",
'23' => "I notice patterns in things all the time.",
'24' => "I would rather go to the theater than to a museum.",
'25' => "It does not upset me if my daily routine is disturbed.",
'26' => "I frequently find that I don't know how to keep a conversation going.",
'27' => "I find it easy to 'read between the lines' when someone is talking to me.",
'28' => "I usually concentrate more on the whole picture, rather than on the small details.",
'29' => "I am not very good at remembering phone numbers.",
'30' => "I don't usually notice small changes in a situation or a person's appearance.",
'31' => "I know how to tell if someone listening to me is getting bored.",
'32' => "I find it easy to do more than one thing at once.",
'33' => "When I talk on the phone, I'm not sure when it's my turn to speak.",
'34' => "I enjoy doing things spontaneously.",
'35' => "I am often the last to understand the point of a joke.",
'36' => "I find it easy to work out what someone is thinking or feeling just by looking at their face.",
'37' => "If there is an interruption, I can switch back to what I was doing very quickly.",
'38' => "I am good at social chitchat.",
'39' => "People often tell me that I keep going on and on about the same thing.",
'40' => "When I was young, I used to enjoy playing games involving pretending with other children.",
'41' => "I like to collect information about categories of things (e.g., types of cars, birds, trains, plants).",
'42' => "I find it difficult to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.",
'43' => "I like to carefully plan any activities I participate in.",
'44' => "I enjoy social occasions.",
'45' => "I find it difficult to work out people's intentions.",
'46' => "New situations make me anxious.",
'47' => "I enjoy meeting new people.",
'48' => "I am a good diplomat.",
'49' => "I am not very good at remembering people's date of birth.",
'50' => "I find it very easy to play games with children that involve pretending.",
);

my $q = new CGI;

if ($q->param("make") eq "yes")
{
   my ($n,$q);
   foreach $n (sort {$a <=> $b} keys %qs)
   {
      $q = $qs{$n};
      print <<EOQ;
<tr>
<td>
$n
</td>
<td>
$q
</td>
<td>
<input>
</td>
<td>
<input>
</td>
<td>
<input>
</td>
<td>
<input>
</td>
</tr>
EOQ
   }
}

my %scores = (
'1' => 0,
'2' => 1,
'3' => 0,
'4' => 1,
'5' => 1,
'6' => 1,
'7' => 1,
'8' => 0,
'9' => 1,
'10' => 0,
'11' => 0,
'12' => 1,
'13' => 1,
'14' => 0,
'15' => 0,
'16' => 1,
'17' => 0,
'18' => 1,
'19' => 1,
'20' => 1,
'21' => 1,
'22' => 1,
'23' => 1,
'24' => 0,
'25' => 0,
'26' => 1,
'27' => 0,
'28' => 0,
'29' => 0,
'30' => 0,
'31' => 0,
'32' => 0,
'33' => 1,
'34' => 0,
'35' => 1,
'36' => 0,
'37' => 0,
'38' => 0,
'39' => 1,
'40' => 0,
'41' => 1,
'42' => 1,
'43' => 1,
'44' => 0,
'45' => 1,
'46' => 1,
'47' => 0,
'48' => 0,
'49' => 0,
'50' => 0,
);

if ($q->param('submit') eq "Calculate Score")
{

   my $n;
   my $score = 0;
   my @agrees;
   my @disagrees;
   foreach $n (sort {$a <b answer="answer_$n">param($answer) =~ /.a/ && $scores{$n} == 1)
      {
         push @agrees, $n;
         $score++;
      }
      elsif ($q->param($answer) =~ /.d/ && $scores{$n} == 0)
      {
         push @disagrees, $n;
         $score++;
      }
   }
   print "Agree: ".join(",",@agrees).": 1 point<br>\n";
   print "Disagree: ".join(",",@disagrees).": 1 point<br>\n";
   print "Score: $score<br><br>\n";
   print "<a>Return to test</a>\n";

I don't think I'd agree with the autism diagnosis even if my score came out that way....I don't like repetitive anything; that's boring.  I do well in social situations and can handle conversation with others easily (my job often involves doing this), and I have always done well in English classes (although I can't spell and don't always use proper grammar on the forum)


edit:  I think I got a 24.   I just now saw that the bottom of the page tells how to score the test.

[rlrose328]

Lae, just count up the 1s in the bottom part... I think I counted 24 for you.  I scored 16, though I think that's kinda low.  I hate those types of things...

[tonisz]

Yeah, that scrips is not working so you have to get the result by counting...
Anyway, I think the question is how moch of a "condition" autism is and when it really begins to be a problem. There are many scientists that might be considered slighty autistic, but that doesn't maen that they're wrong...
And, on the other side of the coin, how theism is related to paranoid delirium may be a much more interesting field for research

[Whitney]

I bet that with a large sampling the findings would show that there is little to no correlation between atheism and autism....they only used 232 people for their "findings".  If we ran this again the numbers for each group could change a lot.

[Amor Fati]

Firstly, if I'm reading it right, the author does indicate his/her religion:

"Of course, this entire hypothesis may be nothing more than silly speculation. But if its not, if there is a kernel of truth, then it might mean we Christians need to rethink how we approach our atheist neighbors. Are we willing to be that open about other people's minds?"

Secondly, the working idea here is that autistic individuals have an inhibited (or non-existent) brain module that functions to detect other beings with minds.  Perfectly respectable idea.  All of us normal human beings have no problem recognizing which other things that also have a mental life.  However, he goes on to speculate that since atheists deny the existence of the Ulitmate Mind, there should also be a neurological explanation.  And, that explanation involves the same malfunctioning brain module involved in autism.
Now this is either so trivially true as to be meaningless, or so rediculously question begging (circular) that....well you get it.

Obviously, it could be that atheists share a malfunctioning module.  However, inorder for there to be a malfunction, there would have to be an object (Ultimate Mind) that it fails to detect.   No UM, no problems.
The inverse hypothesis, that theists have what Dennett calls a hyper-active agent detection module, could also easily explain the very same data.  So atheists and autistics are on the other end of the scale, so much the worse for everyone else!

Additionally, the article, or "article", mentions something like a "higher functioning autism"  which boils down to someone who is otherwise perfectly normal, but has a little problem relating to other people's mental and emotional states.  This gets into a disputed area of psychology, but, once again, the very notion of disorder assumes with it the notion of "proper" ordering.  Even if, say, an atheist were to share the neuroligcal underpinnings with a higher functioning autistic, is really correct to call that a disorder if both are more or less functioning practically normal (in the sense of navigating one's social world without difficulites, for the most part).  I usually think not.

[SteveS]

Interesting discussion, thanks guys.  I have never been diagnosed to have autism myself.  I'm not convinced that either being an atheist or being a theist is related to a disordered brain function one way or another, but I lack the psychology/brain science background to effectively argue this.

Now this is either so trivially true as to be meaningless, or so rediculously question begging (circular) that....well you get it.

Haha!  Well put - and yes, I do get it  :wink:

[tigerlily46514]

Interesting responses generated in the comment section under that article,(s)  too.....

I scored a 20, and i am a strong, lifelong, born again atheist......

[MommaSquid]

I scored at 24...so now what?  

I thought I was just a crotchety old fart, set in my ways, but this test is trying to tell me there's something wrong with me.  Please.   :roll:

[SteveS]

Well, when I saw that MommaSquid and laetusatheos scored 24s, I was willing to agree that there really might be something wrong with you all!

But, then I took the test and scored exactly 24 myself !!!  How could this be?!?!

So maybe there's really something wrong with me.
Maybe there's really something wrong with all of us.
Or - maybe there's something wrong with the test!  Yeah, that's the ticket....

By far the easiest question for me was "You would rather go to the library than a party" - uh, no, I'd far rather go to the party, duh.  Libraries don't serve beer :roll:

Now if only the party has some decent books.....
 :wink: