Autism, Savants, Genius and the Male Brain

An interesting article from wired magazine:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/genius_pr.html

I particularly liked this diagnosis of famous geniuses at the end of the article:

GrEAtNess DiAgNosEd
Are certain forms of creativity enhanced by brain damage? Do the same genetic traits that produce disorders like savant syndrome, autism, and Tourette's contribute to genius? Hans Asperger, who in the early 1940s pioneered the study of autism, believed the answer was yes. "For success in science and art," he wrote, "a dash of autism is essential." The biographies of many innovative thinkers bear him out. - S.S.


Thelonious Monk
Jazz composer and improviser
Possible diagnosis: Tourette's syndrome
The high priest of bebop spoke in a medley of grunts and cosmic aphorisms and danced around his piano - and his ticcish syncopations blasted jazz out of the swing era.


Carl Friedrich Gauss
Mathematician and astronomer
Possible diagnosis: prodigious savant
Gauss taught himself to read at age 3; by 10 he was considered a math prodigy. His discoveries in number theory threw open the gates of post-Euclidian geometry.


Glenn Gould
Classical pianist
Possible diagnosis: Asperger's syndrome
Gould was a legendary control freak in the studio. But when he sat down at the piano, he channeled Bach. Like many savants, he had absolute pitch and a steel-trap memory.


Samuel Johnson
Writer and lexicographer
Possible diagnosis: Tourette's syndrome
Johnson, the author of the first English dictionary, was prone to ritualistic movements punctuated by outbursts of barnyard noises and fragments of the Lord's Prayer.


Andre-Marie Ampere
Physicist and mathematician
Possible diagnosis: prodigious savant
A pioneer in the study of electromagnetism, Ampere started calculating even before he could read numbers, working out complex formulas with stones and cookie crumbs.


Temple Grandin
Professor of animal science
Diagnosis: high-functioning autism
Grandin designs more efficient and humane livestock-handling facilities by taking a cow's-eye view, using an autistic mode of cognition that she calls "thinking in pictures."

Saddam Captured

Yes it's a good thing. Yes I hope it will lead to reduced violence and faster transition to full self government and the end of occupation. Yes Saddam is evil. He was evil when he was a convenient ally against Iran (Howard apparantly wasn't so concerned by him then). He was evil when he dropped chemical weapons on the Iranians (Howard wasn't so upset by him then). He was evil when Australia contracted important wheat sales with Iraq (Howard wasn't so worried by his evil acts then).

The way Howard and Downer ( & George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld) ) talk, you'd think the reason they gave us for attacking Iraq was to free the Iraqis. But that isn't the reason they gave. The lied to us about the immanent danger of WMDs. They argued about aluminium tubes. Chemical repositories. We were told that the world could not possibly wait another three months. Now we are told to be patient.

I still believe that the dominating motive was an opportunistic grab for power and show of strength in the aftermath of 9-11. If the result of all this is that Iraqis get freedom, then that will be cream on the cake, but it wasn't the motivating reason.

Certainly, now, we should do whatever is needed to ensure Iraqis get the freedom they deserve. But just like the long term result of decisions (about where borders would be, and what peoples would "exist") in the aftermath of WW1 led to the current problems in the Middle East, so too will the longer term result of US unilateralism be - already is - a world much less safe than it could have been.

History forgotten

The Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer, during comments on the capture of Saddam Hussein, off-handedly commented that Iraq "hadn't been a politically stable country since the 1920s" (not necessarily his exact words).

I don't dispute the fact of the matter, but has he not forgotten a key reason for instability in the region of the whole 20th century? That reason is the simple fact that the borders were drawn up in the aftermath of WW1, by the Western European powers, with their own(western) interests primarily in mind, not the interests of the inhabitants. The conflicts since have, in my view, been a result of trying to cope with these political decisons imposed on them.

These are not the only reasons of course - there is never a "simple" reason for anything involving the way nations interact with each other. I only want to point out to Downer that Western Europe, in particular the UK, USA, France, Germany, Russia and the USA have had a major part to play in the creation of the monsters they are now dealing with.