Expressing Doubts: First Scientific Refutal Of Asperger's

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My motivation for my response was that this was the third thread I had seen over a one-day period in which people were promoting pseudoscientific explanations to discredit existing diagnoses (one of the other two was Tyri0n's thread about ADHD, and the third was removed from the forum).

Between this forum and another I frequent focused on ADHD, I find dealing with what amounts to people playing games of "I wish" and asserting them as facts to be rather tiring. It is true that I could ignore the thread and move on, but I was also in a bit of a bad mood at the time. Not an excuse, though.

The accepted definitions:
Sympathy = a feeling and concern
Empathy = the capacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by another sentient or fictional being

I realized it'd hurt my therapist's feelings but I didn't care. I lacked sympathy, not empathy. If you're rejecting dictionary definitions then you're either in denial or confused.

I like the dictionary too. Here's a few good ones:

Scientific-of or pertaining to science or the sciences.

Science- systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

Denial- disbelief in the existance or reality of a thing.

From the Merriam webster dictionary:

Definition of EMPATHY
1
: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
2
: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

To act in a way that hurts someones feelings is not 'being sensitive to' their feelings so could indeed be classed as a lack of empathy. You can cherry pick dictionary passages all you like, but the fact is that what you did was very wrong and you didn't care. Trying to obfuscate the issue by saying that sympathy and empathy are two different things is just spin. Any sensible person knows that sympathy and empathy are so intertwined that they are effectively opposite sides of the same coin.

So no I'm not confused, and accusing me of denial simply makes no logical sense at all - denial of what exactly?

Not an excuse for what? You don't have to debate every troll and attention seeker that passes through WP.

Wow, you seem to have fluffed a few feathers with your post, a good debate well delivered.

I don’t believe aspergers or autism has anything to do with genetics, there isn’t any proof, there never will be, the same as human behaviour has nothing to do with genetics.

Genes may write the show, but it’s the mind that sets the stage, without a stage there is no show.

We don’t have a clue to how the mind works or what the mind is, to say life is simply because of a bunch of neurons firing in our head is a bit premature.

Personally, I believe the affects of autism are caused when our mind becomes out of balance with reality, it affects how we express ourselves, we experience an ability to be.

Until we understand the mind and how it works, everything the so called experts have told us about autism for the last hundred years is crap.

Teach us how the mind works if you can.

Well there is a flaw here, AS and homosexuality are not exactly comparable. Homosexuality does not interfere with ones ability to function, it just makes them sexually attracted to the same gender. AS on the other hand can cause impairments like slower processing of information, sensory issues, trouble communicating effectively, problems with socializing all of which can interfere with functioning even in a supportive environment.

Most troubles homosexuals face come from society, and any bad treatment they may get from people for being homosexual, its not as though they have trouble functioning because of homosexuality. So no I do not think the fact homosexuality is not a disorder indicates autism isn't either.

It's not an illness its a neurological condition, also as with most mental/neurological disorders there isn't a single 'cause' there are various factors that come together to cause it...its possible they aren't even always the same factors. Mental illnesses/conditions ect. aren't determined by cause but rather symptoms and how they effect that person.

Also while autism is not exactly a mental illness, people with it can have mental illness...not sure how being non-religious would make one immune to mental illness. I am not religious and I struggle with mental illness.

Also as for the brain MRI, everyones brain is different to begin with...and most conditions like autism there isn't a clear cut visable 'cause' you can see in the brain......perhaps you should educate yourself on some of this before you go claiming autism doesn't exist without providing any actual evidence to support your claim.

Umm no, actually there is no evidence suggesting HFA is a random mutation or that severe autism is mild retardation, mental retardation and autism are two different things. One with autism might come off as 'slow' and immature but they don't actually have mental retardation...its possible to have both conditions but it doesn't make them the same thing.

For responding.

lmaorofl You're one to talk about someone needing proof. Why don't you go find some proof of your own and then I'll think about taking your request seriously.



Again, lmaorofl. No that's not what I said at all, and your response is based in far more ignorance than I could expect, quite honestly.

Here's the way science works, there is commonality, that commonality is tested using the scientific method, scientists retest it, and then establish fact as to the cause using the same method. This method is tried and true, and continues to be the method of proof in science today because it works. Science can't explain everything, but that doesn't mean established fact is false. Your argument is that autism is a personality trait when it's been proven otherwise by real science, something that, had you done any real research, you would've known before even making your first post, yet you expect people who know this subject matter more than you to believe your ridiculous assumptions and speculations simply because you think it's correct. You might want to recheck who has that logical fallacy and get in touch with reality here.

If you want to be taken seriously here, you need to start talking in the realm of real science, instead of using half-bit and completely fictional resources to prove your theory which isn't even 1/100th of real fact.

You need to take a look at your poll numbers again: (at last count) there are 69 people who know the facts behind autism/AS and disagree completely with your assumptions, if that doesn't tell you something, then nothing will.

Last edited by Jaden on 28 Jun 2013, 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There is considerable evidence that autism has a genetic component. It runs in families, even when children are separated from their parents. Identical twins (who are genetically identical to each other) are more likely to both have autism or both be NT than non-identical twins.

Whilst I agree that behaviour is largely environmental, there is certainly a genetic element. You'll never be able to get a wolf to understand Einstein's theory of relativity. Downs Syndrome is a genetic disorder and has a massive impact on behaviour.

And what, may I ask, do you think is behind the mind, besides the brain, which is shaped by genetics and experience?

But imagine an analogy - suppose that some researchers "identify" a disease characterized by problems in vision and also in the articulations of the bones; how we can know that these new "disease" exists and is not only the co-ocurrence (by statistical chance), in the same people, of myopia and arthritis?

I imagine two possible ways:

a) discover a possible mechanism (for example, a bacteria, or a gene mutation) that causes simultaneously problems in vision and in the articulations

or

b) by a statistical analysis, discover that the prevalence in the population of the combination of problems in vision and in the articulations is significantly higher than what should be expected by statistical chance (for example, if 15% of the population have problems in vision and 10% problems in the articulations, and if a combination "problems in vision + problems in articulations" have a prevalence much higher than 1,5%, these indicate that the problems in vision and in the articulations are not independent of each other, and that we have a specific condition instead of the co-ocurrence, by chance, of two distinct conditions in the same person).

Now, transpose these points to autism - there is any evidence that the combination of social impairments, communication impairments and of repetitive behavioirs in autism is a specific condition, instead of simply the co-occurence, by chance, of 2 or 3 independent conditions in the same person?

For example, I imagine that the combination {[Schizoid PD OR Avoidant PD] AND [Obsessive-Compulsive PD]} could be very similar to AS.

Part of the problem I'm seeing here is that some people are basing their arguments almost entirely on behavioural criteria.

What they don't seem to be taking into account are the other aspects of Autism, such as:

Synasthesia (seeing sound, hearing colour or tasting what you see and other unusual combinations of sensory crossover).

Over sensitivity to light, sound, movement and other stimuli.

Cognitive delay (i.e. the delay between someone speaking and being able to register what was said)

Constant itching and discomfort from clothing because our brains don't have the ability to filter out those sensations.

These are all symptoms very common in Autism/Aspergers sufferers. Personality traits don't even come close to explaining these symptoms. Even the AQ test that many people use to 'self diagnose' doesn't cover these important aspects of Aspergers.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that I have all of these sensory issues myself, and so does my Autistic son (so don't tell me Autism isn't genetic).

A lot of what I know comes from discussions with experts in the field - real scientists who have spent years researching the condition. They all tell me that Autism is a very real and very definable condition, and that the sensory issues are just as relevant to diagnosis as the behavioural ones.

And I'm still waiting for anyone to present the so called science behind this badly thought out scientific rebuttal!

Agreed, I couldn't have said it better myself.