28% of murderers thought to have suffered from ASD

Post Reply New Topic

It was so much better when we were all just supposedly a bunch of nerds, even that's one thing I was never accused of being since nerds are supposed to be smart.

I took that empathy test last night. I scored a 24 out of 80, which means I must be pretty heartless even though I've never cut up live worms just to see what they would do. In fact I once tried to save some worms drowning in a puddle, but then a car backed out of the driveway and ran them over.

So less than half of murderers have suffered from autism....and does this also potentially include individuals who more acted in self defense or no? Either way it certainly is not any evidence of people with autism being more likely to murder anyone...in fact more the contrary.

I read about his childhood and it sure sounded like he could be autistic. However, he was clearly mentally ill. Why the media portrays the ASD and not the insanity is another issue. Sadly, they take the easy road...

maybe people with asperger's are just more likely to be caught. . .

. . . or, once 'caught', easily convicted, whether or not he or she has actually committed a crime.

After all, many people seem to believe that if the accused displays social anxiety and lack of eye contact during court proceedings (not to mention police interrogations) that he or she simply must be guilty!

This is one of the reasons why I haven't "come out" as having an ASD - I used to get rounded up with he "usual suspects" as a teenager because I "acted suspiciously" all of the time. Imagine being questioned every time there was a burglary, or an act of vandalism or arson somewhere in town.

My issue with the common reaction of people on the forum to this sort of thing is that everyone just outright denies this, instead of considering it a possibility, because they fear defamation and discrimination on the basis of it. A truly scientific mind would use it as a starting point to find solutions, such as prevention or wider availability of help. However people would rather just sink into ignorance and bigotry.

I don't think that's why many here don't want to consider it. I think we don't like the idea is more because of all the ignorance out there that simply makes undifferentiated assumptions...

I disagree. A truly scientific mind would actually be skeptical of this instead of accepting it as fact. A scientific mind would not use it as a starting point to find solutions because it hasn't been verified yet.

With all due respect, are these "scientific minds" of which you speak in the majority of the general population?

I never said it was a fact. And even a scientific mind could decline to consider it as so many unscientific minds often tend to be rather narrow and bigoted...

While a scientific mind may be skeptical of it, a scientific mind considers the possibilities and research is done to see if there is actually a link or not. Statistically there is an indication, scientifically it must be examined before it is acknowledged or declined.

I'm sure someone's already posted this, but turn it around and you've got "72% of murderers thought to have not suffered from ASD.".

Go team!

But even that is too low.

The data doesn't support or even "hint at" the conclusions drawn.

A scientist is not going to advocate doing a study to categorize theropod populations currently living in the Australian outback or a study to categorize the hull designs of UFOs observed over Siberia compared to those observed over Brazil, because there is no reason to think such studies would be possible to complete or yield useful or interesting results.

In the meantime, people should refrain from proclaiming a connection that simply has not been shown. Are some autistic people violent criminals? Yes, such evidence as actually exists seems to show that the rate of such behavior among autistics is LOWER than in neurotypical populations, not higher.

If evidence emerges that shows some connection, then that is something worth exploring carefully, but in the meantime it is damaging and foolish to smear a very heterogenous population of autistic people, who exhibit extreme variations in cognitive and behavioral styles with charges that they all have some increased propensity for extreme violence, or spree killing, or serial killing or any such thing.

I would wait to see if and when this study gets reproduced. It's best not to draw big conclusions from a single study, but rather to see the trends in the literature.

Please present mentioned evidence.