Interview With Simon Baron Cohen - Need Your Help

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I think this should be civil and not an attack or shouting match. The problem is that SBC and his theories/agenda are a big flash point for Autistics everywhere, and it's easy to get caught up in emotion (even for Autistics-lol). I'm really interested in understanding where he is coming from.

Has anyone on this site ever felt like someone was talking to you like you were an idiot, and you knew it was because they weren't getting the usual cues but they couldn't make the leap to dealing with someone different than them, and you got frustrated because you were communicating perfectly clearly but they refused to understand you, and they wanted you to believe it was your fault?

Simon Baron-Cohen is one of those people. He believes we're idiots and he wants the public to believe we're idiots. He isn't doing it deliberately, it's just run of the mill ignorance, but it protects his belief system and he won't let it go.

An honest interview with him would very politely, very reasonably, very respectfully tear him a new as*hole. TM, I challenge you to do a better interview than Kim Wombles where she exposes SBC's prejudice here: http://www.science20.com/countering_tac ... lity-79669

I would like you to ask him if him being unable to understand monkey calls (their instinctual 'language') means that he lacks empathy, taking into account empathy is supposed to be applicable to all sapient animals.

Tambourine Man, there was a fascinating editorial piece by SBC in The Guardian yesterday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... rs-breivik). Would you be willing to ask if there are any evolutionary advantages to lacking affective or cognitive empathy?

PS: Sorry, can't get the link to work despite several attempts.

I think a better term in describing the Autistic's response to social situations would be: " a lack of proper emotional affect" or "a different type of emotional affect" as compared to neuro-typicals. Somewhere down the line, research went from a general recognition that those on the spectrum showed a difference in 'emotional affect' than neuro-typicals to specifically citing 'lack of empathy' as the defining emotional characteristic of Autism. Too often, lack of empathy has become a catch all phrase to justify the science behind the autistics mindset without recognition of his or hers humanity. I ask for more sensitivity without compromising science in researching and describing those who maybe different than US. One would never see a headline stating: Lack of Empathy in Neuro-Typical Children Ravage Educational System. The research is there and can be easily quantified BUT i believe the term used to describe this behavior is: Bullying.

TheSunAlsoRises

Thanks, Cornflake! I will keep that in mind for the next time I post a link.

Try to envision it, this way. Every developmental milestone is a piece of a puzzle, slowly and methodically, crafting the physiological and psychological identity of the individual. The puzzle is to be completed within a specific range of time; every piece in it's proper position and serving a particular function. IF a piece(s) of the puzzle is missing or altered by outside force(s), we attempt to 'see the whole picture' by using the pieces that we have to work with.

To me, 'Lack of Theory of Mind' or 'Delay in Theory of Mind' or Objectified Theory of Mind' (which are different than Lack Theory of Mind ) are simply a result of the social impairments found in developing Autistic children which tend to follow to different degrees into adulthood.


Let's look at this for a moment. A lack of pretend play, lack of imitation, lack of joint attention, lack of eye contact. lack of social engagement and reciprocity, etc could be looked upon as fundamental criteria found in the disruption of ToM. In other words, it's simply a conglomeration of the social impairments found in the developing Autistic. Now, having said that, why must we make a leap from lack of ToM to "lacking Empathy" ? A child running up and down the hall, flapping his hands back and forth, and covering his ears because of unbearable noise levels has more to worry about than trying to figure out the mind state of another person in relation to his own. He or She might quite possibly be indifferent to your concerns or experiencing external empathy vs, internal empathy or none of the above. And, the 'high functioning Autistic child' directed to participate in a game which test ToM will probably possess any number of the fundamental areas of social impairments i listed above. See previous paragraphs for explanation.

When dealing with ToM in reference to Autistics; you have to think in terms of TIME and SPACE : )

The only way research is gonna change is for some of u bright and capable folks to pursue this area of interest, passionately. I know any of you can do IT.

TheSunAlsoRises

If someone believes you're good at puzzles but you have no self-awareness, they'll talk to you like you're an idiot. Everything SBC states and his entire attitude says he believes autistics are good-natured robots. A lot of his writing isn't in peer reviewed journals, and for good reason.

I have more "cognitive empathy" than every psychopath I've met, because my special interest is people. SBC confuses most autistics' lack of interest in people with a lack of ability. Maybe you like to be patronised?

Okay, well I have an abundance of whatever kind of "empathy" means you know exactly the effect people are having on each other, the levels they're each working on, the degrees of misunderstanding between them, how emotionally involved they all are, and I can say that Simon Baron-Cohen talks to autistics the way someone would talk to their senile grandmother. Maybe you have a different kind of empathy that means you can't see that, or maybe you learned when you were a child to take that kind of treatment. If you can't see it, he does helpfully tell you that YOU HAVE NO SELF-AWARENESS. Those are his words and that's the point of view he's advancing through the media.