Question 10. Why should "normal" be equated wit

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All of you who have responded to my questions are obviously above average intelligence. I’ve read a little more on the web site and realize Asperger’s is regarded a continuum. Do most of you find the diagnosis helpful? I’ve never regarded myself as typical, but being average was never something to which I particularly aspired. Even someone who is perfectly average encounters problems in life. Are average problems easier to deal with, do you suppose? If anyone had ever tried to diagnosed me, or my older son the physicist, Asperger’s. I suspect I would have rebelled. Following is an excerpt from my book about my autistic son.

A Few Impertinent Questions about Autism, Freudianism and Materialism
Question 10. Why should "normal" be equated with average?

Until that time I hadn’t believed in séances, and neither Ike nor I believed in ghosts. Nevertheless ghost stories could leave me overcome with an irrational feeling of fear, and I could be reduced to a state of terror by scary movies. I hoped I wouldn't giggle as I sometimes did when nervous. We sat for a while, and Grandmother began to scold Grandfather affectionately,

"Now George, the children have come a long way to talk to you. You must come say a few words to them."

Finally the table rose up on two legs. "Is that you, George?" Grandmother asked.

The table came down with a thump, meaning “no“.

"Is that you, Mary?"

"No," the table again responded.

"Are you anyone we know?"

"No."

"It's nice of you to appear," Grandmother said, "but please go away and let us talk to one of our friends."

Finally the table again rose up on two legs and responded with two thumps when asked if we were in communication with Grandfather. Grandmother related news of the family and asked a few questions requiring yes or no answers, none of which seemed significant enough that I remember them. We asked Grandfather's opinion about our plans for the future, but he declined to answer. Finally Grandmother asked if Grandfather had a message.

Two thumps indicated yes. At last I was about to hear a message from this esteemed doctor who had become a legend in my husband's family. The table went up on two legs, and Grandmother began, "A, B, C--" The table came down. At the next repeat of the alphabet, it didn't come down until U. Finally the message was spelled out: "Cut the grass."

The thought of grandfather returning from the grave to scold grandmother for not cutting the grass was almost too much for me, but I managed not to laugh.

I saw no way to fit séances into my view of reality at that time and I pushed those episodes off into a remote compartment of my mind. If I occasionally told about them, I did so jokingly, not expecting to be believed. I'm sure a materialist would insist that our experience with table tipping was some kind of an illusion. I don't entirely discount that possibility. However table tipping was a common pastime early in the 20th Century. I’m more inclined to suspect a few people developed poltergeist ability, and learned to move tables by pure volition, in some way that we don’t presently understand.

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This is wrong. Average in clinical and research settings has a very specific meaning. Average is a specific value derived from a set of values. Normal is usually some middle range of values distributed across a wide range. Think of the Bell Curve. Normal is the middle section of the curve. Average is a specific value calculated from the the entire data set and usually falls near the peak of the Bell Curve. The formal terms are mean, median and mode.

Equating normal and average is a commonly used bastardization of the math. Politicians are great at this.

"Normal" is the average, in statistics and in semantics both. But that doesn't mean that we can't try to disconnect the word "normal" from words like "acceptable", "healthy", or "worthwhile".

If you think about it, of course, to call a person "normal", without qualifiers, would be illogical.

Statistically, the middle 68% of the population on any parameter is the "normal range". For IQ, for example, the normal range is 85 to 115; 68% of people who take an IQ test will fall between those values. But how many things about a person could you measure? From height to running speed to mathematical ability to reaction time to impulsivity... There are so many possibilities. How many people are normal along all those spectra?

Let's say that there are a hundred spectra along which humans can be measured, from the inconsequential to the preeminent. (There are probably more, but I'm being kind to my calculator here.) What are the chances that a human being exists who is in the normal range along all of those spectra?

Chances of a single person being average along one spectrum: 0.68.
Chances of a single person being average along all one hundred spectra: (0.68^100), or 1.78x10^-17.
Since all six billion people have that same chance, the chance of one or more people in all six billion being average along all one hundred possible spectra is (1.78x10^-17)*(6x10^9) = 1.069x10^-7.

That chance, for those who don't like scientific notation, is 1 in 9,353,000. Yes, a nine million to one chance that anyone in the world is what we could call "perfectly normal".

Okay, so let's make it harder: Let's say two standard deviations, or 95%, of any spectrum is the "norm". How does that affect the numbers? I won't write out the math, but it works out to a total of only 1 in every 169 people being "normal" on all of those 100 parameters. In other words, it's abnormal to be perfectly normal!

Aren't those about the same numbers they use for how many people has ASD's? Maybe that means that people with ASD's are the "normal" ones!

Exactly! It's really just a tally count.

There are many things which are perfectly normal (meaning they apply to most people) but that doesn't mean they are positives. Jealousy is normal. Fury is normal. "Normal" just means "this applies to most people" for whatever the measure is.