Aspies For Freedom

Should these lists be put in a section where those robotty, Googly thingies can find them and list them for search engines?  Is this the right section for this stuff? I don't know.

People either diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition or subject of published speculation about whether they are on the autistic spectrum who have won Nobel Prizes or other very prestigious academic prizes or have been awarded national honours


Dan (Daniel) Aykroyd (C.M.) (b. 1952, diagnosed with Asperger and Tourette syndromes. Musician, film actor, comedian and screenwriter. One of the famous Blues Brothers. A Member of the Order of Canada, investiture 1999)

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, winner of Nobel Prize in literature in 1969, playwright, poet, novelist, left-handed cricket player)

Richard Borcherds (b. 1959, diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, winner of Fields Medal 1998, professor of mathematics)

Paul Dirac (1902-1984, winner of Nobel Prize in physics in 1933)

Albert Einstein (1879–1955, winner of Nobel Prize in physics in 1921)

Paul Erdos (1913-1996, winner of Wolf Prize in mathematics 1983/4)

Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, polyglot, and child prodigy)

Keith Joseph (CH, PC) (1918-1994, British conservative politician)

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726, physicist, genius)

Enoch Powell (MBE) (1912-1998, real name John Enoch Powell, controversial right-wing British politician)

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970, philosopher, winner of Nobel Prize in literature in 1950)

William Shockley (1910-1989, winner of Nobel Prize in physics in 1956, co-inventor of the transistor, Silicon Valley pioneer, professor, advocate of eugenics, sperm donor with the Repository For Germinal Choice)

Vernon L. Smith (b.1927, diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, winner of Nobel Prize in economics in 2002)

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939, winner of Nobel Prize in literature in 1923, poet, dramatist)



References


Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003) The essential difference. Penguin Books. [Richard Borcherds, Paul Dirac, Einstein, Newton, William Shockley, Michael Ventris]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) The genesis of artistic creativity: Asperger’s syndrome and the arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. [Gaudi, Hopper, Quine, Wittgenstein, Maxwell, Swift, H. Christian Andersen, Melville, Carroll, W. B. Yeats, Conan Doyle, Orwell, Chatwin, Spinoza, Kant, Weil, A. J. Ayer, Mozart, Beethoven, Satie, Bartok, Gould, van Gogh, J. B. Yeats, L.S. Lowry, Warhol]

Fitzgerald, Michael (2004) Autism and Creativity; Is There a Link between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability? Brunner-Routledge. [Wittgenstein, Sir Keith Joseph, Eamon de Valera, W. B. Yeats, Lewis Carroll, Ramanujan, Socrates]

Fitzgerald, Michael (1999) "Did "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers", Paul Erdos, Have Asperger Syndrome?" Nordic Journal of Psychiatry. 53.6 (1999): 465-466.

Gross, Terri. Radio interview of Dan Aykroyd on NPR.
NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...Id=4181931

Herera, Sue (2005) Mild autism has “selective advantages”: Asperger syndrome can improve concentration. MSNBC.com.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7030731/ [Vernon L. Smith]

James, Ioan (2005) Asperger syndrome and high achievement: some very remarkable people. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. [Michelangelo, Philip of Spain, Newton, Swift, John Howard, Cavendish, Jefferson, van Gogh, Satie, Russell, Einstein, Bartók, Ramanujan, Wittgenstein, Kinsey, Weil, Turing, Highsmith, Warhol, Glenn Gould]

James, Ioan (2004) Remarkable physicists: from Galileo to Yukawa. Cambridge University Press. [Newton, Cavendish, Einstein, Dirac]

Lyons, Viktoria and Fitzgerald, Michael (2005) Asperger Syndrome - A Gift or a Curse? Nova Science Publishers Inc. [Kinsey, Kubrick, Patricia Highsmith, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, Robert Walser, Joy Adamson, Enoch Powell, William James Sidis, Kurt Goedel]

Plotz, David (2005) The genius factory: unravelling the mysteries of the Nobel Prize sperm bank. Simon & Schuster UK. 2005.

Walker, Antionette and Fitzgerald, Michael (2006) Unstoppable brilliance: Irish geniuses and Asperger’s syndrome. Liberties Press. [Robert Emmet, Pádraig Pearse, Éamon de Valera, Robert Boyle, William Rowan Hamilton, Daisy Bates, WB Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett]


Details of some authors and sources of references

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen
Co-director of the Autism Research Centre
Cambridge University

Professor Michael Fitzgerald
Henry Marsh Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Trinity College, Dublin

Professor Ioan James
Savilian Professor of Geometry
Oxford University

MSNBC.com
A popular online news service half owned by Microsoft and half owned by NBC Universal.

Published elsewhere.

I noticed that there were no females at all in the first list, and only 5 out of 69 (7%) in the longer list were female. Is being born female more of a handicap preventing high achievement in society than being born an aspie, or is it just the case that female aspies do not have as much potential for high achievement, or are just less numerous? I think it's just the effect of sexism.

It looks like a lot of interesting debate has happened while I've been doing the "houswife and mother" thing thru the day.

Theosoph wrote

I think sometimes it's more important to get some respect than to aim for popularity. Will mass popularity ever be a realistic goal for autistics as a group? I have doubts. I also think there are times when building "self-esteem" within one's own group is more important than promoting one's status with other groups in the wider community. (I hate that that pop psychology word "self-esteem", but I couldn't think of a more applicable word.)

Maybe I need to explain explicitly what the two lists in this thread are and are meant to mean. Firstly, both lists are fully based on what other people have either written or said. They are not my own personal opinions about who may or may not be an aspie. In another thread I have a list that is more influenced by my own opinions. The lists here are either based upon self-diagnosis reported in the media, or self-reports of diagnosis reported in the media, or are based on books written and published by book publishers thought to have some reputation, and most of these books are written by authors who are generally recognized as being appropriately qualified to diagnose autism and autistic spectrum conditions. Therefore, no one can say that these lists are concoctions of autistic rights extremists created to paint a false picture of autism/AS as more valuable or less pathological than it really is. While I did choose the media products that I drew the lists from, (I don't recall deliberately ignoring any reasonably credible sources) I did not choose which names I drew from the books, with one exception. I did leave out one famous person identified in one of the books who was given an unconventional and unrecognized autistic diagnosis, because the diagnostic category itself was most contentious and the person was someone who I personally wouldn't be proud to be associated with. I was indeed disappointed to find few females and I don't think any non-caucasians in the lists, but there were a few gays and bisexual males (and how would you be being gay as well as aspie? - must be a challenging life).

The shorter list can be seen as an elite sample drawn from the larger list. I just thought such a list could be more readable by virtue of being briefer (who has time to read much these days?) and the elite level of the awards and honours given to the people on that list are so dazzling that I think it should give pause for thought to any NT twit who thinks that aspie kids can never amount to much because of their autism. I actually had one particular NT twit in mind when I started those lists. There's nothing like a grudge for motivation! :lol:

I think it's a good thing to be able to look at a list of people who were most likely autistic to some degree, but who were almost certainly never given any "therapy" or "early intervention" with the aim of curing or minimizing their autism, who still accomplished great fame and achievment on their merits alone. No one can say of the people in these lists "He couldn't have achieved so much without his meds." or "He couldn't have achieved so much without the ABA early intervention." or "She's really only famous because she makes a big deal of her autism." or "He couldn't have got that award on a level playing field."

With regard to the accusations that I am an autistic supremacist (and haven't I already dealt with this stuff before?) I'm happy to admit that I think that autistics in general, all things being equal, have an edge over NTs with regard to originality and systemizing ability. I also have a strong suspicion that autism is somehow linked to general intellectual giftedness, based on much anecdotal evidence, personal experience, one small study's findings, and a scientific theory about anomalous cerebral dominance which links the two characteristics. I'm also happy to admit that NTs have the edge with regard to social stuff and activities requiring teamwork, including sport and many workplace situations. How fair is that?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the rather unimaginative choice of font for the document. Only joking. :wink:

I hope you don't think I'm being too pedantic, but in those particular lists I listed people who have some form of published mass media text (such as a book, Wikipedia entry or internet news service article) or published mass media broadcast (such as a radio show recording or transcript) that is supposed to contain either speculation about whether someone is on the spectrum or the person themself claiming to be diagnosed or autistic. Can any such mass media reference be cited about George Washington Carver?

Oh dear, I've just realized that I didn't cite any reference for one of the names on that list. :oops:

Here is a reference for Gary Numan which I should have included in the references of the second list:

If anyone can spot similar errors or omissions with these lists, please let me know.

I do a Google on the term "famous aspies" and what do I see at number 3?  :smile:  That didn't take long!

Maybe I'm seeing a different Australian version of Google.

I have recently read “The genius factory: unravelling the mysteries of the Nobel Prize sperm bank” by David Plotz. From the first time that I heard of this book I was wondering if this sperm bank had inadvertently included any autistics as sperm donors, as quite a few Nobelists have been identified as aspies to date by autism experts such as Michael Fitzgerald and Baron-Cohen. I also wondered if any of the offspring produced by this sperm bank were autistic. Amazingly the book’s author showed no evidence of being interested in these possibilities. If you intend to read this book and don’t want me to ruin it for you by revealing lots of information from the book, STOP READING NOW.

The only publicly identified sperm donor for this bank, science Nobel prize winner William Shockley, has been identified by Baron-Cohen in one of his books as an aspie. There is almost a whole chapter in Plotz's book about Mr Shockley the shocker, and I found it most amusing, because the author Plotz can be genuinely funny, and Mr Shockley reminds me of some people who I know well. This is, as you’d expect, an unsympathetic portrait of Shockley, but I think that’s almost fair enough as he was obviously an unsympathetic type of bloke when we was alive. You know you’ve got a popularity problem when university students set fire to your effigy. Was there something a bit super-human about Mr Shockley? I think he looks younger than his real age in photos, and according to this book, he was still dangerously fertile at the advanced age at which he donated sperm to the bank. Sadly, according to the records, Mr Shockley’s donations did not result in any little shocker offspring. The sperm bank was known to have kept sloppy records, though, so you never know.

Were any other of the donors aspies? No one can know for sure as the others were anonymous. I’ve got to wonder about the former child prodigies that they recruited as donors who had crappy jobs. Why did they have crappy jobs if they were so smart? A computer scientist donor produced a sperm bank son who was a prodigy but was also an introvert with modest ambitions who had trouble making friends. The book gave detailed accounts of some of the repeat donors of the bank, and I have suspicions that some of them, including Michael the Nobelist’s son, and Donor White, a sweet, sincere man with relatives with maths savant skills who had an outstanding career in chemistry, could have both been aspies. Science Nobelist James Watson was considered to be asked as a possible donor for the bank, and I believe that Mr Watson has an autistic son. According to the book none of the Nobelist donors produced offspring. A man who has once the main donor recruiter for the bank, who left to run his own sperm bank, was reported in the book to have made an initial enquiry with the aim of recruiting Bill Gates (probable aspie) as a sperm donor. I think that would be a great idea, but maybe some people wouldn’t.

Did the Repository for Germinal Choice (the official name of the sperm bank) produce any autistic children? Yes, the author unearthed information about 30 kids out of a total of 215 kids produced by the Nobel Prize sperm bank, and one of them was a boy diagnosed as autistic. A rate of 1 in 30 is a very high rate of autism in a population, compared to the 1 in 160 figure that I have read about as the standard autistic spectrum condition rate.

I wonder if the rather eccentric and brilliant man who’s idea the sperm bank was might have been an aspie? Apparently he was a charmer, which goes against the aspie stereotype, but it must have been an odd, genteel kind of charm. Robert Klark Graham seemed to fit into the category of those with high systemizing skills but difficulties in the empathizing side of life. Some of his close relationships appear to have been disastrous. He married three times, and his second wife died from an overdose. One of his sons apparently committed suicide, another became estranged, and another son did not fully recover from what was apparently a head injury. Apparently there was a child born out of wedlock as well.

Graham made his fortune from technological innovation, a kind of achievement that some aspies find great success in. A major factor in this success was Graham’s persistence; he kept working towards his technical goal despite failures along the way. The idea for the elitist sperm bank was also an example of Graham’s obsessive long-term devotion to a goal. Since he was a child he had been fascinated with eugenics ideas, and he ran the sperm bank as a loss-making enterprise. At one time Graham thought seriously about the idea of creating a utopian new country on an island, where only the right kind of people were welcome. Some aspies have similar dreams of living in a closed or isolated community in which the types of people who they don’t like are excluded. Graham had a disdain of ordinary people and sporty types. He didn’t think humanity came up to scratch, and that’s why he wanted to improve it. Graham was not afraid to publicise and act on socially objectionable or eccentric ideas, such as his sperm bank and the island idea. Graham had a huge admiration for some other men who he thought were superior, but despite his own intelligence, business success and work ethic, he did not appear to regard himself as their equal, for some unknown reason. Graham had a “mania for formality” a large head, a straight back and a poor singing voice despite his determined efforts to make a career as a singer.

Graham and his ideas were compatible with those of others who have been identified as aspies, or could have been. Hermann Muller, a brilliant and “melancholic” science Nobelist who’s eugenics utopian book gave Graham inspiration for the sperm bank, valued the same type of people that Graham valued; people like Edison (possible aspie), Newton (aspie), Beethoven (aspie), Pasteur, Leonardo etc, while he expressed a disdain for people who fit the neurotypical stereotype, who are good at sport, romance and organized crime; “Billy Sundays, Valentinos, Jack Dempseys, Babe Ruths and even Al Capones”. Graham and Muller thought that these types of men were having too big an influence on the gene pool, and they wanted to tip the balance back to favour more earnest, technical and intellectual types of people. Graham had a friendly correspondence with William Shockley (aspie), and their ideas had a lot in common. Graham’s ideas about breeding were compared in this book with Kinsey’s cold and rational ideas about sex, and Alfred Kinsey was thought to have been an aspie. Psychologist Raymond Cattell was on the advisory board of the sperm bank, and I have a strong suspicion that Cattell was an aspie.

In the end neurotypical values took over, as they always do, and Graham’s dream became very diluted long before his sperm bank eventually closed. The would-be mothers who browsed the sperm bank’s catalogue to choose donors tended to select ones with charming personalities and looks rather than choosing for intelligence alone, and an elite sportsman found his way onto the books. One female manager of the bank recommended a donor who she personally knew and found charming. This prolific donor turned out to be some kind of sociopath, a lying charmer who had abandoned wives and children all over the place. You know what they say; scum always rises to the top.

DW_a_mom wrote

I'm one of the many aspies who have a degree and have no hope of having anything resembling a career, despite years of giving the career caper my best efforts. Whenever I get a job in some government department or company my health starts to fail due to the inescapable stress of having to interact with people for hours in a day, and usually I end up being excluded or bullied by work colleagues or supervisors. I hate having to pretend being a neurotypical in job interviews, having to perform body language that I feel is ridiculous, trying to hide the fact that I'm not "outgoing" or "extroverted". And if you met me in the street I doubt that you'd think I was autistic at all, I regard myself as close to neurotypical. This is reality.

Vespers wrote

I think if someone has an autistic close blood relative that's a pretty good reason to suspect that someone who has a lot of autistic eccentricities is the real thing themselves. If these facts about Strom are all correct I'd be happy to call this guy an aspie (but not happy to be associated with a neo-nazi nutbar).

I believe there may be an ugly minority in aspiedom, and their mindset is an extreme of male stereotype psychology. These people appear to be afraid of or angered by the existence of people who are different to themselves (racists, homophobes, religious sectarian hate merchants, mysogynists), possibly because they are afraid of anything that they know they don't fully understand, and social change makes them feel uneasy too, because anything new is something that they have not yet got their mind around. I think they have a feeling that things or people that they don't fully understand cannot be trusted. I think they are a very anxious bunch, with a lot of bitterness, due to bad life experiences. I think these people want more than anything else to control their lives and their environment, but find they are powerless due to economic disadvantage or lack of social climbing skills, causing huge frustration.

It seems likely that the original nazis had some aspies high up in their ranks, and William Shockley may also be a variation of this mindset, I'm not sure. I have always thought Australia's most famous neo-nazi, Jack van Tongeren, was of a type that I felt an odd familiarity with. He is thought to have post traumatic stress disorder due to being very jumpy and a Vietnam veteran. Jack has buggerall facial expression and very little variation in the tone of voice. I can't say I've noticed much body language either. I always thought when I saw him on TV "Why don't his lips move when he speaks? - he would make a great ventriloquist". There must have been some Jewish conspiracy to steal Jack's body language.

Has anyone else here seen the letter from "David" in this month's Asperger United in which the following are cited as "Aspie cousins"?
- Enid Blyton, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, JM Barrie, Patricia Highsmith, George Orwell, Gary Numan, Björk, Wendy Lawson and Donna Williams.

Lewis Caroll and Patricia Highsmith have already been mentioned in this thread; JM Barrie and George Orwell have been mentioned in similarly-named threads in "General".

What about Roald Dahl? I have my doubts about him as an Aspie. He may have been a bit of an outsider, but to me he seems more of a maverick (i.e. someone who knew society's rules, but chose to flout them) than a loner. FWIW, here are a couple of excerpts from the New York Times review of Jeremy Treglown's biography:

...

(copied and pasted from RoadDahlFans.com)

Further to my last posting ... another cut-and-paste from RoaldDahlFans.com:

What were his hobbies?

      His interests were wide and passionate, from racing greyhounds, to breeding homing budgies, medical inventions, orchids, onions, gambling, golf, wine, music, art, mushrooming and the history of chocolate. He was a collector, starting as a child with conkers and birds' eggs leading on to works of art, antiques and wine.

Someone has already cited Prince as a possible Aspie - I saw it when I was browsing the forums before typing my last-but-one post to see which of the so-called "Aspie cousins" had been mentioned. I can't for the life of me remember who previously said that Prince was Aspie. A search on "Prince" produced three pages of results. Good luck to you if you feel like going through them all.

Apart from Prince, there have been several musicians mentioned in this thread: Dan Ackroyd, Hildegard of Bingen, Thelonius Monk, Steve Clark of Def Leppard, Mozart, Beethoven, Satie, Bartok, Glenn Gould, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, David Byrne of Talking Heads and Kurt Cobain to name but most of them.

I once started a thread about the link between Asperger's and musical talent: "AS and classical musicians", lurking in the depths of the General forum if you feel like resurrecting it.

The letter-writer's name was Neil, not David. Beg his pardon.