I will include this as well, but LFA's have many more problems functioning (e.g. comorbidity - there's a huge documented list) if you compare them with e.g. subclinical Aspergers.

Good example.
A diagnosis isn't necessarily lifelong, although it's called a "lifelasting development disorder."
So why/how does someone get a LFA diagnosis when he's younger and grows up (either with help or on his own) and functions well eventually?

This is a problem the biochemical (genetic) model has.

I think you completely misunderstand me here.
Ofcourse there's nothing wrong if it's a social construct. It means society puts a label on you.
People like Simon Baron Cohen already prefer using terms like 'autism condition' to 'autism disorder' and call it a 'different cognitive style'.

In terms of theories it IS possible that autism is both genetic ánd a social construct, but that's a huge amount of proof you need to back up that claim.

The view from behaviour and (dys)functioning makes more sense. But then again: What is normal? No one is really 'normal' in a statistical way, let alone whatever benchmark you use.
Normal daily activity ? Normal books to read ? Normal sports, hobby's ? Normal tv-shows to watch ? Normal music to listen to ? Normal friends ? I think you get the point.

"...simply quirky and odd, or lazy and/or disorganized and/or antisocial, but not disabled or having a disorder. " This isn't autism-unique, and we don't consider all behaviour having a genetic basis.

Thanks for the tip, I'll contact the admins.

1.
Using statistics and twin studies to prove a genetic base is an indirect method: Why not just point out the gene(s) directly?
So MZ would be around 60-90% (chance of having autism), but DZ only 10-30%. With these huge differences, it can hardly be genetic: Most of the research done here also contradicts.
Identical (monozygotic or MZ) twins and fraternal (dizygotic or DZ) twins. Possible problems of twin studies are: (1) errors in diagnosis of monozygocity, and (2) the assumption that social environment sharing by DZ twins is equivalent to that of MZ twins.

2.
The claimed genetic 'evidence' is always preliminary at best. This is the problem with all of these projects: The genetic heritibility of ASD accounting for a relatively small percentage of the study.

3.
The Israel and NY researchers talk about autism being a physical condition. But if that is the case, why are there no CAT/(f)MRI/genetic/blood tests etc. to make the diagnosis?
The DSM contains mental disorders. You don't have to go to a psychiatrist for a physical problem. Also, the 'abnormal chemistry ad biology in the brain' are asumed, but before you asume that, you need to prove it. What is normal chemistry and wht is normal biology?
If that's already measurable, why not do these tests instead of current questionaires?
"Autism, or pervasive developmental disorder, is a physical condition connected to abnormal chemistry and biology in the brain and affects the brain’s normal development of social and communication skills."

The research didn't research the % of chromosome 16 deletions in what we call neurotypicals. My guess is that would be about the same compared with people with autism.
So nothing is discovered/explained.

Measuring babies' or children's heads to diagnose autism comes very close (or is) to modern phrenology, a pseudoscience.
The prefrontal cortex-neurons theory has to tell why and how this is bad. If it is at all! Problem with that study also was the very small amount of researched children, so it's very doubtful at best.

It's not a problem. You have to understand how a person would change from low-functioning to mid- or high-functioning. People are able to learn new things, and teach themselves how to think in ways that their brains aren't set up for.

Just to further explain my point, I'm guessing your cognitive abilities have improved since you were three, as well.

The link between big(ger) head/brain to a mental disorder is a big step. The correlation bigger head-HFA-higher intelligence doesn't prove there is a mental disorder.

Women have a smaller brainsize than men on average... do they have mental disorders because of that? There is no standard for a 'normal healthy' brain size, although you could statistically show/argue what the average brainsize is: But this is descriptive, not normative.

Everyone agies, grows up and learns things: changing and improving cognitive abilities. So where and what is the genetic/biological uniqueness for autism (either LFA or HFA)?

My point is: a bigger head isn't or doesn't mean there is a mental disorder.

Phrenology
Phrenologists made dubious inferences between bumps in people's skulls and their personalities, claiming that the bumps were the determinant of personality.
The phrenologist would usually take measurements of the overall head size using a caliper. With this information, the phrenologist would assess the character and temperament of the patient and address each of the 27 "brain organs". This type of analysis was used to predict the kinds of relationships and behaviors to which the patient was prone. In its heyday during the 1820s-1840s, phrenology was often used to predict a child's future life, to assess prospective marriage partners and to provide background checks for job applicants.

Anthropometry
(Greek anthropos (άνθρωπος - "man") and metron (μέτρον - "measure") therefore "measurement of man") refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial and psychological traits. Craniometry is a section of anthropometry that exclusively studies craniums.

Physiognomy
Physiognomy (from the Gk. physis meaning 'nature' and gnomon meaning 'judge' or 'interpreter') is the assessment of a person's character or personality from his outer appearance, especially the face. The term physiognomy can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object or terrain, without reference to its implied characteristics.

If you want to start calling HFA a mental disorder you came to the wrong place.

Calling HFA a mental disorder is a social construct. But you already knew that.

Currently (DSM - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) says autism is a mental disorder. A big part of society (journalists, politicians, psychiatrists, jurists) deals with autism as if it is a mental disorder. That's a dead end road.
The social construct theory explains more, can make better predictions and helps improving life and creating a dialogue.

Just because the genes haven't been found and identified doesn't mean they aren't there. And besides, I'm too lazy at the moment to find it myself, but I think it was five (might have been six) chromosomes were identified to have autism genes on them. Some appear to be recessive and some appear to be dominant.

I hope you're not saying that autistic kids should be made to act normal and that will make everything all better. I've been down that road. It wasn't fun on my end, and it didn't work out.

I would like to read more about those researches that prove the causation.

E.g. Asperger was introduced into the DSM-IV in 1994 and will be removed in the DSM-5 in 2013.
Introducing and removing physical illnesses as a diagnosis (broken arm, brain tumor) would be crazy, but in the case of 'mental disorders' in the DSM this seems okay.
Remember homosexuality and the DSM ? Introduced as a mental disorder in 1952. Removed in 1973.

Not at all. On the contrary.
No point in 'curing' homosexuality either.

It's commonly accepted that autism probably has a genetic factor due to clearly observable heredity.
Regarding the head thing:
I am autistic and have a large head.
My girlfriend is NT and her head is the same size as mine.
This 2 case study is inconclusive

There was nothing wrong with phrenology as a theory. It's general acceptance despite a lack of satisfactory evidence was illogical to say the least, but in psychology theories are disproven rather than proven.

Yes, commonly accepted. But after I dug deeper into the genetic claims -and there are quite a lot- I found it's never proven.

The very interesting part about the social construct theory is that it can make bold claims, like: A genetic basis for autism will never be found. This is easily disproven: Find the genetic basis.
- If autism is a social construct (like slavery), autism is a label, not a mental disorder or something physically existing.
- Talents, headsize, specific hobby's, communication with people etc. are all real and can either be positieve or negative.
- Autism as a mental disorder makes no sense: There's no cure -and will be none, and it's insulting-, no medication and no biochemical background.

I'm aware some people will argue "well, they will find the genetic basis eventually", but genetic research is relatively cheap and millions are spent already by lots of autism researchers having spent lots of time.
And no proof yet, only vague claims.
E.g. The chance of the second person of monozygotic twins also having autism is only 90%. These MZ twins are genetically identical. For a genetic basis for autism you would need 100%!

I agree completely but as I've said, a genetic link seems obvious. That doesn't exclude other factors.
I have of course observed and talked to people about how they think etc. Problem solving skills also vary from person to person but are quite different in auties. Environment is often very similar; siblings for example.
I definitely think differently from NTs and I grew up in the same environment as many other people who are not autistic.
Also although no-one has yet found a definite physical component to autism itself, there are physical effects in the form of co... Co... (I hate it when I lose words) lupus etc. It's like saying wind has no physical form because you can't see the wind itself. But you can feel it and see it's effects.

If it were a complete working theory which could be used to help people then it wouldn't need proof; like everything else in psychology.
However, it is neither complete nor working thus it is of little consequence.

It is almost impossible to provide absolute proof of any genetic link for anything. What generally passes for proof is a strong correlation backed by observation.

And nobody is claiming that 100% of cases that are diagnosed as autism are 100% genetic. Diagnosis is, after all, subjective. I am actually very surprised that the chance of the second twin having autism is as high as 90%.

If you are trying to convince anyone that the social construct theory has validity, how about concentrating on that? Trying to prove that it isn't genetic is a dead-end street. And even if it can be proven that autism is partly, mostly or even wholly genetic, would that disprove the social construct theory? Of course not!

Information about this is readily available, including extensive and conclusive science.
Please don't ask me too much about it; I'm trying to avoid my special interests at the moment.
It's called "colour theory" and is very engaging.

That's very easy:
- No genetics involved
- Entry in and out of the DSM by voting (see Asperger: 1994-2013)
- History/language use of autism (from wiki): The New Latin word autismus (English translation autism) was coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1910 as he was defining symptoms of schizophrenia. He derived it from the Greek word autós (αὐτός, meaning self), and used it to mean morbid self-admiration, referring to "autistic withdrawal of the patient to his fantasies, against which any influence from outside becomes an intolerable disturbance".
The word autism first took its modern sense in 1938 when Hans Asperger of the Vienna University Hospital adopted Bleuler's terminology autistic psychopaths in a lecture in German about child psychology. Asperger was investigating an ASD now known as Asperger syndrome, though for various reasons it was not widely recognized as a separate diagnosis until 1981. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first used autism in its modern sense in English when he introduced the label early infantile autism in a 1943 report of 11 children with striking behavioral similarities. Almost all the characteristics described in Kanner's first paper on the subject, notably "autistic aloneness" and "insistence on sameness", are still regarded as typical of the autistic spectrum of disorders. It is not known whether Kanner derived the term independently of Asperger.

Diagnoses may be subjective, genes aren't.
(Strong) correlations are a completely different story than causality, that's my point.

People can perceive colors differently. This is all measurable and easily researched.  I think color is not a good analogy.
Color   Frequency   Wavelength
violet 668–789 THz 380–450 nm
blue         631–668 THz 450–475 nm
cyan   606–630 THz 476–495 nm
green 526–606 THz 495–570 nm
yellow 508–526 THz 570–590 nm
orange 484–508 THz 590–620 nm
red     400–484 THz 620–750 nm

Hi Alison,

Personal experiences are also welcome ofcourse! I'm wondering about the characteristics? Usually autism/Asperger is an 'umbrella' term. Good things, bad things, specific habits, interests etc. Like NT's, but with slightly different answers. Did it make any difference to them with the diagnosis? And to others?

Usually people who do not really know what autim is will only look at the downside:
- lack of interest in other people
- lack of empathy (!)
- dysfunctional
- weird interests, etc.
When you add the genetic story, people will do 1+1 and think it's some kind of disease. Like it's HIV or something. In a way autism is even worse as a spooky story, since there is so much speculation on genetics, there are no cures, and most autists are LFA and require help and caring.

Autism isn't a wordgame. Currently it's considered a mental disorder, with a high genetic factor.
Calling red red and pink pink is fine (and with my example some people will call sometimes pink red and vice versa at specific THz).

I do have a problem with your definition of difference. The African tribe you mentioned has one color for the sky and coal. That doesn't mean there is no difference?
Well - not to them, only to us (two colors: blue and black). So that would be a very good point in favor of the social construct theory.

In general; If people can or do not perceive differences, there's no difference in my opinion. This does not apply to denying proven facts ofcourse. If you deny there's a tree in front of you and you drive your car against it, you've just proven you were wrong. A tree is not a social construct

I dislike that too, but that's generally accepted in the scientific community and psychologists/psychiatrists. In the country where I live
even the chairman of the national autism society declared on national TV that 'autistic children are always more problematic than NT children' and that 'autistic people have more problems with empathy'. Ugh.

As far as I know autists aren't any different than other people when it comes to empathy, although Aspergers have the name of being more friendly. So that might be more in the eye of the beholder (=NT).

I also think that autists aren't more criminial than other people, but I don't have the numbers/studies. I would think about the same or slightly less even.

Yes, general opinion is that autists can't take care of themselves and always need help.

I agree, I feel that we're at least as empathetic as anybody else.  The difference is probably in that we don't talk about it as much.  Rather like the husband who will take the spider out of the bath for his wife even though he's scared of spiders, will be nice to his wife's mother even though he can't stand her, and will tell his wife she looks beautiful when she asks him if her bum looks big in her new dress.  She then accuses him of "not loving her" because he never says it!  

Alison

You said it was easy to prove the social construct, but all you did was explain it to me. I think I understand it well enough to discuss it. What I'm trying to get at is that if you demand indisputable proof of a theory that you disagree with before you're willing to acknowledge that it might have some validity, you should be prepared to offer real proof of your own theory.

The science of genetics is based on correlations. Absolute proof of causality does not exist for any gene. Genetics is a science based on weight of evidence. Do you need me to provide examples of how this is the case?

This conversation is eerily similar to trying to discuss evolution with a creationist. The creationist points out that there does not exist absolute proof of evolution, and that it is therefore a pseudoscience. Evolution, like genetics, is a science based on correlation and weight of evidence.

You say that it is easy to prove that autism is a social construct, but all I saw was a history lesson that proved nothing. And even if you can prove that autism is a social construct - which you cannot do - that does not prove that it is not genetic.

Technically evolution is still a theory. As is much of science. Got to love creationism; it's almost as fun as Scientology.

'Social construct' comes from sociology, so I'm not sure what kind of proof you require? As in all scientific theories, a theory can do several claims and predictions. I already posted that the 'autism is a social construct'-theory can do a very bold claim like: No genetic evidence will be found.
That's a lot more than the current (physical or statistical) theories can offer.
This theory is easy falsifiable, as any theory should be. But the theory also offer the explanation why genetic evidence will not be found: Because autism is not something physically existing, but a label.

(The theory of) evolution is proven, and so is the theory of gravity.

The burden of proof is not with me, but with you. If you say it's genetic, give me the proof. Absolute causality does exist, e.g. Down syndrome (three chromosomes 21 instead of two).

Your choice, I'm fine with either causality or correlation. There's only 23 chromosomes and about 20.000-25.000 genes.

Evolution is a proven fact -in so many ways-, no matter what creationists say. They are just denying facts.

I already gave the evidence by the Asperger example.
The original definition was made by Hans Asperger in 1944, Lorna Wing revitalized the definition in 1981. Asperger syndrome got into the DSM-IV in 1994 and it will be removed in 2013. The original children studied by Hans Asperger would be classified as autists today, not Aspergers. So society changes, definitions change, what is considered mentally disordered or not changes over time.

Please stop the trolling, I'm here for an intelligent discussion.

Down-syndrome proves my point: There's genetics involved. I don't call it a social construct. Please read: Don't use the straw man.

There is absolute proof for evolution. Read a book by Richard Dawkins, e.g. The greatest show on earth, many examples of proof.

The claim by 60-90% of genetic identical twins shows clearly that a lot of people have problem understanding statistics.
E.g. In a room of 100 people, there are 2 twins. One of the twins has autism. The other one (monozygotic) has 90% chance of also having autism. But that's a statistical correlation and proves nothing genetically. You might as well say he has a 0.9% chance, because he's in that room.
So on the contrary: The way autism diagnoses are giving are by psychologists by interviews. It's more likely psychologists label familymembers similar. That's not rocket science.

People accept these numbers as if they explain or predict anything.
On the contrary: With dizygotic twins the percentage drops to 10-30%. These percentages are very low to support a genetic theory, but very probably for a social construct theory: People in families share behaviour, interests etc.

No wonder autism gene researchers can't find statistical significant correlations: They're looking for something that's not there. (Or looking in the wrong place, from the statistical perspective).

You are misrepresenting what I said in order to accuse me of using a straw man. I did not say that you call Downs Syndrome a social construct. Who is using a straw man here?

I merely pointed out that, by your standards of proof, Downs Syndrome is a social construct.

But he doesn't have a 0.9% chance. He has a 90% chance.

- Down syndrome makes someone physically different (=measurable and you can see it). It's also genetically proven. Again, I never said this is a social construct and ofcourse it's not.
I'm not sure how long Down syndrome exists, but your example is pretty weak: It's very unlikely people didn't notice them before 1838. It's not really important when it got the name it now has, nor when the genetics were discovered. Nothing is disputed here, so you're trying to make a point where there is none, mr. Straw Man.

- Statistics can be used in many ways, depending on the view you use.
So the 2 twins = 90%
The room with 100 people = 0.9%
Both are correct, just using a different view.

And do you believe that people didn't notice aspies and autistics before it was an official diagnosis? There have always been people who have been considered odd and/or reclusive, and some of those were on the autism spectrum. They just didn't have a name for it.

Twin studies are commonly used to determine genetic disposition. Yes, in a room of 1000 people a kid has a .9% chance of being autistic. And if his identical twin is autistic he has a 90% chance of being autistic. Does that tell you something? Because most people who actually understand genetics and statistics know exactly what it means.

Although you're just trolling, this can be an interesting philosophical question.

The answer:
Physically autism doesn't exist.
If someone's a (neo)platonist, one could argue there's an idea of autism that eternally exists.

Autism as a mental disorder didn't exist until it was diagnosed.
Autism as a social construct didn't exist before it was mentioned. (Depends on how far you go back historically with people describing autistic traits avant la lettre.)
Autistic traits will probably go as far back as the beginning of homo sapiens, maybe even before in other human species. Maybe even animals.

How hard is it to read the whole thread? I'm talking about autism as a mental disorder, not the traits. Ofcourse these people were always around. Everyone has autistic traits, some more than others.
Again someone argueing against a non-dispute...

Wow, I didn't know down syndrome was invented in 1838.
I think we should run an experiment to socially construct some sweet pea flowers.

You're not reading, troll.
Down syndrome wasn't invented, but the clinical diagnosis was written down by a French psychiatrist for the first time in 1838.
It's your own example.

What's there to notice for people if autism didn't exist as a label nor diagnosis? Being odd/reclusive is not even autism-specific nor unique. If there's no name for it, why bother?
We're very far away from the genetics now. And that was the reason why I'm here.

There are several people on this forum who were diagnosed late in life - they can tell you what a ridiculous load of hogwash that is. So could I, but I'm bored with this.

One of my favorite pseudoscientific hobby's is SETI.. but no one claims aliens exist. No proof has ever been found. The universe is a big place in terms of time and space. Still no scientist will say they (must) exist.
It could take billions of years..

You may belief what you want, but if there's no physical proof.. you're in conflict with your belief/the facts.

The genetics-argument 'we haven't found it yet' merely postpones the proof. It's a leap into the unknown.
That only makes sense if there are good leads, but there aren't.
How much time, money, autism scientists do we need? So many theories and so many studies didn't prove the genetic basis for a mental disorder.

On the contrary: Asperger is removed as a diagnosis in the DSM. LFA will be much harder because of the comorbidity, but would make sense too.

Don't change the setting - we were talking about the time pre-diagnosis, pre-label of autism. Hundreds of years ago.

Nowadays it matters ofcourse, because of many things. Society, psychiatry, etc.

That's more of a philosophical question and very tough to answer. I have no definitive answer to this.

Possible answers or thoughts:
- It would have been labeled differently. Maybe schizophrenia, or another word (maybe even a new word we don't use now).

- If society would be different in a positive way, it could be that Asperger would be a considered gift, rather than a curse/disorder (e.g. Tony Attwood congratulates people with an Asperger diagnosis
http://vorige.nrc.nl/achtergrond/article2028736.ece/Gefeliciteerd_met_uw_Aspergersyndroom [dutch] )
Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2002 and stated that he won also because of his deep concentration/Asperger.

- Autism is on a spectrum already (see AQ-test by Simon-Baron Cohen) and will be on a spectrum as well in the next DSM-5, but then as a diagnosis. Seeing autism as a spectrum makes sense, but not in the way of a disorder.

- If certain words don't exist and if we don't experience any other difference by our sences (smelling, tasting, etc.) or in our head, nor are there any scientific facts contradicting us (e.g. we can't see infrared, but we can detect it), then I would say all autists and Aspergers would be considered NT. And NT wouldn't exist as a word in that way either. Our conception would be very different.
I'm not even sure we could talk with these people if they have no notion of autism or autistic traits.

- Ingroup/outgroup thinking exists for a very long time. This had its use when our ancestors grew up in an extremely hostile environment. Xenophobia is deeply wired into our brains, so anyone being different and/or requiring more help from 'the group' (or modern society) will be seen as a deficit instead of an asset.
But we're not on the African steppes anymore and the world is becoming more and more advanced and technological.
Depending on the context, time and group someone with more or less autistic traits could be of little or of much use. It's no wonder autistic traits are so common in Silicon Valley and Eindhoven: Both are areas with a lot of high tech companies/universities.
As Baron-Cohen said: The autistic mind is the ultimate systemizer. The analogy with a computer isn't that far off in my opinion.
It's one of the official reasons why Asperger is removed in the DSM-5: Sub-clinical Aspergers need no help, they just have specific traits.

That is the first time anyone in this thread has mentioned hundreds of years ago. It looks to me like you are having this argument on more than one forum and getting the answers mixed up.

When I was a kid there was no diagnosis of aspergers or HFA. There was no label for people like myself, Alison, Kevout2 and several others. But we still went to school every day and got the cr@p beat out of us for being "different". We had all of the same traits that would get a kid today diagnosed with HFA or aspergers. But we were treated as simply lazy, deliberately weird, retarded, and so on. We were teased about our enormous heads. And we didn't know that there was a reason for being the way we were, we got no support, we didn't know that there were other people like us. You talk about proof - my life is all the proof I need. And the scientific community agrees with me.

Math is a formal science, that's true. Being different than beta- or alfascience. There's not 1 general scientific theory, but the method is quite the same (theory, testing, falsification).

Theoretical physics is a nice example: E.g. The LHC is a big laboratory trying to prove claims by theoretical physics. These theories are not yet (generally) accepted, but can go as far as making very specific predictions.
But until these theories are proven, no one will say it's proven.

You are mistaken, it's not absorbed. See:
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97# under Rationale

Q.3.  If Asperger disorder does not appear in DSM-V as a separate diagnostic category, how will  continuity and clarity be maintained for those with the diagnosis?

The aim of the draft criteria is that every person who has significant impairment in social-communication and RRBI should meet appropriate diagnostic criteria.  Language impairment/delay is not a necessary criterion for diagnosis of ASD, and thus anyone who shows the Asperger type pattern of good language and IQ but significantly impaired social-communication and repetitive/restricted behavior and interests, who might previously have been given the Asperger disorder diagnosis, should now meet criteria for ASD, and be described dimensionally. The workgroup aims to provide detailed symptom examples suitable for all ages and language levels, so that ASD will not be missed by clinicians in adults of average or superior IQ who are experiencing clinical levels of difficulty.

There may be some individuals with subclinical features of Asperger/ASD who seek out a diagnosis of ‘Asperger Disorder’ in order to understand themselves better (perhaps following an autism diagnosis in a relative), rather than because of clinical-level impairment in everyday life. While such a use of the term may be close to Hans Asperger’s reference to a personality type, it is outside the scope of DSM, which explicitly concerns clinically-significant and impairing disorders.  ‘Asperger-type’, like ‘Kanner-type’, may continue to be a useful shorthand for clinicians describing a constellation of features, or area of the multi-dimensional space defined by social/communication impairments, repetitive/restricted behaviour and interests, and IQ and language abilities.

A personal argument is not very scientific (sorry). I'm sorry for what happened, but that's not HFA or Asperger specific/unique.
Would it be any different if there was a diagnosis at that time? Probably not.. bullies are bullies.

So read again: What's there to notice for people if autism didn't exist as a label nor diagnosis? That's more than a couple of decades ago.

Lots of terrible doctors, misdiagnoses, human suffering.

O RLY?

I haven't even begun to start quoting Clarke or Asimov, both of whom were scientists as well as authors. I believe that Sir Patrick Moore also came out as believing there must be life elsewhere (though obviously nowhere near us and not near enough to visit, either), as well as dozens of other prominent scientists.

But please, continue.

Not entirely true. Aspergers is being grandfathered into Autism, as there is no sense in having two separate entries for two things that have been shown to be one and the same; Existing DX's will also be grandfathered into HFA diagnoses.

So those heart docters were wrong at that time and didn't know enough.
So what else should they have done other than use the best knowledge they had at that time and do more research? Giving such an example with our current knowledge is extremely misleading and you can't prove this is an accurate analogy as you don't have the evidence to support it.

The DSM-I was introduced in 1952. How much more time is needed to prove a non-physical mental disorder?

The people you quote all think intelligent extraterrastrial life exists. They all talk about possibilities, not facts. And it makes perfect sense too when you change some parameters in the Drake equation. But which one of them actually proved it? No one.
(Yet. Or never. Or tomorrow. Or...)

Please read, not all DX's will be converted into another DSM category:
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97# Rational, Q3.

That's the thing about research of any kind; no-one knows.
And, I don't really see that it matters.
We haven't found the Higgs boson or colonised another world yet, does that mean we should scrap CERN and our space projects and write a paper about how impossible it all is so let's just change our minds an bleh...?
I don't see how this theory can benefit anybody and it could be used to support the all too common idea that we're making it up.

He'd plagiarise himself.

Your exact wording;

You were wrong.

All your quotes talk about probability, most of them (in)directly based upon the Drake equation: The size-argument, the time-argument, etc.
If you have no better arguments on-topic, please do not pollute the thread.

It would be a draft then.

So far I'm quite disappointed in the studies, researches, tests, genetics, etc. presented here. I'm quite surprised with this, as there should be an overwhelming amount of claims supporting the biochemical model of autism.
A social construct view of autism would help AFF with its aims, in a relative easy way (=no hardcore science involved):
- To prevent eugenic elimination of autistic people by opposing pre-natal testing for autism. [genetic elimination would be incredible ridiculous with the view of autism as a social contruct]
- To oppose physically or mentally harmful "treatments" targeting autistic people. [treatments would be incredible ridiculous with the view of autism as a social contruct]
- To emphasise the "spectrum" view of autism, and de-emphasise the differences between the various autistic spectrum labels.
- To oppose the idea of an autism "cure". [talking about a cure would be incredible ridiculous with the view of autism as a social contruct]
- To evaluate alleged treatments for ethical approaches. [treatment?]
- To increase funding for, and access to, autistic support services and ethical forms of treatment. [treatment?]
- To oppose negative publicity campaigns against autistic people as a group.
- To help promote an accurate yet positive image of autism.
- To oppose all forms of prejudice and bigotry.

Some comments were useful though and I'll take them into account.

And ofcourse you say that in advance, a nice example of magic thinking.
Probably wishful thinking..
Calling arguments good doesn't make them good.. it's a petitio principii (logical fallacy).

Things that at least will be included:
- Statistics (especially twin studies)
- Comorbidity (especially LFA)
- Real problems people with autism have (either LFA/MFA/HFA)
- History of xenophobia in society
- The pseudoscience of the DSM
- Current trend of increasing psychopathology: normal behaviour becoming a mental disorder (e.g. mourning/grief -> depression disorder)

And that's not trolling... ?
Sounds like you missed the trees, looking for a 'forest'.

Tip: Read up on sociology how the scientific method works there. Slightly different.

From DSM IV:

While I do not doubt that many people who currently seek and obtain a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome do not have clinically significant impairments in important areas of functioning.... those persons are being incorrectly diagnosed according to the criteria of DSM IV. Nothing has changed.

Call it trolling if you like.

Or it could be calling a spade a spade.

You could also try reading up on science, statistics, genetics and various other areas that you appear to have no grasp of.

If sociology is about coming to conclusions without evidence or compelling logic, as you are doing, then it is a pseudoscience.

interestingly, in terms of skin color, some people have such a dark pigment in their skin that they actually appear blue.

And if you consider the hindu avatars Rama and Krishna who were considered super super dark skinned, they are usually depicted as being blue.

But if you don't live in a society with very dark races, you wouldn't understand...so it is sort of a cultural construct...the colors we are used to seeing the environment (and on people) affect how we understand colors to be.

I've seen records of early first encounters between Australian Aborigines and white-skinned humans, that they thought the whites were dead bodies come to life, evil spirits.  
Alison

They did come here first!!!!!