Dilbert’s Diagnosis: The Knack
February 13, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Some of you have no doubt already seen this clip from Dilbert, The Knack. Dilbert’s mother worries about her son (who is “not like other kids” and an FLK—”funny looking kid”—if there ever was one) who takes apart the TV, a clock, and the stereo and builds a ham radio set. The doctor says “I’m afraid your son has the Knack – It’s a rare condition characterized by extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical and…… utter social ineptitude.” Meanwhile, young Dilbert repairs the EEG machine. (”If an engineer loses the Knack,” the doctor notes, “the results can be devastating.)
This (if I may be a bit Freudian, for a moment) the “primal scene” of autism parenthood: Getting the diagnosis from the doctor.
Only, in the case of Dilbert, the doctor does not say he has autism. What Dilbert has is “The Knack”—-due to which he will not be able to lead a “normal life.” (I.e., he’ll be an engineer.)
So what is this Knack?
Dunno, but I think T. may have it….
(And he’s getting over his gravitational insecurities, which is going to make things very interesting very soon.)
Except T. at an early age displayed good enough social skills that I have very high hopes for him — that he will become an engineering manager, an engineer that can actually herd catsmanage other engineers. Pipe dream, probably.
Engineering runs in my family (not exactly in me, though……). Charlie himself is not mechanically oriented!
There’s a family history of engineers on both sides.
Sam is interested in comparing parts. T. is interested in how the parts work together. C. is interested in using whatever it is either of her brothers may put together.
Train tracks:
Sam & T.: Put tracks together
T. & C.: Run toy trains on tracks
Amusing to watch, as long as Sam doesn’t object to Catherine using his track. (He tolerates her fairly well for the most part, which is pretty good, considering what a sonic assault she can be at times!)
Engineers on both sides here too……..
Read Simon Baron Cohen’s researc on engineering and autism. It’s interesting as is a lot of his work.
Autism is a severe childhood neuropsychiatric condition with a substantial genetic component. At the cognitive level children with autism are impaired in the development of their folk psychology, seict while they are normal or even superior in the development of their folk physics. We predicted that if their parent shared this cognitive phenotype, then they should be over-represented in engineering as an occupation. This prediction was confirmed. Both fathers and grand-fathers of children with autism were found more than twice as often in the field of engineering, compared with fathers and grandfathers of other children. This link between autism and engineering may throw light not only on autism itself, but ultimately on the genetic basis of two essential human abilities: folk psychology and folk physics.
Google search engineering and autism, you can download a pdf of the whole paper.
I’ve been reading Dilbert for years and I never quite came up with this assessment. Every character in the strip is so dysfunctional the potential for autism is almost irrelevent.
However, I’m married to a broadcast engineer and have a child with Asperger’s. No pointy-haired boss, though.
I would describe “The Knack” as the ability to intuitively understand how something works after spending a minimal amount of time with that something. These days that usually manifests itself in man-made somethings, maybe a piece of hardware or piece of software.
Is the Knack hereditary? I know in my son’s case, the Knack goes back several generations on both sides of the family. Could the “Knack gene” be a dominant one, a gene that overwhelms other, less forceful genes? Hmmmm….
One possible cause of all these new kids with the Knack? Because Knack-tistic people are now considered cool and desirable, they are getting an increased opportunity to propagate their genes. Knack-tistics are breeding!
And the world is better for it (imho).