More Than One Way To Be Human
September 6, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Jeremy Laurance, the Health Editor for The Independent, considers the recently announced findings about older fathers being more likely to have an autistic child in asking how much do we really know about the causes and incidence of autism?. In asking the question “why so much interest in autism,” Laurance writes:
In the social world in which we live, the capacity to read situations and respond appropriately is crucial to success and can mean the difference between popularity and loneliness. Autism disturbs something that is core to our being human.
Perhaps it might also, or rather, be said that, more than “disturbing” established beliefs of what makes us human, autism shows us that there are different ways of being human.
Different ways of being human — that’s so true, so accurate, and so beautiful.
One of the best lessons I’ve learned from Charlie.
There is more to the background of this Israeli study than meets the eye I think. Why has as an unyet unpublished paper recieved such press prominence, and can this in any way be read against the academic boycott of Israeli Universities and academics?
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,1785634,00.html
Perhaps this is part of a big media war than reserch.?
What surprised me about this study/these findings was how many times I kept seeing it come up in the media and with a slightly different emphais—-so that is seemed more about media than science, indeed.