I am just pointing out that snark does not support your contention that this is an “important topic.” If you do indeed think this is an important topic then I should wonder why all the jokes in this thread? If this is an important topic shouldn’t it be treated as such. Most of my earlier posts were attempts to explain my thoughts that this isn’t the way to treat an “important” topic.

Are you simply not listening to me in an attempt to gain justification for action aginst me?  Are you the one that’s wired to explode? I think you just don’t like me since I am a bit of an “outsider” by reputation. I hope to god that I am drawing the wrong conclusion, but its hard for me to tell sometimes. I am also weary of gumming up the public forum.

If you want to continue discussion related to this topic we best do it via e-mail or some other out of forum chat. Let me know.

That concern you have as a moderator is also what motivated my original argument in this thread. I was only appealing to human decency. Which is sort of what your offical job title is here. Even as loose as the regulations are, the community is still interested in maintaining decorum.

So that’s why I found it peculiar that you would speak out in support of a mode of expression that you might otherwise attempt to regulate had it come from one of the peons in the peanut gallery.    

The average IQ is 100. That means (more or less) that half the population is under that. They’re allowed to vote, just like the half that’s over 100.

How is this even relevant? Especially, in light of this recent BoingBoing article?  

From Cory Doctorow:

But surely’s the most damning element of this “study” is that it used IQ as a meaningful proxy for “intelligence.” If someone came up with a study that correlated star-signs, biorhythms, Meyers-Briggs types, or auras with browser choice, and then it was revealed that the data was fudged, would the fudging really be the most damning fact about the study’s validity?

Is everyone else who might read the Baroness also too dumb to know the difference?

The average IQ is 100. That means (more or less) that half the population is under that. They’re allowed to vote, just like the half that’s over 100.

What part of her being in a position of power and authority are you unclear on? Her idiocies are quoted in the international news and taken as scientific fact by people who assume that she’s correct because she’s Baroness von Official Scientist.

Is she really that powerful? Or are you just granting her more legitimacy then she is due? Do you have any data to back up your point? Who is taking her words as fact, and what publications are those facts incorrectly published in? If you do have that data — would it not be more valuable to publicly post that up rather then just a snark filled rant?
 
The public part is important. If this went on in private, as we all know it does, out of the public eye then who should care how snarky it is. It would be a private conversation, but things change if it’s done in public.

What it comes down to is this, the snarker is asking us, the audience, to take her at her word. But isn’t that the very thing that she, and you tacitly, are railing aginst in the first place? She doesn’t want the audience to take the Baroness at her word. But what of your audience who might not know a thing about her? To those who don’t have any relevant data sets in mind it just looks like an old school, very public, politically charge mud sling.

On top of that you seem to imply that the rest of the people who might see her claims aren’t smart enough to remain skeptical of those claims. Is everyone else who might read the Baroness also too dumb to know the difference? Again where is your data to back this claim? Surely if she has had such a powerful and deleterious effect on the public you can prove so with data or an article or two.  

Data is good, emotions are just, well, emotions, and they really don’t help the audience understand why she is such a terrible scientist, data does that. Snarking is just bad for everyone invloved as it does nothing to disprove the original claim or advance the cause claimed by the snark.    

I’m appealing to decency, and frankly it’s ironic that a moderator called me on it.

EDIT: as additional evidence of my claim that snarking leads to no good outcomes, I would point you to the apology since posted in this thread. A sort of very unfortunate “collateral damage.”

http://xkcd.com/925/

The only solution is to make me immortal.

Would you settle for Infinitely Prolonged? I should have some rubber bands around here somewhere.

That said, there will likely be a further increase in diagnosis as it is generally accepted that the diagnostic criteria does not catch milder autism (HFA and Asperger’s) in girls nearly as well, likely due to girls different forms of social interaction, and the diagnostic criteria has not been fully accepted for diagnosing adults (people born before 1980-1985 or from small towns with only small psychologist infestations won’t have been diagnosed as children). So, quite a bit more to do.Then the question arises, is autism any kind of disease/condition, or merely a categorisation of certain neural setups? Might we see more nuanced categorisation in the future which better looks at strengths and weaknesses? We already know that people with HFA and Asperger’s can be quite successful. The likelihood of success seems to be a good thing for finding a partner… and I don’t see many aspies sitting alone and unloved.
So, to play the meme game: “I point to the increase in autism and I point to changes in diagnostic criteria. That’s all.”

As for Greenfield, take a look at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Greenfield,_Baroness_Greenfield) she has some serious research achievements in her past as well as some fairly impressive awards. None of which has ever stood in the way of someone making strange pronouncements on occasion. I mean, a member of BB is known for some serious literary output and yet has also made utterly ludicrous pronouncements about certain technology companies.

I don’t “blame the science” for not moving faster.  Science works on money, and the field was neglected for decades as it was a diagnosis that was supposed to only apply to one out of 500,000 individuals. 

Bottom line for me, is there’s not a med or device out there that makes my kid less likely to be killed crossing the street.  Currently she gets too distracted and could easily wander into harm’s way. And she wants to talk and connect with other kids, but has great difficulty doing so.  I would like her to have an easier and safer way in the world, so I have little patience for anyone who thinks the science is moving fast enough.  Worrying about labels or diagnoses is certainly not important. 

I take issue with your viewpoint also because well meaning, likely relatively scientific people like yourself believe that the science is settled on their not being a true increase in autism/asd.  And if there were a slow subtle increase, from an environmental neurotoxin or other unknown agent, we could be missing both a deadly serious health crisis as well as missing a way of preventing others from having a difficult life, and maybe helping the lives of those already affected.

The reason I know Maggie would never be so callous towards ASD folks is because she has always been a stark supporter of honest science – even when, by not resorting to easier to understand but flawed arguments, it makes convincing the masses a little harder in the short run. It’s the self-aggrandizing, fear-mongering, bad-science-doing, authority-abusing narcissists such as Greenfield that perpetuate the view that autism = what the cripple fairy will turn you into if you don’t turn off that internet connection.

I always point out that sociopaths give fantastic eye contact.

Thanks ever so for vividly reminding me of my last relationship.

Keep up the amazing posts!  And don’t let the Minnesota summer kill you…winter is coming : )

Otherwise: I feel like this thread needs a mention that the increase of autism is not only about the increased diagnoses thanks to doctors learning how to diagnose it earlier and faster, but also the development of the autism spectrum, allowing for a wider breadth of diagnoses including many more people. (I am obviously truncating the history here, but y’all get the idea.)