Slashdot Mirror
Genetic Testing For Geekiness?
Paul Johnson writes "MSNBC is carrying an article wondering about how to handle a possible future genetic test for autism. Raising a severely autistic child is a heartbreaking grind, and many people (and legal systems) consider termination to be a reasonable choice where the fetus carries other genetic disorders such as Downs Syndrome. But this might also prevent the birth of future geniuses too. The article flippantly uses Bill Gates as an example (Gates is widely thought to have Asperger's syndrome), although Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison are also thought to have been similarly "different". And there is some reason to believe that "geekiness" in general is actually the place where autism shades into 'normal'."
it's noble, and all that. but nobody should be forced to live with an avoidable anomalous situation and accept it as "god's will", as not everyone believes that.
I said nothing about "god's will", I believe. Niether of us are overtly religious.
it's noble, and all that. but nobody should be forced to live with an avoidable anomalous situation and accept it as "god's will", as not everyone believes that.
Make no doubt about, people who abort because of a Downs Syndrome diagnosis are not doing so at 8 weeks, they are doing so at 22, 24, 30, even 32 and 34 weeks, when the child is developed to an amazing degree, and in many cases could survive outside the womb with no medical care, no life support, and no special treatment. My daughter is 33 weeks, coming up on 34, and without much of a doubt could survive handily with only minimal extra-care at this point. We are well past a "clump of cells".
My point is and was that viewing a birth defect in your child or a handicap in someone as a "problematic situation" that needs to be cured is really not right in my view, and that it's a sad thing when a culture gets to the point that a life is worthless and not worth living without being physically perfect from the day you are born.
And it can only lead to more and more depravities.
Especailly with Downs Syndrome, of all things, which allows people to still live healthy, happy, productive lives.
Current estimates place someone with Asperger's Syndrome in every few hundred people. TFA doesn't do a good job of pointing out that Asperger's is what they call "high functioning autism", meaning that most of those with it can function and blend in with society if they choose to.
The correlation seems so reasonable to me, it's barely worth mentioning. I would speculate that a typical layperson definition of geek would be "An intelligent, but socially awkward person. A loner." Autism literally means self-ism. "One who is drawn into one's self."
Given the site you're reading now, I'd say odds are pretty good that you're working with someone that has some form of autism. They probably forgot to mention it to you.