Oxford Professor Taken To Task For Linking Internet Use To Autism

esocid writes with excerpts from a piece written by Ben Goldacre of The Guardian: "Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. ... Two months ago the same professor linked internet use with the rise in autism diagnoses (not for the first time), then pulled back when autism charities and an Oxford professor of psychology raised concerns. ... When I raised concerns, she said I was like the epidemiologists who denied that smoking caused cancer. Other critics find themselves derided as sexist in the media. If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening, and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed. ... I think these serious scientific concerns belong, at least once, in a clear scientific paper. I don't see how this suggestion is inappropriate, or impudent, and in all seriousness, I can't see an argument against it."

Comments

Ellipses ...

[orphiuchus]

Am I the only one who had to read that twice to be clear on who was supposed to be talking after the ellipses?

Re:Ellipses ...

[ThisIsSaei]

The format does seem a bit funny, but clicking to the linked article, and reading it in the original made it much better.

Re:Ellipses ...

[kanto]

Am I the only one who had to read that twice to be clear on who was supposed to be talking after the ellipses?

That's how it starts, but at least now you can blame the internets.

Re:Ellipses ...

[Anubis IV]

Am I the only one who had to read that twice to be clear on who was supposed to be talking after the ellipses?

Yep. Surveys indicate that most /.ers need to re-read it at least four times. I'm on my sixth and I'm still not sure what it all means.

Re:Ellipses ...

[Mr. Freeman]

It's quicker just to read the article. Whoever wrote the summary has absolutely no idea how to use quotes.

Re:Ellipses ...

[Canazza]

Ben Goldacre is a Legend, you can't paraphrase that shit. Yo.

Re:Ellipses ...

[zippthorne]

Don't surveys also indicate that most /.ers don't even read the whole summary even once?

Re:Ellipses ...

[kesuki]

yes, TFA clearly contradicts the submitters claim -- there is a boarding school banning video games and claiming that it is to prevent illness to their student body. but they are unwilling to scientifically prove that. i know that some games can cause PTSD from intense violence and motor reflex strain. if it doubles your pulse it probably is harmful to mortals. that being said rejecting games entirely is likely to make your life boring. i tried disconnecting from my sad little world of internet and gaming and it was not nice. so now i mainly play games that are safe.

Re:Ellipses ...

[dlingman]

if it doubles your pulse it probably is harmful to mortals.

So much for going to the beach then. Or doing a decent amount of exercise. Or watching the beach-goers doing a decent amount of exercise...

+1 parent post

[snowgirl]

Reading through the summary... I have to say, I don't think I could possibly come up with a more cogent response than this one here.

Nonsense in, nonsense out.

Re:+1 parent post

[hairyfeet]

Well I know anecdotes aren't evidence but my boys were practically born with a controller in their hands and an Ethernet cable in their laps, one is kicking ass in premed, has a wonderful GF, and is generally a hell of a great guy and the younger is trying to decide whether to go with his love of cooking or his love of computer art, helps out his elderly relatives,hates having a dime spent on him because he always thinks there could be good done with the money, and is also a hell of a nice guy.

Both of them have been on the net practically since they could walk (I had the PCs set to where they would only go to approved kids sites at the time of course) and both have been models of trustworthiness and never had any problems as far as autism or anything else. of course i treated them as intelligent human beings that deserve to be talked to and not down to and was more than happy to sit there with them and explain how things worked, from how data is turned from analog into digital and finally is drawn upon a screen to how a packet is formed and where it goes when they click the button.

And THAT, that right there, i think is the REAL problem. too many have turned to PCs, DVDs, game systems etc as cheap babysitters rather than as useful devices that can help their child learn. I would let the boys visit their friends growing up and when I would pick them up it always amazed and saddened me how many households didn't even have a single book in them, and the kids were given every kind of electronic junk they could possibly want as long as they left the grow ups alone and there was practically NO interaction between parent and child unless the parent had some order to bark at them like clean up their room.

So I don't think the problem is the machine per se, but the parents simply not stepping up and being parents. Parenting is a damned hard job but if you want a child to grow up into a responsible smart young person you just gotta put in the time. Hell I'm probably down about 3 years sleep and lost more than one GF because she gave me an ultimatum of the boys or her and I told her where the door was, but now that I see two happy young men starting out into the world i think it was worth it. The net is a tool, not a babysitter, simple as that.

Re:+1 parent post

[Slashdot Assistant]

A tl;dr coming your way.

It's really a double-edged knife. My parents went through a messy divorce, which was probably one of the reasons I ended-up spending a lot of my childhood hidden away in my room, playing around with computers. It has upsides and downsides.

It left me with somewhat stunted social skills, and difficulties in forming relationships. Those have improved, but I don't think they'll ever be as good as they should be. The short attention-span and habit of obsessing with a task were lessened when I took the time to understand how they were affecting my life. In work, I tend to occupy a position somewhere between visionary and mad scientist. I'm very good an analyzing problems and building processes and tools to fix them. The communication issues remain because I don't always realize how my way of thinking gives the wrong impression. i.e. a large staff meeting is not always the best time to lurch in to a very theoretical thought process. Colleagues are entertained though when I get that giddy schoolboy look on my face as I begin describing how x problem can be solved, and how it'll give us x results while saving x amount of money.

I don't think I'd like to have changed things back then. I would however wish that I'd become more self-aware earlier in life. I would have screwed around fewer people with my selfish and obsessive behavior - myself included. I would have had more success earlier in my career if I'd better understood how to present my ideas to people.

I completely agree that technology should not be a babysitter. Technology, like anything else, should complement life, not rule it. Books are even more important than before; the Internet is not a place where an unsupervised child can be expected to learn reading comprehension. Just like with any relationship, it's about engagement and interest. If a kid is playing WoW it really should not be difficult for the parent to know the basics of what they're doing, even if they have no interest in playing it. They'd quickly learn that it's a very socially-driven thing, and in some cases quite addictive. My parents didn't really understand computers, so they probably assumed that I was learning stuff while I was locked away in my room. I did a fair bit of hacking around, but it was mostly playing games. The former contributed to my technical and problem-solving abilities I have now, which from a job perspective means that the initiatives I take have probably more than paid my salary in the past year, on top of the main work I do. There remain social problems, albeit not as many as there used to be. I would have benefited from my parents just taking more time to get me out of that room.

Re:+1 parent post

[TheRaven64]

And THAT, that right there, i think is the REAL problem. too many have turned to PCs, DVDs, game systems etc as cheap babysitters rather than as useful devices that can help their child learn.

And there we have it. In shocking news, children who don't interact with humans grow up to be adults who have difficulty interacting with humans.

Re:+1 parent post

[Eunuchswear]

"Most cases are diagnosed around the age of two, when not many children are using the internet" - Dr Dorothy Bishop

Autism is not "poor social skills".

Re:+1 parent post

[JoeMerchant]

The problem with Autism is that it is a 1% condition - you, and all your friends an acquaintances can take daily baths in organophosphate pesticides and it none of you ever developed Autism, but... in that 1% of the population that is vulnerable, if they were exposed at age 18 months, they develop the condition in spades (or not, that was just one study in Italy that found a pesticide link...)

It is very simple conclusion to blame the parents, that's why they came up with the "refrigerator mother" hypothesis in the 1950s. The effort and devotion I have seen in many parents of Autistic children completely refutes this easy explanation.

But, if you only see them in passing in the grocery store, it's certainly easy enough to hold your nose at a high angle and think to yourself "my children never acted like that, my friends children never acted like that, we taught them how to behave, why can't she?"

Re:+1 parent post

[JoeMerchant]

I would however wish that I'd become more self-aware earlier in life. I would have screwed around fewer people with my selfish and obsessive behavior - myself included. I would have had more success earlier in my career if I'd better understood how to present my ideas to people.

Many people don't become self-aware enough to make this observation by age 65... be glad you got here before you died, and try to help a few other people cross over if you can.

Re:+1 parent post

[hairyfeet]

But that comes down to the individual not the tech. When I was 14, the age most start really learning to be social animals, I nearly killed myself in a bike wreck. I pretty much removed all the skin off of my front, nearly ripped my jaw completely off (kids wear a helmet!), knocked out all my teeth, and had gravel and pavement literally embedded in my body. On a funny note i get rushed to the ER and the ER doc pops out and say "Jesus Christ what a day! Listen man, if I give you a whomping shot of morphine you think you'll hold? We had some kids roll a convertible and limbs were ripped off." So I say sure and he hits me a BIG dose so i'm feeling quite nice and sits me down next to a guy holding his throat together, also giddy. I say "WTF happened to you?" and he's like "barb wire fence on a 3 wheeler, WTF happened to you?" hit a dog at 65MPH? and the two of us were laughing like idiots while holding ourselves together.

By the time I wasn't held together with stitches or looked like the Frankenstein's monster I was nearly 23. Part of me wanted to do just as you did and stay hidden in my room with my gadgets but I basically forced myself to face the world. I picked up my bass guitar and ended up going on club tours all over the south. Was I scared shitless? oh hell yeah, but I knew that just like with my bass and computers the only way to learn was to go out and do it.

So I'd say it is more about the personality than the technology, everyone deals with horrible things in different ways. you retreated to escape the mess, I developed a "kiss my scarred ass" attitude. In the end I'm now in my mid 40s and am about at the stage of development I'd have been in my late 20s thanks to that wreck ripping nearly a decade out of my life, but hey they say 50 is the new 30 anyway.

Re:+1 parent post

[tehcyder]

"Most cases are diagnosed around the age of two, when not many children are using the internet" - Dr Dorothy Bishop

Autism is not "poor social skills".

On slashdot, anyone who has no friends because they are anti-social diagnoses themselves as autistic (or the current favouriite, having Asperger's Syndrome).

It's in the water man!

[Dutchmaan]

Maybe people are being vaccinated against the internet thus causing double secret autism!!! and video games just make them Rain Man savant killers!

Re:It's in the water man!

[Dr Max]

There are 56.5 guards (.5 cause one is napping due to his irregular breathing patterns) if i shoot 1 bullet at an angle of 36.6 degrees from the horizontal and 128 degrees from north i will kill 26.5 guards with 14 ricochets, and the rest when the bullet ends its flight by igniting the nitro glycerin in the armory. I WILL ONLY FLY ON QANTAS I WILL ONLY FLY ON QANTAS.

smoking causes yellow fingers

[mevets]

A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with video games score high on the ASD. These aren't controversial ideas.

Causation is different, not so much for smoking and yellow fingers. Nutter's blathering aside, the real question is:
Are video games harmful to people who score high on the ASD?
although you might be tempted to apply that question to several other groups.

Its just plain nuts to pretend a link doesn't exist (although that hasn't stopped climate deniers), the important bit is 'what is the effect', 'how do we mitigate it', and 'how certain are we of the linkage'. The rest is for dingbats.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[NoobixCube]

Of course a link exists. Autistic children get a lot of very direct feedback, and lots of reinforcement while they're playing a game, and games generally have much clearer goals than anything else they'll do. Generally speaking, a game never leaves you wondering if you've done well or not, you get points, you finish levels, you finish games.

I think the correlation between internet use and autism diagnoses though is more an effect of everyone's new favourite physician, Doctor Google. Not to mention, blaming autism is the new fad diagnosis. When I was a kid, it was asthma, then not so long ago, it was ADD, or ADHD, now the fad diagnosis is autism; this, too, shall pass, in time.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[sjames]

There is a big leap between "A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with video games score high on the ASD" and any claims of harm. I wouldn't be surprised to find that "A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with nearly anything score high on the ASD".

The most likely relationship is that people on the autistic spectrum tend to be attracted to video games. It is quite unlikely that the attraction to video games causes the ASD.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The most likely relationship is that people on the autistic spectrum tend to be attracted to video games. It is quite unlikely that the attraction to video games causes the ASD.

I suspect it would be a lot more accurate to say that ASD causes video gaming rather than video gaming causes ASD.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[houghi]

The link that you mention is "being obsessed with". Are people with ASD attracted more to video games when compared to a control group that might be attracted to video games? Are they more obsessed with video games or are they just easier to notice?

I can imagine that there are people who are obsessed with stamp collecting, but are not as much noticed.

Perhaps the reason is that people who have tendencies to become obsessed have easier access to video games.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[Anonymous Coward]

"A disproportionate number of people who are obsessed with video games score high on the ASD. These aren't controversial ideas."

double blind study that has been peer reviewed links, please. Perhaps not controversial but certainly not well tested.

"Are video games harmful to people who score high on the ASD?
although you might be tempted to apply that question to several other groups."

make this all other groups and it makes more sense.

"Its just plain nuts to pretend a link doesn't exist (although that hasn't stopped climate deniers)"

Global warming scientists have TONS of evidence. see my comment above about lack of evidence for your contention.

"the important bit is 'what is the effect', 'how do we mitigate it', and 'how certain are we of the linkage'. The rest is for dingbats."

that is why we need the studies done that you fail to cite.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[Anonymous Coward]

"Of course a link exists"
And your evidence is...? Those double blind and peer reviewed and published studies haven't been done AFAIK. I haven't seen them in the trades.

You are correct about the fad thing. Parents fail to manage their children then take then to their PCP and want to know what's wrong with their children. PCP and MHC folks go by parent report and the short in office visit to make a diagnosis. Parents push for a med to "fix" their child. They then often get assigned to a guy like me and when I try to, gently, explain that they need to make whole home changes and that the issue isn't usually the child only but the family structure and parent's lack of parenting skills, I get yelled at at best or even "fired" from the case.

It is like this. There are some cases of kids who have disorders that cannot be fixed, only managed or improved. Often that includes PDD, FAS, schizophrenia and other organic or damaged based issues.

Most (IMHO) are young kids that have exposed to very negative environmental factors that almost always include (to one degree or another) abusive, neglectful or inattentive parents (or a combo, your pick). These kids grow and become tweens, "out of control" at school and home. This is when I often get them. Parents want a fix but refuse to consider that they are a factor in their child's behavior. They demand meds and other services that often include hospitalization. The kids develop anxiety issues along with conduct disorder type behaviors. When they get older, the law gets involved and if not already, your states social services. By this time it is almost always too late for me to help them. They have turned into their parents, have their own children and the cycle begins again.

Most of what I have said is just my opinion, based on 11 years of crisis case management with SED children and SPMI adults.

This job is killing me. The abuse is far greater than what you see on TV.

I need a drink.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[JoeMerchant]

Its just plain nuts to pretend a link doesn't exist ... , the important bit is 'what is the effect', 'how do we mitigate it', and 'how certain are we of the linkage'. The rest is for dingbats.

Arguably, without ASD, the world wouldn't have computer chips, video games, satellites, etc... so, ASD caused video games, and maybe ASD individuals like to play video games more than non-ASD individuals. Would ASD'ers integrate with "regular" society better if they played less video games? Perhaps. What seems to be happening in the last 25 years from my perspective is that "regular" society is learning to integrate better with ASD'ers, in part by playing more video games.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[JoeMerchant]

We went to the physician for our kids' annual checkup, ages 4 and 6. We take them together to get it out of the way in one exposure to the waiting room instead of two. While in the examination room, one of our kids had a bad case of bored wiggles (granted, it was a really bad case.) Without asking us or discussing it at all, the pediatrician wrote us a referral to what people in town call the "Ritalin clinic," you go there to get your ADHD diagnosis and associated 'scripts and I believe they have a 99% "yes" rating for parents coming in with referrals.

We didn't go, we are managing our kids without the drugs. We haven't gone through 4 years of "trying to get the meds balanced," we have gone through 4 years of trying to get our kids balanced. We don't have bi-monthly visits to the doctor to check for signs of liver damage, we don't get wigged out if a script is running out or we forgot our pills... in short, we're not pumping thousands of dollars a year into the medico-pharma complex to get some false reassurance that we're doing everything we can to "manage" our children.

I know some kids who meds have clearly helped, but for every one of those, I know at least 2 more who meds have clearly done absolutely nothing for, and I can't see any evidence that the "practicing physicians" are doing anything other than "well, this pill has had the best success rate for my patients in your condition (oh, and the junkets to Cancun sponsored by the manufacturer don't hurt), let's give this a try for six weeks and you tell me if it works..."

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[KahabutDieDrake]

/me buys you a drink

It's not often that I come across someone that can make a rational case for behavior disorder in our society. This is it. The video games didn't do, the books didn't do it, the TV didn't do it. YOUR SHITTY PARENTING DID IT. That message needs to be repeated as loudly as we can manage, because until that message is considered dogma, we aren't going to see any social change worth noting.

Another round?

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[t2t10]

She didn't claim "linkage", she claimed causation. And that is nutty.

I wonder how much of the good baroness's success results from taking politically expedient "scientific" positions based on very limited data.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[DurendalMac]

I'd say it's more a symptom than a cause. Autism tends to develop well before kids get into video games or the internet. However, folks who are autistic probably do spend a lot of time playing video games and getting on the internet.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[shermo]

Stories like this explain why people don't trust doctors when they say vaccines don't cause Autism.

You should be able to trust your doctor shouldn't you? :(

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[Zancarius]

Don't try to bring climate change denial in here as though it somehow creates support for your viewpoint.

The OP probably included that with the expectation that moderators might not carefully follow his argument and instead offer a positive mod simply on the premise that he's opposed to "climate deniers" and so are they. I conclude this based partly on the fact that he even goes so far as to use very similar language to that echoed frequently in the climate change debates here on Slashdot such as (quoting immediately from his post) "'what is the effect', 'how do we mitigate it', and 'how certain are we of the linkage'." There's no attempt provide evidence supporting the claim that video games might cause ASD (instead, he chooses to indirectly mock anyone who might disagree) and almost coincidentally, neither does Professor Greenfield provide evidence. mevets ought to be modded down for intellectual dishonesty and attempting to implicitly tie causation to something that has yet to be supported by research findings.

Given that his post is currently at +4, Insightful, the tactic of tacking on a statement relating disputes with video game-caused ASD to climate change "deniers" in order to attract sympathetic moderators seems to be working and that is unfortunate.

Re:smoking causes yellow fingers

[RivenAleem]

The real question is whether there is a link between autism and keyboardturning/backpeddling.

I'll be off to hell now.

Crazy

[crdotson]

News flash, professors can be just as crazy as other humans.

Re:Crazy

[Col Bat Guano]

News flash : The employment process and skills required for professors works to screen out most crazy humans, leading to a difference in overall craziness profile.

Re:Crazy

[Dunbal]

I think you meant to say "screen in", not "screen out".

Re:Crazy

[EdgeCreeper]

I think Queen Bitch is a much more appropriate term here.

When Professor Dorothy Bishop raised concerns, Professor Greenfield responded: “it’s not really for Dorothy to comment on how I run my career”.

It certainly looks like that she is saying these things to pander to a a certain group of people which she believes will further her career. It is not certain that this is the case, but I'd bet on it.

Re:Crazy

[houghi]

And research causes cancer in rats.

Re:Crazy

[martas]

Let's get something straight -- she is not crazy, she is a MEDIA WHORE. Just like Andrew Wakefield before her, and many others. If she were crazy, I could just shrug my shoulders and move on. But this is sooo much worse than that -- a calculated, cold-hearted misinformation campaign that is designed to use irrational fears in parents to her advantage, most likely causing a lot of harm to children in the process.

There aren't many news stories that get me angry; this is one of them.

Re:Crazy

[crdotson]

That's hilarious! Only on slashdot could I get a reply on a topic about "insane" by someone named "bat shit". Thanks, you made my day with that!

Re:Crazy

[TheRaven64]

Spoken like someone who has never spent any time in academia.

Re:Crazy

[segedunum]

You are pretty close to the truth I'm afraid. I've always found Susan Greenfield to be sensationalist, full of her own self-importance and with very little if any evidence to back up what she claims. She points to something and claims that's what it is. Her TV programmes here in the UK have always disturbed me and she is a perfect example of why the general population is so distrustful of so called scientists. She doesn't do them any more because she was pushed off by the Royal Institution.

Sadly, there are other 'scientists' who have followed her. When people challenge them on what they say and claim they think they can hide behind the cloak of being a scientist.

Re:Crazy

[Oligonicella]

"News flash : The employment process and skills required..."

Bullshit. That's just something you want to believe.

Re:Crazy

[Eunuchswear]

There are many "professors" out there who lecture maybe 2 or 3 days a year on a niche topic, sometimes but not necessarily related to the industry they work in. Many of these people derive the gig and title more from their buddy-network than anything else.

And the relevance of this to the ramblings of Lady Susan Greenfield, Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University,Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur and former director of the Royal Institution is?

She may be a nut, but a minor professor she isn't.

Re:Crazy

[budgenator]

Comparing Greenfield to Wakeman is unduly harsh; Wakefield was concocting "research" to discredit a MMR vaccine that he intended to be competeing against.

Re:Crazy

[loufoque]

She's a woman, and even worse than that, a baroness.
Who would put any credit in what she's saying? She clearly doesn't know anything about children, science, video games, or even people.

Re:Crazy

[tibit]

This is a reverse ad-hominem FTW. Someone else "attacked" her behavior (and not her as a person!), and she turns it into a personal attack on the attacker. I guess it's a start of a slipper slope. Legion d'honneur, my ass.

Re:Crazy

[Ocker3]

Plus, she's a Pharmacologist, not a Psychologist, so her field of expertise is chemistry, not childhood development.

Re:Crazy

[Ocker3]

So why do they keep her around? Because she's a Baroness and helps them fundraise?

Re:Crazy

[Col Bat Guano]

Um, I spent 21 years as a CS lecturer

Re:Crazy

[TheRaven64]

In that case, your perspective on what constitutes crazy is probably not shared by the majority of the population.

Re:Crazy

[Col Bat Guano]

Head you win, tails I lose hey?

With that sort of attitude, I think I'll stick with my original premise.

Re:Crazy

[spads]

Finally, someone who hits the nail on the and delightfully non-PC into the bargain!

(AND gets modded up????? - AMAZING!!)

The emperor has no clothes!!!

Autism...

[tbird81]

will be for a good decade or so, one of these illnesses that people will blame or all sorts of mysterious "evils" that we experience in every day life.

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles.... There'll always be some crazy self-promoting dickhead trying to get some publicity for himself with his stupid theory.

It's a natural human response to want to find the cause of something. That's why gods were invented (it doesn't have to be a rational cause). It's also why these theories occur around illnesses that are down to pure chance or at least not currently explained. You don't see many people blaming their chlamydia infection on aluminium pots, because it's well established what causes that disease! So things like lupus, other autoimmune conditions, cancer (not lung cancer), autism, tend to attract these kinds of lies.

But just because it's human nature give Baroness Susan Greenfield a reason to abuse her position with crap like this. Shame on her. She should know better. I hope she loses her job for making up bullshit (and purposely difficult to disprove bullshit) like this. She's meant to be a scientist, not a self-promoting celebrity.

Re:Autism...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see many people blaming their chlamydia infection on aluminium pots, because it's well established what causes that disease! So things like lupus, other autoimmune conditions, cancer (not lung cancer), autism, tend to attract these kinds of lies.

And at one point, people might have considered it a ridiculous lie to blame chlamydia on a little harmless sex.

I'm not saying that this woman is right (far from it), just that the causes of these diseases may one day turn out to be something we take for granted as being harmless.

Re:Autism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post has to be one of the most insightful things I've read on /. in a while since you've made me think about the fact that modern superstitions and witch doctoring is now, rather than mysterious spirits or what have you, revolving around misunderstanding of science.

Huh. You've actually got me thinking about writing a paper comparing superstitions of the past with those of the present. And I haven't been in school for ages.

Re:Autism...

[Dunbal]

Make sure you sacrifice 3 chickens at midnight on a moonless night first, if you ever want your paper to be published. Don't forget to wear your underpants inside out on your head while you do this.

Re:Autism...

[_merlin]

The irony is a bunch of the things you listed really were the cause of serious heath problems. The negative impact of lead build-up in the body is well-known. Mercury in the ocean caused the Minamata disease. Most studies on non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia show positive associations with pesticide exposure. Contraceptive pills increase the risk of venous thromboembolism. Including things where the "crazy self-promoting dickhead trying to get some publicity for himself with his stupid theory" turned out to be right doesn't support your point. Why didn't you include smoking in there as well? Hey, doctors used to endorse cigarettes after all.

Re:Autism...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point: whether or not any individual item on the list is harmful, there is no credible evidence that any of them cause autism. In fact, AFAIK, there is no credible evidence that *anything* other than pure genetic chance causes autism.

Re:Autism...

[kaiidth]

Greenfield actually was made redundant from her directorship at the Royal Institution in 2010.

It was suggested at the time that, "She became a bit too convinced of her own infallibility" and whilst, "She is an intelligent, lively and interesting person [...] the level of recognition is a bit out of proportion to what she has actually achieved in science." Her love for designer clothes and appearing in places like Vogue raised a few eyebrows.

"Self-promoting celebrity" is not an unusual description. If you were starting a collection of crackpots, you could do worse than starting here.
 

Re:Autism...

[Eunuchswear]

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles

Some of these things are not like some of the others.

If you're seriously trying to say that the bolded examples are not bad then you have a problem:

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles.

Some of the others are a problem in some contexts:

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles.

And worrying about some of them is a good diagnostic of insanity:

Lead in petrol, mercury in the sea, vaccines, internet, WiFi, video games, contraceptive pills, pesticides, radon, highway noise, electrical cables, plastic soft drink bottles.

So, why the mixture?

Re:Autism...

[JoeMerchant]

You don't see many people blaming their chlamydia infection on aluminium pots, because it's well established what causes that disease!

I know what they said causes chlamydia, but the way it ran through my dorm-floor in college, you'd swear it transmitted via toilet seats.

Re:Autism...

[JoeMerchant]

Including things where the "crazy self-promoting dickhead trying to get some publicity for himself with his stupid theory" turned out to be right...

The sad thing is, for every "crazy self-promoting dickhead" who gets it right... they will spawn dozens more taking shots in the dark at the next target. The next one to actually hit something correctly will be labeled genius and spawn a new generation.

Said politely: this is the scientific method.

Re:Autism...

[jc79]

Sorry, but there have been many studies now trying to find a link between vaccination and autism. No well-conducted studies have found any such association. Thiomersal has not been used in the UK for some years, but there has been no reduction in autism rates. Japan dropped the Thiomersal-containing MMR vaccine back in the 90s, and the increase in autism diagnoses there has continued. There is no causal or correlatative link between Thiomersal and autism, or indeed between vaccination rates and autism. Even if there were, which there isn't, a slight increase in autism incidence would be more than outweighed by the huge reduction in disablement and mortality conferred by vaccination.

And what do celebrities have to do with anything? Many celebrities are Scientologists - it doesn't make Mr Hubbard's money making empire any more founded in fact.

Are you trying to suggest that Susan Greenfield makes her claims about Internet use and autism, not because she is misguided and attention-seeking, but because she is paid to do so by people whose products actually cause autism and want the world to look the other way? Maybe you should take off the tinfoil hat.

Re:Autism...

[kesuki]

video games can cause irreversible harm to mortals. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm
I personally know for a fact that those games double my pulse and blood pressure, i was playing starcraft in a research study and they made me sit for 10 minutes still because of sc having driven my pulse so high. i didn't heed the warning and went on to play warcraft 3 until my mind snapped (i was never quite normal as a kid, though) but it was quite harmful for me to game 60-70 hours a week, and as an adult they couldn't stop me from playing it. but yes technology can hurt, it can kill, and either i am not quite mortal or else i just have a strong set of genetics against heart health issues. the last time i failed to eat for a week (ruptured gall bladder) made me feel quite mortal.

Re:Autism...

[Michael Snoswell]

Hmmm, from what I've heard from and read about Susan Greenfield over the last 15 years or so, I would say she thinks a couple of notches deeper on neuroscience matters than most people. She is also very aware of the popular press and the reasons why the public respond the way they do. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a carry on argument from the unproven idea that vaccinations cause autism. There certainly is a huge increase in autism in the last 20 years. Something is causing it.

For what it's worth my opinion is that autism is usually diagnosed before the age of 5 years, sometimes by the age of 3. These kids won't have seen much video games by then - maybe a lot of TV though. I recall reading that autism is pretty much unheard of in developing countries, it's a western phenomena, so something that changed in the last few decades in developed countries is causing this.

I think this all highlights the need for proper research, not knee jerk responses, which may be the exact response the Baroness was after.

Re:Autism...

[Macgrrl]

I don't know the answer to this, but the question is: is autism rarely diagnosed in developing countries because the suffererd are more likely to have died from other complications, such as poor nutrition, before the symptoms of autism would manifest.

I recall reading a comment somewhere some years ago that one of the reasons that we are seeing more cancers is that people are now living long enough to devlop cancer, where as previously they would have died of other causes earlier.

What?

[phantomfive]

If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening, and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed. ... I think these serious scientific concerns belong, at least once, in a clear scientific paper. I don't see how this suggestion is inappropriate, or impudent, and in all seriousness, I can't see an argument against it."

Does this mean esocid (the guy who wrote the summary) is saying he agrees that video games cause dementia? And that he can't find an argument against it? Because I've seen a more confusing summary on Slashdot before, but not in a long time.

Re:What?

[Rennt]

You could always try reading the fine article.

Re:What?

[RichardJenkins]

It's a direct quote from Ben Goldacre in the article. He's saying that he can't see an argument against publishing these concerns in a journal.

Re:What?

[ph0rk]

Are you being deliberately obtuse, or did you just misread the summary and skip the article?

The "suggestion" is that Greenfield put her ideas out into the peer review process, something she is probably afraid of doing.

Re:What?

[esocid]

Exactly, thank you. I didn't write that, but I do agree with Ben Goldacre. He's saying if she feels that she has such strong evidence, why doesn't she publish it and put it to peer-review. He, and I, suspect that she has no evidence and resorts to name-calling for her critics.

The summary was more unclear than what I wrote. I replaced the first "I" with [Ben Goldacre of The Guardian] so you could at least tell who the "I" was.

good because we all know it causes

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Tourettes syndrome FUCK YOU and similar FUCKETY fuck fuck problems. We all know FUCK that you know fuck face. Next thing they'll be saying the Internet causes FUCK problems with people's ability to interact in a FUCK face to FUCK face context. FUCKERS.

Re:good because we all know it causes

[Dunbal]

The interesting this is that coprolalia quite literally means "talking shit".

Re:good because we all know it causes

[budgenator]

Tourette's was once considered a rare and bizarre syndrome, most often associated with the exclamation of obscene words or socially inappropriate and derogatory remarks (coprolalia), but this symptom is present in only a small minority of people with Tourette's.

Re:good because we all know it causes

[JoeMerchant]

A 90+ crone that lived next to my place of business would occasionally have, or feign, bouts of Tourettes. Funny thing about her was that "Pussy Galore" was one of her most common phrases...

As a parent with an autistic child...

[myrt]

This guy is worse then Jenny McCarthy.

Re:As a parent with an autistic child...

[rve]

This guy is worse then Jenny McCarthy.

Baroness Susan Greenfield could be a guy, I guess. After all, Jenny is perfectly cromulent boys name in the UK as well.

here's one argument:

[Goldsmith]

Here's one argument:

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Anyone else in science needs to ask themselves this question: is there some journal somewhere which would publish this, even if it was wrong or falsified? I have no idea whether or not this particular researcher's claims are crazy, but I have complete confidence that they could be published in a scientific paper somewhere.

Why then, do we care?

Re:here's one argument:

[Anubis IV]

You're basically suggesting that crowd sourcing is better than peer review. Crowd sourcing works for some things. For simple fact finding or culling through large amounts of data, it can work. For researching things that may take years to study and would require a background in the field, not so much. In fact, the only place you'll find people who are qualified to check you on things like that are, you guessed it, amongst your peers in the field. The only reason to skip them and go straight to the press is because you're playing a political game, and politics should have no place in research.

I suppose I'm being a bit idealistic and naive, however.

Also, I think you're intentionally being obtuse by suggesting that getting it published anywhere is sufficient. Sure, there are crap conferences and journals out there. And if you get published in one of them instead of a higher tier publication it speaks volumes about the quality of your work and how much stock will be put in it. But the major publications still do their job pretty darn well, and you really need to get published in one that has an established reputation if you want for your work to be taken seriously.

Re:here's one argument:

[G3ckoG33k]

"Anyone else in science needs to ask themselves this question: is there some journal somewhere which would publish this, even if it was wrong or falsified?"

Yes, there would be dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed journals that would love to publish well done research on this matter.

As it is a highly debated area any article would get high quotations which is the bread and butter for these journals. If it is plausible it would be highly cited for the wrong reason, bad science, then they will not publish it.

Greenfield probably shot from her hip, with no data to back up her claim, or any data that would support her view of causation and get published in a serious, peer-reviewed journal.

Re:here's one argument:

[artor3]

The critical review in the mass media isn't "complete and honest". It's the crazed shoutings of a hundred million uninformed assholes, each with their own axe to grind. There will be some good feedback buried in the mountains of shit, but you could have gotten ~80% of it (without all the noise) by undergoing peer review.

Publishing in the mass media instead of traditional channels is like using a really crappy amplifier. You may get a few extra decibels of output, but the SNR is going to be trashed. Plus you have the additional downside of scaring millions of people, and possibly even tricking them into harming themselves or others. Of course, for many people who skip peer review, that's the whole goal. They want fame and money, and nothing gets ratings like some good ole fashioned fear mongering.

And for the record, getting published in the New Elbonia Journal of Medicine doesn't constitute peer review. The fact that trash journals exist doesn't invalidate the process.

Re:here's one argument:

[im_thatoneguy]

When I think "scientific rigor" the first association that springs to mind is "mass media journalism". /s

Re:here's one argument:

[orzetto]

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Uh, I don't think so. Have you gone through peer review in a scientific journal? The process is long and can last 6 months or even a year. It is very thorough as there is always something that can be improved in a paper. In my experience papers usually come out better than the entered the process. You do encounter the occasional dick reviewer, but that is not enough to break the system.

Critical review by mass media is not done by specialists who have several months to write their comments. It is done by journalists on a field they are incompetent in within an afternoon. It is done by pundits with an agenda (in this case against videogames and Internet), who will put their own spin on the issue. It is then fed to the unwashed masses who know nothing of the subject and can easily be swayed.

The proper process is: first peer review, then, when the findings have been verified, you go to the public.

[I]s there some journal somewhere which would publish this, even if it was wrong or falsified?

You betcha. The results are interesting either way.

Re:here's one argument:

[martas]

This is simply false, all of it. 1) the "critical review" you get by publishing in mass media may be honest eventually, but with high probability there will be an initial phase of sensationalism and media panic that may last anywhere from weeks to years (e.g. see MMR vaccine controversy). 2) your claim about the failure of the peer review process is an extremely strong one, and you make it without presenting any sort of evidence; simply put, you're "full of shit", as they'd say. If you do have such evidence, I'd love to see it; but at least within the scientific fields I'm familiar with, the peer review process is alive and well. Good ideas are recognized, mistakes are discovered, progress is made. Simple as that.

Re:here's one argument:

[Sockatume]

You've incorrectly assumed that research was performed. It wasn't.

Re:here's one argument:

[Goldsmith]

I've been on both sides of the peer review process many times.

What is the difference between a modern scientist and a pundit? A modern scientist is trained to put their own spin on their work, and there are great professional and financial incentives to demonstrate "success" regardless of the truth.

Have you ever reviewed a paper? When you find a paper which is not fit for publication (let's say some results are obviously faked), what happens? If you can convince an editor to drop such a paper, it will only be picked up by another journal. Now other (honest) people in the field have to fight against published lies when making their case.

My problem is not the occasional dick reviewer, it's the occasional corrupt scientist. This public discussion has done more to expose a corrupt scientist than a peer review ever could.

Re:here's one argument:

[funkatron]

Here's one argument:

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Here's one counterargument:

Writing and publishing a paper (in a journal or even just sticking it on your website) allows for the inclusion of a lot more information than a newspaper article. Measurements, statistics, methods used etc all form part of a scientific paper but are either summarised (and simplified) or omitted in the newspaper version.

Re:here's one argument:

[Oligonicella]

Actually, no...

The "peer review" process is *supposed* to mean other scientists have read the article.

It does not, therefore his point remains valid.

Re:here's one argument:

[Oligonicella]

Perhaps you should google Stapel.

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

"Critical review by mass media is not done by specialists who have several months to write their comments."

It wasn't done by those specialists reviewing his papers either. They simply accepted his data sight unseen.

Re:here's one argument:

[JoeMerchant]

Here's one argument:

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

See: SCIgen, especially the List of works with notable acceptance.

Re:here's one argument:

[orzetto]

Have you ever reviewed a paper?

Why yes I did.

When you find a paper which is not fit for publication (let's say some results are obviously faked), what happens?

Not obviously faked, but I was given a paper to review that had one obviously wrong parameter value. It was off 6 orders of magnitude from typical real values. Substituting a realistic value invalidated the whole paper, as they were solving a problem due to the value of that parameter. The paper was well written and logically consistent, but they solved a non-existing problem.

What I did was to send back with "major revision" being requested, making it clear to the editor that they had to come with pretty convincing evidence for their parameters, or they should be rejected. Rejection followed.

If you can convince an editor to drop such a paper, it will only be picked up by another journal.

That's what happened with that paper. It ended up somewhere else, even though this time it carried a notice about the unrealistic value of the parameter.

Re:here's one argument:

[JoeMerchant]

The critical review you get by publishing in mass media is more complete and honest than what you get in a peer reviewed scientific publication. Why publish in a scientific journal just to say you did it? The peer review and publishing process has ceased to be intellectually valuable and completely fails to separate lies from truth.

Uh, I don't think so. Have you gone through peer review in a scientific journal? The process is long and can last 6 months or even a year. It is very thorough as there is always something that can be improved in a paper.

In my experience, in niche fields, it is a very political process wherein the reviewers are often personally acquainted with the reviewees because there is simply noone else qualified to do the review. Like all good legal-political encounters, the use of maximal permissible delay is a passive-aggressive tactic most often used for anything but the purpose of thoroughness.

Re:here's one argument:

[orzetto]

It wasn't done by those specialists reviewing his papers either. They simply accepted his data sight unseen .

That's what you always do with data, you trust the submitter. What would the alternative be? Replicating the experiments is costly and there is no guarantee that reviewers (who work anonymously and for no money) have the resources for that. Still reviewers are the most likely people to spot errors or inconsistencies as they are experts in the field.

Reviewers filter bad logic and bad math. Bad data is filtered down the road, when someone else tries to reproduce the results. It can take a few years, but if you are caught making up data like this guy Stapel you mention (there was a similar crook in my university for that sake), you usually get your doctorate retired and your reputation tarnished. Good luck with your career after that.

Re:here's one argument:

[KahabutDieDrake]

All other factors being ignored, did you just call Mass Media "complete and honest"? Because... I've got some bad news for you.

Great medieval diagnosis

[hedgemage]

Dementia is no one single illness or condition, it is a blanket term used for any condition that affects normal cognitive functions. The way the original statement was made was just as scientific as the blanket statements about 'hysteria' in women at the end of the 19th century. I'm surprised that someone who holds such an esteemed position in academia would apply such a crude label to a problem, real or otherwise. Perhaps the Baroness will recommend which of the four humors need to be drained in order to cure this dementia, or if trepanation is in order to relieve the heat from the brain.

On a related note, there is substantial evidence to support the high percentage of insanity amongst the noble houses of Europe due to centuries of inbreeding.

Re:Great medieval diagnosis

[msobkow]

From Webster's Online Dictionary:

1: The removing of a bone disc from the skull for limited intracranial exploration

Re:Great medieval diagnosis

[lexsird]

Don't be a knave, hold on a second. What is her data? Let her present her data and equation before we burn her at the stake?

Cue the Monty Python.

She turned me into a newt! ....

Well..I got better.

Re:Great medieval diagnosis

[Tim C]

The problem is that she has been repeatedly challenged to publish her data, and has not only consistently refused to do so but has also attacked the people making the calls.

Re:Great medieval diagnosis

[lexsird]

She's a WITCH!!!

Burn her!

I'm pretty sure...

[FlipperPA]

...that everything is causing autism in children. Shit, I'm probably autistic. And please, that microwave does NOT belong there.

Re:I'm pretty sure...

[hicksw]

... that microwave does NOT belong there.

It's standing right in the middle of the oven.
Stick your head in there if you don't believe me.
--
Hunter Thompson wouldn't describe somebody else's hangover.

Beer kills brain cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Without reading the article, I reasonably expect this is the reason for "games, internet, or some other couch potato activity increasing autism..."

- Many people who we would usually call geeks or nerds have a topic fetish, by removing other distractions they can focus on that. Autistic individuals tend to do the same, they focus on specific topics and are rather anti-social in situations that have nothing to do with their topic fetish. -

But you see, you can classify pretty much everyone as having some autism spectrum disorder (oh god aspergers, absolutely nobody really has that) because they want a label and excuse to be dysfunctional and anti-social and remain on welfare.

On the latter half of the 60 minutes program with the Steve Jobs Biography stuff, they were talking about how iPads can improve REAL autistic individuals ability to communicate (they don't speak.) They showed near the end that the brain of someone with autism has a "kink" or "bend" near the base of the brain responsible for speech. You can learn to speak if this area is "broken", but the brain wires more "capacity" to it. You can't say games cause brain damage, hence autism, so directly linking it is absurdity. Autism is a genetic "programming" bug that mis-allocates brain neurons because of less bandwidth availability. Speech is apparently low priority on our ability to survive. An analogy is that a regular brain has a 64bit address bus to the CPU, I/O and RAM, but an autistic individual has only a 32bit bus to the I/O, so more latency is the result.

Autistic individuals can actually do work, they just require work that is "brain busy" like sorting/organizing things that fits their interests. Because they become distracted if their eyes are taken off the work, it has to be something that is easily focused on.

Or at least that is what I got out of the program. I'm not a doctor, and I don't pretend to be one.

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[epyT-R]

or maybe people call themselves those labels because they're tired of having to conform with some kind of popular standard where they must be 100% gregarious and happy-go-lucky 24/7. after all, anyone who doesn't want to be around people absolutely all the time must be dangerous.

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[Anonymous Coward]

oh god aspergers, absolutely nobody really has that

I'm not a doctor, and I don't pretend to be one.

_

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[The Immutable]

Well the doctors are pretty split on the issue, so I don't think that would help if he was one.

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[Anonymous Coward]

But you see, you can classify pretty much everyone as having some autism spectrum disorder (oh god aspergers, absolutely nobody really has that) because they want a label and excuse to be dysfunctional and anti-social and remain on welfare.

That the spectrum runs from the most severely autistic individual imaginable right up to someone who is completely and utterly non-autistic in every way is kind of the point of it being a spectrum. It encompasses everyone, and highlights the reality that there is no solid line between "autistic" and "non-autistic" individuals.

Also, I think you are misinformed about people with Asperger's. I have Asperger's, and often I wish I could just make it go away. I hate being dependent on other people's goodwill to fill in for my lack of social graces and general absent-mindedness. I have only recently come back around to accepting that I do in fact have Asperger's and that it affects me in certain ways on an everyday basis. I have just spent three difficult years in denial. I had been telling myself I just needed to make more of an effort. I tried to live a "normal" life and turned down and avoided help because I felt it was counterproductive. But I was unable to change who I was and became deeply depressed about my apparent inability to do what I thought I should be doing. It is only now that I accept I have Asperger's that I have been able to see a way forward.

Ironically, considering your framing of people with Asperger's as welfare-dependent layabouts, am in no doubt that denial about having Asperger's has been a significant contributory factor to the length of my current prolonged period of unemployment. However, now that I have come to recognise my limitations and idiosyncrasies, and to accept Asperger's, I feel more capable of living with them and overcoming them. What seemed like insurmountable difficulties have been reduced to minor issues simply by recognising the reason for their being, and I now feel more likely to gain employment than at any point in the past year and a half of job-seeking.

So, frankly, I think you're talking out of your ass. My impression of you is that of a complete snob who thinks that the only true disabilities are those that absolutely cannot be denied due to the obvious and outwardly evident severity of the symptoms. Adults with Asperger's may appear normal. You may like to believe they have the power to stop behaving the way they do. But adults have had at least two decades to work around their abnormalities and find ways of dealing with them. I'd challenge you to observe a 5-year-old with Asperger's and tell me you cannot see any obvious and troubling differences between the way that child behaves and the way "normal" children behave.

I'm not saying there aren't people who are misdiagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders. And I don't deny the possibility that there may be hundreds or perhaps thousands of self-diagnosed "aspies" worldwide who are simply using the label as a way to excuse ordinary human behaviour that most people have the self-discipline to control. Be that as it may, it does not lessen the reality of the condition for people who are genuinely saddled with it.

Re:Beer kills brain cells

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe people call themselves those labels because they're tired of having to conform with some kind of popular standard where they must be 100% gregarious and happy-go-lucky 24/7. after all, anyone who doesn't want to be around people absolutely all the time must be dangerous.

I'm really tired of the constant linking of computer nerds with some ridiculous form of autism or aspergers. I don't like being around a lot of people and I'm certainly not a social butterfly, but that's not some kind of friggin' disorder - I just don't like most of you bastards.

Dad lets me drive slow on the driveway.

[smokepants]

Hot water burn baby! Hot water burn baby!

I'm an excellent driver

[the_fat_kid]

about a hundred dollars.

Jenny McCarthy? Is that you?

[lexsird]

Just how far up on the scale of stupid is she?

Re:Jenny McCarthy? Is that you?

[Killjoy_NL]

And that's on a scale from 1 to 6

Re:Jenny McCarthy? Is that you?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Just how far up on the scale of stupid is she?

And that's on a scale from 1 to 6

The diagnostic criteria for reaching 6 on the Scale of Stupid is "Unable to count to their own score on the Scale of Stupid."

Internet can't cause...

[blahplusplus]

.... a genetically based disability. I swear some of these people are just off the wall clueless. A more accurate statement would be "Heavy screen time stunts social skills". It certainly doesn't cause autism though.

Re:Internet can't cause...

[Kiuas]

That's one of the things I always wonder when you get these types of "X causes autism" studies. These people treat autism as if it's a thing that can be contracted, that you can somehow "catch" autism from something (like vaccines).

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not a medical professional), but isn't it like OP said that autism is indeed a genetic defect. This means that it cannot be caught after birth. You either have it or you don't. As far as I know excessive exposure to radiation is one of the only things that can potentially damage your DNA in each cell, but that's not systematic as the damage done to each cell is random so it usually causes things like tumors (or death) but should not be able to cause autism.

So if my understanding of things is correct - again, please correct me it's not - the only studies about "causes" of autism that have any credibility are those which link some acitivity done by the mother or the father to autism, because that's the only thing that can cause genetic defects. And even if that was what the study was going aftert it would still be a load of BS because there is no way a person spending too much time in front of a screen can damage his/her genes.

I understand why regular people blame things like vacciness for causing autims since it's is usually diagnosed when the child is a couple years old, usually some time after they've gotten their first vaccinations. But they're still every bit as wrong

Re:Internet can't cause...

[Oligonicella]

That was incoherent. Luck is a factor, but the plain fact is that more biota are consumed by and forced out of niches by other biota than are destroyed by luck. Plus, your last statement shows you really aren't all that up on the science (there are other mechanisms).

Re:Internet can't cause...

[DavidTC]

While you are correct about genetic defects, it is entirely possible for radiation to cause genetic defects. That's essentially what cancer is, after all. (The cells are genetically defective and will not stop replicating. In fact, cancer usually requires two genetic defects, one to make it run wild, and one to cut off the self-destruct that's supposed to trigger when it does.) As a child's mind is still developing, any sort of genetic change could get replicated enough to cause damage.

However, there's no process in which radiation from watching TV could cause any sort of autism-specific genetic damage at above normal-rate while not also causing massive amounts of cancer in, essentially, everyone. I.e., I think we would have noticed if the entire human race was sitting in front of an open nuclear reactor at some point.(1)

However, you're entirely right. Autism is often diagnosed (And always could have been diagnosed, except the parents either were ignorant of how development is supposed to go, or deliberately ignoring the signs.) long before any 'video games'. To quote wikipedia 'Onset must be prior to age three'. No one is fricking spending hours playing video games before age three.

As genetic testing can identify the genetic cause of 40% of current diagnoses of autism, it seems fairly clear we should stop trying to blame 'stuff that happens to kids', and instead urge that all autistic people get genetically sequenced, so we can identify the rest of the genetic issues that can cause autism. And at some point, we can work on a cure. (Genetic defect does not mean 'can only be cured via genetic manipulation'. Perhaps they are missing a specific enzyme somewhere, which can be provided artificially.)

Also, it is entirely possible that some autism is environmental. But it's not any of the obvious stupid things that people think it is, and if it is environmental it is probably, like you say, environmental to the mother, as that's really when mental development starts. (And I have to suspect that such environmental causes are less than 5%.)

1) This is a really good way to shut down the idiots who think correlation equal causality idiots. Ask them 'If X did Y via the process you say, shouldn't that process have resulted in a lot of Z'. I.e., if vaccines cause mercury poisoning cause autism, shouldn't that mercury have caused these other problems also?

...how?

[atari2600a]

So by not seeing the data as more ASD individuals simply USING the internet, you're saying it CAUSED ASD? Autism shows it's first symptoms at 2.5-3 years. I didn't have an AOL account until I was 6 & I doubt any toddlers are hitting up Club Penguin that early. If this "professor" had simply modified the criteria to include OTHER forms of electronic media like television or video-games, it wouldn't be so...retarded, for lack of a better word. Incidentally, my first recallable memory is Super Mario Bros. 3, when I was roughly 3 years old.

Wow. Just... Wow.

[macs4all]

It sure looks like Oxford's standards are slipping.

Perhaps the actual thing that is happening is that Autism is this decade's Disease du Jour, and like ADHD before it, is being overdiagnosed at a truly frightening rate.

But just wait until the next DSM comes out. We'll ALL be diagnose-able with SOME sort of mental disorder. So, at that point, maybe nutjobs like BARONESS von Greenfield will eventually be "right" (at least according to the increasingly out-of-their-ever-lovin'-minds psychiatric community).

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[N8w8]

It would be great if everyone would be found to have a disorder.
I have an "autistic spectrum disorder", and I don't consider it a disease, I consider it a brain/personality category.
Therefore, the term "disorder" to me implies that I don't fit in some order made up by people who don't know anything about me, who I have never even met.
If everyone would "have" a disorder, it would be an acknowledgement that the order they made up, isn't.
There is no order, everyone is different. No matter what kind of label is stuck on you by people who think they know everything, you are the only one who can truly know and help yourself.
But the lack of understanding of self, and feeling powerless to work on their problems, leads people to search for causes and solutions in the wrong places, like prescription/illegal drugs, doing their best to stay as much as possible in the victim mentality, materialism etc..
PS: yes, I know some drugs can be beneficial, but psychiatric drugs are mostly about symptom suppression.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[qualityassurancedept]

Having done the BPhil at Oxford I can confirm that I am living proof that the standards are slipping! :) Anyway, an apt literary reference here would be Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish. Yes, we are all pathological mental cases that the Enlightened State has to watch very closely lest anyone deviate. The state and its functionaries cannot be indifferent to deviation and its causes. It's their job to care.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[Velex]

As someone who was born with a gender problem, I hope the DSM loses all credibility when the next edition comes out. Sorry for the rant, but you've made a very good point I'd like to expand upon and get a few things out of my system.

Basically, from what I understand, they're seriously considering listing "electroshock" as a treatment for the gender problem I have. I've looked into electroshock, and it's an interesting approach, kind of like using a stick of dynamite to remove a housefly. Apparently it can be therapeutic for certain kinds of depression, and it can also cause amnesia. Sometimes I think having amnesia would be nice. I'd wake up thinking I'm a normal woman and forget about the time I was forced by people who knew what was best for me to parade myself around as a guy.

One thing it does not do, however, is change the brain's sex from female to male or whatever they think it accomplishes in the treatment of a gender mismatch between brain and genitals. If they ever do figure out a way to do that, maybe I'll consider becoming a man, but electroshock does not do that, no matter what kind of wishful thinking and cargo cult science they employ. Being a man has some advantages, but it's simply not what I am, and wishful thinking or sky wizards or whatever else simply aren't going to change that.

Basically, the DSM V is going to be a joke. I hope it'll be a ha-ha joke. I'm afraid it might be a cruel joke.

At any rate, what can I do about it? I'm already diagnosable with a mental illness according to the DSM IV. Apparently, having a female brain is a kind of mental illness. Being attracted to men is a mental illness. Why not just lock up anyone with a vagina, since most of them are attracted to men, have breasts (and I hear some of them even enjoy being fondled), masturbate while wearing panties, and dress up in women's clothes? A shocking revelation, I'm sure.

For that matter, what can you do about it? I think that's your core point, and something I wish more people would understand. You'll be diagnosed under the DSM V. Once you've become "mentally ill" anything you self-report goes out the window, because you need "help." Any disagreements, objections, or concerns you might have about your treatment are signs of a lack of progress. Because they know what's best for you. All you need to do is obediently submit to their every command.

Well, maybe the BDSM reference is a bit over the top, but from my perspective, being forced to have testosterone in my body and being forced to have a body with male body parts while dressing up in clothes that no real woman ever wears just for the hope that I might get meds that I need is pretty close to BDSM. And I don't like BDSM. Yeah, maybe my body produces testosterone without medical intervention, but other people's bodies also do things that aren't optimal without medical intervention. I'm not hearing any suggestions that insulin should be withheld from someone with type 2 diabetes unless they jump through hoops and barrels and commit to losing weight. Some people can control their diabetes without medication, just like some people can appear to be attractive members of the "opposite" sex without medication. That doesn't mean it's the best way or the right way for everyone.

Psychology is simply a witch hunt couched in technical-sounding language, and people need to wake up and realize that. Psychology is not a science, and it never will be. At best, it can tell you that what you really want deep down inside is to have sex with your mother. At worst, it destroys families and lives.

It's funny. I got my opinion of psychology from my folks. Except when I came out to them and told them what kind of a wall I was up against at that time in my life, suddenly psychology became credible in their eyes. I guess I feel sorry for them, thinking that their son is horribly mentally ill, any chance of being able to realize that our initial assumptions about my gender were incorrect destroyed by mo

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[KingAlanI]

Society/civilization depends on men who act like men and women who act like women. You were born a male, you are a male. If you won't live up to that, it's your problem. If you can't live up that, it's your genes' problem. If a few percent are cast by the wayside, whether or not through fault of their own, so be it. Tough shit.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[macs4all]

Velex: My heart goes out to you; I cannot imagine what a special hell it must be to be trapped in the wrong body; with people on one side (like that 'tard KingAlani, below) calling you a freak, and the other thinking you are mentally ill and need to be "treated" (AND WITH ECT, FOR FUCK SAKES!!!). I thought the days of Trepanning to drain the overheated humors were passed.

Guess not...

I am sure this is an over-generalization; but I have NEVER personally seen even a remotely "normal" person in the Psychology profession. I came to the conclusion long ago (and nothing has shaken it so far) that everyone who gets into the field os Psychology is in reality just trying to figure out what is wrong with THEMSELVES.

As I said, I know it's an over-generalization; but as far as anecdotal evidence goes, in my personal experience, the evidence is insurmountable and nearly irrefutable.

So, it doesn't surprise me one little bit that the DSM-5 continues the de-evolution of science. And you are right: As soon as you are "Mentally Ill", anything you say is treated as further sign of the denial of your illness.

Hang in there and believe in YOURSELF; that's the ONLY person you have to answer to in the end...

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Society/civilization depends on men who act like men and women who act like women.

Who decides what 'like men' and 'like women' mean?

Would that be you?

I don't think so.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[KingAlanI]

can't define it, but know it one sees it ... or doesn't see it.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[Zontar The Mindless]

You should visit Thailand. I've some friends there whom I'm sure you'd enjoy meeting.

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[KingAlanI]

is that supposed to be sarcasm, or do you figure such contact would Improve my attitude?

TBH, sometimes more exposure (not that kind of exposure) has simply annoyed me further

Re:Wow. Just... Wow.

[Zontar The Mindless]

is that supposed to be sarcasm, or do you figure such contact would Improve my attitude?

Are you saying that the two are mutually exclusive?

Look...

[Greyfox]

My generation was exposed to a lot of shit. Leaded paint. Mercury (It was not uncommon for children to play with mercury.) Fallout from the nuclear testing in Nevada and the Pacific atolls. Asbestos. Leaded gasoline. Dentures made of uranium. The list goes on.

People from my generation and older are the ones most commonly found in Congress now. Most of those guys are obviously quite insane.

I'm sure a lot of that crap also addled our DNA, which I think probably explains a lot about kids these days. Having insane parents probably doesn't help, either.

Now if you have an axe to grind with the Internet or Video Games, that's all well and good, but I really don't think you have to go out of your way to explain why kids these days or their parents are quite abnormal. The parents just chewed on too much leaded paint as toddlers, and their kids are getting a double whammy of messed-up DNA and whacky parents from that.

Re:Look...

[DavidTC]

I have to agree with you. People (Of all ages) have a higher rate of cancer than seen before, and children have a higher rate of genetic defects.

Not just autism, but I'm convince stuff like the impossibly common nut allergy. Where the hell did that come from? That's insane. The human race used to live on nuts! And unlike autism, there's no way that could have just been 'undiagnosed'. No, super-allergies have to be some sort of very slight genetic defect.

Well, it's pretty simply to add it up. Environmental toxins cause genetic alterations in cells. Which then either causes cancer in that person, or if it hits the reproductive system, causes genetic defects in the kids.

Re:Look...

[DavidTC]

Gluten sensitivities is hypothetically possible. It's almost never bad enough to actually kill people, so it could be something like sickle-cell disease...something that makes sense in certain circumstances, but not now. And it could have been easily not diagnosed ever...there have always been sickly people.

Same thing with dairy intolerance...that doesn't kill you either, and there are cultures that don't really drink dairy as adults, so there'd be no evolutionary reason not to have that.

So those are like the genetic predilection to breast cancer, or heart disease that kills people in their 40s...as long as it don't kill you before you reproduce, well, those genes are sucky, but we can see why evolution didn't take care of them.

The nut allergies, though, are pretty much impossible. Genes causing people, especially children, to fall over and die when exposed to nuts cannot possibly be widespread in humanity. That is completely insane. It's like being allergic to water.(1) It's clearly some sort of genetic mutation or defect or outside disease, and not actually a normal combination of genes from their ancestors.

I'm talking actual nuts, not peanuts. Peanuts just make a microscopic amount more sense, as they are 'new world' only and thus the vast majority of the planet's ancestors have only been eating them for 300 years or so. But, still, peanut allergies don't make a lot of sense either.

Or, to put it another way, there's no apparent reason why the average level of 'deathly allergic reaction to common things' could possibly increase from generation to generation. In fact, it should decrease, as people, you know, die from them before they can have kids.

As opposed to diseases that still let you reproduce, which should remain the same level, or even get 'more common' as we diagnose things better. Which is what some people think is going on with autism, and gluten allergies, and I'd agree, except that I'm also seeing it happen in things like deathly nut allergies that couldn't possibly have been 'misdiagnosed' in the past.

I'm finding it suspicious that we started pumping the world full of carcinogens, and suddenly we're find a huge increase in diseases that can be attributed to genetic defects or to developmental issues. (I'm looking at you, dioxins.) Either basic evolution decided to take a holiday, or we've managed to increase the background level of 'stuff that fucks with us'.

1) Incidentally, some people are allergic to water on their skin. That, obviously, is not very common. (And no one's allergic to drinking water.)

Re:Look...

[Agent0013]

Genes causing people, especially children, to fall over and die when exposed to nuts cannot possibly be widespread in humanity. That is completely insane. It's like being allergic to water.(1) It's clearly some sort of genetic mutation or defect or outside disease, and not actually a normal combination of genes from their ancestors.

I'm talking actual nuts, not peanuts. Peanuts just make a microscopic amount more sense, as they are 'new world' only and thus the vast majority of the planet's ancestors have only been eating them for 300 years or so. But, still, peanut allergies don't make a lot of sense either.

What you say makes sense if the allergies are genetically related. I don't think they are though. Look at the third world countries. They have almost no nut allergies. Their immune systems are busy fighting off actual diseases so they don't develop allergies to basic things. Even in our hyper-sanitized USA, kids who grew up with a dog or cat can go off to college and come back with a new allergy to the animals. They had it before, but didn't show symptoms as they were exposed all the time. Once they are away from the dander, it gets more noticible when they are exposed again. One article I found talked about people who grow up on a farm and exposed to lots of poop have no allergies.

It does not sound to me that there is much of a genetic cause. Perhaps there is some genetic link to your suseptibility. But the expression of the allergies seems more to be due to your immune system needing to find things to attack to stay in shape. If it can't find real nasties to fight off, it will find something else to work on.

Re:Look...

[DavidTC]

I've heard that theory also, and I'll buy that for respiratory allergies. I used to believe it for food, but it doesn't make much sense.

The problem is that food allergies don't really work that way. Food allergies start with an inability to digest the food. Someone who is allergic to peanuts cannot break down certain proteins in the peanuts.

Those proteins in a case of peanut allergies get tagged by the immune system and attacked to the point you can die. Whereas gluten intolerance is a minor allergic reaction. And lactose intolerance, does not get attacked at all, producing digestive problems, but generally no actual 'allergic reaction'.

I.e., food allergies are attacking 'left over' proteins that shouldn't be there anyway, but for some reason we were unable to digest. Pretty much all problems with eating any food comes from the inability to digest it, and it's only on top of that that allergic reactions happens. (There are some exceptions...for example, it's possible to be allergic to pollen so much you have an allergic reaction to certain uncooked fruits in your mouth. But generally lack of digestion is the reason.)

And it's hard to see how any sort of 'hyper-sanitized' environment could make people unable to digest specific proteins.

Now, it's entirely possible that for some reason a good portion of humanity is, and has always been, unable to digest random things, and it's just recently, due to environmental lack of other allergies, that the allergic reaction just started. But that seems kinda weird to me.

I really think it's the other way around...undigested nut proteins have always been really dangerous for us...it's just we used to pretty much always digest them correctly.

Actually, that would be pretty easy to test. Find a guy who isn't allergic, and figure out a way to block the digestion of those proteins, and see what happens. Or put the proteins in at a later point in the cycle. I wonder if anyone's ever done it.

Re:there is at least one study showing abnormaliti

[sjames]

That is a terrible study. At BEST they showed a correlation. The study has no way, however, to test which was cause and which was effect.

It's backwards

[symbolset]

Near as I can tell it's the aspies causing the games, not the other way around. If the game's not inhumanly complex and impossible for mere mortals to complete it's savaged in the press before it's even launched, and a commercial failure. You have to have perfect recall and reflexes that border on precognition to play some of these games. It's been like this for something like fifteen years. I couldn't beat Zelda on the Nintendo 64 even now.

Maybe I'm just old and slow. Games aren't my thing. My eight year old son used to laugh at my feeble gaming skills in Unreal Tournament. Now and the he'd let me snipe him just so I'd continue to play. When he got tired of killing me he would just follow me around and if I turned about suddenly, wax me on the spot. He's voting now - not the online poll, gamer ranking kind of voting - he's Of Age. I've got a second grader that regularly slays me on some Wii Mario game, when I'm really trying. Maybe it's just me. I think I'm an above average guy, but what these kids can do - it scares me.

I was introduced to computers in what's now called "middle school" but back then was called "junior high". Back then a computer was a pretty serious thing, demanding respect and training before you approached it. I was precocious, and got in this game early. Now it's an environmental thing. My youngest was online, playing games at two years old. My first grandson adored Angry Birds on my phone and Android tablet at 18 months. My oldest son, just now 18, types 150 wpm on the crappiest keyboard available - not because he's deliberately trained for that specialty, but because the keyboard is how he's communicated for as long as he's been talking to people. The keyboard is his tongue.

Re:It's backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey mate just through i would point out that your little boy isn't typing at 150 wpm, if he is a fast typist it is more like 80 wpm, 150wpm would be an absolutely amazing typist...

Re:It's backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, games have been getting easier, not harder.

Re:It's backwards

[f()rK()_Bomb]

Pretty much everyone I know complains about games being too easy and designed for casuals. Not sure what world your living in, games were way harder back in the day. You have to look for games specifically designed for hardcore people to get a challenge these days. Games are rife with dumbing down, civ5 is a great example, I can beat it on the hardest difficulty yet I can only best civ4 on a couple of levels lower

Re:It's backwards

[FoolishOwl]

He's not talking about single player games. He's talking about multiplayer, competitive games. He's not comparing his skill against computer opponents, he's comparing his skill against human opponents. Whether the underlying game systems have gotten more difficult or not is irrelevant to the point.

Part of it is simply aging: tweens and teens have faster reflexes, and that is well established. Some of it is that kids can more easily concentrate on the games they play, because they do not have as great an accumulation of responsibilities. Greater skill can offset these things somewhat, but that works better with games that do not rely on fast reaction times.

Re:It's backwards

[symbolset]

I was exaggerating. He tested at 120wpm. It's insanely fast. A shame they don't value that skill as much as they once did.

She is fast

[Hentes]

She completed a full research on the topic in less than 2 months. It must have been a proper and thorough.

Re:She is fast

[luis_a_espinal]

She completed a full research on the topic in less than 2 months. It must have been a proper and thorough.

She's a Baroness dude. She's awesome.

Re:She is fast

[FoolishOwl]

If she makes it to Marquess, she can do two research projects, or one research project and one cultural project.

Oh, those wacky British Royals . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Here is an interesting scientific question: Does receiving a royal title make you wacky? Or are wacky folks given royal titles?

A "Baroness," you say? Well, I never voted for her. Or are such titles the result of hurling scimitars in mythical aquatic ceremonies?

However, her Wikipedia entry seems to indicate that she is a serious scientist, with a popular science sideshow. Which baffles me a bit, as to her statement and, more so, her reaction to the criticism.

So does dabbling in popular science erode scientific thinking and skills . . . ? Where is The Bad Astronomer when you need him . . . ?

I would like to meet the Baroness. Maybe she could answer a question that has bothered me all my life:

"Who's been sleeping in my brain?"

Lost the plot

[GiantRobotMonster]

Susan lost her grip on rational thinking quite a while ago now.
I suspect it had something to do with being made a Baroness...

This is a little hard to accept.

[Ragingguppy]

I can see television being a contributing factor to autism but Video Games? Thats a little harder to believe. Video games engages the mind and forces the user to build skill, dexterity, and problem solving. This is a good thing. Television on the other hand causes a person to become mentally detached to the world around them. I think that would be more of a contributing factor. Maybe the good professor should try to map the increase between the amount of television people watch and autism.

Re:This is a little hard to accept.

[Dunbal]

forces the user to build skill, dexterity,

Not everyone plays RPG's you insensitive clod!

Not royal, not really a royal title

[Anonymous Coward]

Baroness Greenfield is a Life Peer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Peer#.22People.27s_peers.22). The power to create Peers is exercised by the Sovereign, but she must act on the advice of her Ministers - in this case, the Prime Minister, who will propose whatever the Lords Appointment Commission recommends.

since babies are born that way

[FudRucker]

mothers must have had computers in in their womb

Tips from a scientist: how to stop bad science

[drolli]

That holds for discussion in seminars on future work, a referee report, conference presentation, or an email to get a statement, ever ask for proof. Never doubt the result directly in a personal communication with the author. Specifically ask for clarification on the 'unclear points'. A 'You present very interesting results, and i think a quantification to estimate possible effects would be extremely important' can not be dismissed easily as an attack. If the other side looses temper then, the fault is clearly on their side. If the other side admits the data is not valid enough you have what you wanted. If they admit they never thought about this (to prevent admitting the data is not precise enough), then they loose their face in the community.

sigh

[SlothDead]

Things like this give me cancer...

waste of time

[Ofloo]

This research, is just ridicules, .. there aren't enough cases and the time frame isn't big enough to come to this conclusion. And there are to many variables, .. it's like how people blame smoking for everything, .. suddenly smokers are black sheep, .. governments call for quiting smoking merely because they think it will cut down cancer cases and this will be better for their health care budget, same goes for fast food, I'm not claiming smoking is healthy, .. but a lot of work/jobs are bad for your health too and yet governments want to make you work longer :p Or like using your phone in the car, .. it's not using the phone which is dangerous, but having the conversation which distracts you, .. or dialing the number, .. but so would having a conversation with the person sitting next to you or eating snack, drinking water on a hot day, yet there's no banning people from eating or talking to someone in the car. Governments are trying to find money, so where likely to see more of these idiotic science claims.

Baroness Greenfield talks too much

[abainbridge]

A couple of years ago I had the misfortune of sitting through a lecture she gave. Her arguments contained basic logical errors. Either she's not very clever, or she doesn't put much effort into what she says at some public gatherings. Her success-to-cleverness ratio resembles that of Carol Vorderman.

Agreed with comments,definately some effect

[jago25_98]

This isn't to agree or disagree with the paper but I can say that computer use definitely has an impact on how I think.

If I haven't used a computer in a while I think differently.

If I try to write a to-do list on a piece of paper and try the same task on a computer the results are different. Why? I've been using computers since I can remember but there is definitely an effect.

Baron Greenback sues for competence discrimination

[David Gerard]

Baron Silas Greenback will be suing science advocacy organisation the Royal Institution for daring to make her redundant merely for having run the Institution into the ground.

The neuroscientist, peer and supervillain’s job was abolished after a review of the Institution’s managment financial and financial structure suggested that blowing £22 million on an office refurbishment and leaving the organisation in massive debt may not have been the ideal forward-thinking move for the future.

Baron Greenback has been notable for popularising the notions that science claims that video games and computers will rot children’s minds (except her endorsed computer game product, MindFit, a snip at £58), that one puff of cannabis will destroy your mind forever and that the Royal Institution’s most valuable product is the promotion of Baron Greenback.

“As well as contesting the legitimacy of the firing process,” said the Baron, “I will be presenting a claim in the Employment Tribunal which will include allegations of competence discrimination. I am the only supervillain toad to have been appointed to this iconic post in the 211 year history of the Royal Institution, and cannot see how firing me on the flimsy pretext of having sent so much cash up in smoke that the annual report was printed entirely in red ink can be in the best interests of the organisation, its members or fighting that ridiculous rodent.”

“Baron Greenback,” said the Institute, “has played a leading role, not only in the development of the RI, but also in the wider scientific community through his work in popularising science and attempting to rule the world. Over the coming months, the organisation will focus on its many, diverse and renowned activities in scientific research, education, public engagement and attempting to get out of the hole she left us in without shutting up shop. Spare change? Dawkins bless you, sir!”

Baron Greenback is understood to be applying for Sharon Shoesmith’s old position at Hackney Council.

http://newstechnica.com/2010/01/09/baron-silas-greenback-sues-royal-institution-for-competence-discrimination/

I've run out of mod points but this needs some

[Kupfernigk]

As a former RI member when I lived in London, I applauded their move. Google for why they did it, and understand why many people do not take Greenfield seriously.

Yes, internet use causes autism...

[Nidi62]

And global warming is caused by a reduction in the pirate population: Average global temperature vs. Number of pirates

Making up correlations is fun!

I have two small nephews ...

[luis_a_espinal]

Two months ago the same professor linked internet use with the rise in autism diagnoses (not for the first time)

I have two small nephews, one 9 and one 8. Both exhibited strong autism and ADHD from a very early age (before they reached the age of 3). Both underwent a lot of therapy and the older one is functioning normally (being a very active, honors kid). The younger one, unfortunately, is still battling with autism, and sometimes has to rely on medications to be able to focus and participate in the class room.

Both extremely intelligent boys, strong in math and music and until recently training in TKD. But one, the younger, still suffering with the toll of autism. Now, this is the thing, a question to the Baroness. If she claims that there has been an increase in autism due to an increase in internet usage in these two cases. Both exhibited autism before reaching 3, and their parents (all college graduates in STEM fields), rarely use the internet (to even a Luddite point of view). The kids barely have access to the internet now, certainly they didn't when they were toddlers, at the onset of their autism?

An explanation that these two kids are outliers would feel like a cop-out... and yes, my question is purely rhetorical. The Baroness is just talking shit.

Spanking the monkey is the real culprit

[water-and-sewer]

He missed one step. Internet use leads to increased masturbation, which leads to autism, weight loss, shifty-eyes, sweaty palms, and social retardation. Got it?

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[JoeMerchant]

Except, neither Spock nor data were on the Autism spectrum. Spock was perpetually trying to purge his emotions (and mostly succeeding) and Data never had any from the start. Autistic individuals I know have plenty of emotions...

Freedom of speech issue

[canadian_right]

The Baroness is likely wrong about computers and the internet causing autism. I expect they will find that kids with autism simply are drawn to computer games.

But I don't agree that the Baroness should be forced to publish her ideas in a scientific journal before being allowed to present the ideas to the popular media. That would be a gross infringement of her freedom of speech. The right to freedom of speech is much more important than the right of ill informed parents to not be pushed onto jumping on another silly band wagon.

Many scientists have published articles pointing out that she is most certainly wrong. People should know to take these alarming articles with a grain of salt.

It's not really scientific...

[McPierce]

A pharmacologist is not being scientific when s/he tries to make assertions in the field of NEUROLOGY. Her position and background as someone with a degree in drug interactions doesn't give her any authority on the topic of things like autism.

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[jc79]

I think you mean sociopaths.

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[FoolishOwl]

From what I've read of Asperger's, there are several different coping strategies for dealing with the relative lack of intuition into the feelings of others and the difficulty in understanding nonverbal communication. For one, there's finding socially acceptable ways to limit social interaction. For another, there's developing an intellectual understanding of people's feelings and how they express them. The latter is more effort, and more tiring, than apprehending feelings intuitively, but it does mean that you can act effectively in social situations and relate to other people. I've seen it suggested that some people with AS gravitate towards acting because of the skill they develop at roleplaying and consciously expressing emotion, and that fits with the personalities of some actors I've met; I think the same is true of some novelists.

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[someSnarkyBastard]

Of course small-talk is easy once you know how to do it. The problem for autistic kids is that we don't know how to do it and we are painfully aware of that. When I was a kid, I got too caught up in my own head trying to think of every situation a conversation could branch off into and formulate a response for it out of fear that I might otherwise make some sort of gaffe and open myself to ridicule. Even today I still don't just quite fall into normal colloquial speech patterns (e.g. overly literal, talking over the listener's head, too much jargon, etc.) Additionally, it can be a real tightrope walk to speak about something we are passionate about without going into geek overload; usually autistic kids have a passionate, deep knowledge about a fairly narrow range of topics that most people frankly just don't give a damn about and it can be hard to tell exactly where the line is between being interesting and just coming off as a know-it-all who likes to hear themselves talk.

Where are the scientific studies?

[Mira One]

That's what she is saying, but where are the scientific studies that prove causation?

Re:and also

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you up until this:

I am tired of being called an elitist for expecting people to think *just a little bit* before they act. Stupid people are harmful, and so they *deserve* to be despised and shamed.

I don't like stupid people. I don't like being around them, I don't like dealing with them - I am not, however, contemptuous of them whereas it seems you are quite close to being so. See around 13 minutes in at this TED talk for why it might be best to remind yourself that stupid people are - most of the time - merely ignorant and probably just need a gentle reminder to think. If you carry your expectations around, ready for most people to disappoint you, they will - try an open mind and constructive comments before you dismiss someone as deserving to be despised. You might just end up happier.

Yes, Autism diagnosis rates have increased . . .

[Cyberllama]

. . . Over the last 20 years or so. And yes, internet usage, interestingly enough, has increased over the same time period.

Here's a list of other things you can correlate to the rise in autism diagnoses:

1) Cell Phone usage
2) Rap Music
3) Movies starring Keanu Reeves.
4) The Simpsons
5) Baby names that start with the letter "J"
6) The number of different flavors of Mountain Dew
7) The decline of the fax machine

Clearly, we as a country, need to use fax machines more and name all of our children "Cody" from now on.

Re:and also

[Macgrrl]

Back when I used to do full time IT support, I loathed getting customers who told me they were too stupid to operate their computers correctly (e.g. how to select a printer from a list, how to quit an application). What they were really saying was that they had decided they were incapable of learning.

Because they had declared themselves too stupid, it absolved them from any responsibility to try and manage things for themselves. They would come back with the same problems time and again because they didn't want to learn from their mistakes.

Some of them I could bring around with patience to teach them the basics. Some of the others... I had one client offer to fly me interstate to show his son how to select a printer in the Mac OS Chooser (back in System 7.x days).

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[Macgrrl]

One of the better definitions I've heard are that:

Psychopath does not understand that there are social rules of behaviour and is largely incapable of following them. They rarely correlate the likelihood of punishment with their behaviour and fear of punishment is unlikely to restrain their choices.

Sociopath clearly understands that there are social rules, but does not believe the rules apply to them. Sociopaths may comprehend that if caught they will be punished, but will often see themselves as being too smart to be caught.

Psychopaths tend to be more visible because their lack of understanding makes their anti-social behaviour more 'public' and likely to be noticed.

Sociopaths understand the rules enough that they can fly under the radar when they want to, choosing why to play nice and when to do what they want.

Testing. Testing.

[hicksw]

Some people have a way of interacting with their environment that is distinct from the norm and easily identified in infant behaviour.
These people ace a set of tests.
Some game players ace the tests.
(1) Easy part: False positive. Revise or discard tests.
(2) Hard part: Produce reliable objective test for non-autism.
(3) Extremely hard part: Don't Panic!
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Being right too soon is socially unacceptable. -R. Heinlein

Re:Autism not necessarily all bad

[AlexiaDeath]

It's as hard as learning to walk on wooden legs, hardness depending how much of your own legs you have left. But it will always be strange, like a man with wooden legs. I say hi to people. I never know when its appropriate, so I do it all the time just in case. Things you do without thinking and automatically I have to think about. And just like walking with wooden legs it tires you very fast. IT is good for people like me. Most of the day you can just do your thing quietly without too much communication.