> Wired? Give me a break. Look at this article on their main page about animal washing service [wired.com]
Give me a break. Wired magazine hasn't owned Wired News and wired.com for a couple of years now -- it's owned by TerraLycos: different companies, different staffs, different level of reporting and fact-checking... plus a licensing agreement to run stories from the magazine on their website. I think Declan McCullagh is brilliant and doing important work there, but I frankly can't imagine the magazine running this pet-washing article as its lead story (grin).
> My girlfriend works with many autistic kids - she's got a masters in speech therapy. She thought that the article left out the most commonly suspected cause of autism, which is environmental pollution... Why would Wired leave that out? Silicon Valley has one of the _highest_ concentrations of super-fund sites in the country (if not _the_ highest). While software leaves no mess, hardware - boards and chips - are very messy. I used to work in Samsung's fab in Austin, TX and I've read some very scary MSDSes. Perhaps Wired doesn't want to offend Silicon Valley?
Perhaps she didn't read very carefully? I said this:
"Controversies rage about whether environmental factors - such as mercury and other chemicals in universally administered vaccines, industrial pollutants in air and water, and even certain foods - act as catalysts that trigger the disorder. Bernard Rimland, the first psychologist to oppose Bettelheim and promote the idea that autism was organic in origin, has become a leading advocate for intensified investigation in this area. The father of an autistic son, Rimland has been instrumental in marshaling medical expertise and family data to create better assessment protocols... Genetic hypotheses like these don't rule out environmental factors playing a role in the rising numbers. Autism is almost certainly not caused by the action of a single gene, but by some orchestration of multiple genes that may make the developing child more susceptible to a trigger in the environment. One consequence of increased reproduction among people carrying some of these genes might be to boost 'genetic loading' in successive generations - leaving them more vulnerable to threats posed by toxins in vaccines, candida, or any number of agents lurking in the industrialized world."
I didn't write this article to *rule out* the possibility of environmental factors acting as crucial agents in triggering the disorder. I wrote it to *include* the possibility that something very unusual is happening in the Valley in future research.
> According to her, there is very little research literature that expressed parental traits are any indication of autism.
If what you mean is that she said there is "very little research" to indicate that the majority of cases of autism have some genetic basis, she is wrong. All of the major genetic studies of the last 15 years -- and I've read them -- indicate that autism has a genetic basis in most cases. There certainly does need to be more research done along these lines -- which was why I wrote the article in the first place.
This was the conclusion of a major survey of 30 years of autism genetics studies published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology in February 2000 by Michael Rutter:
"The past 30 years has seen tremendous advances in the understanding of the role of genetic influences in autism. We have come a long way from the views of the early 1970s when even behavior geneticists doubted that there were any genetic effects to be investigated in autism. We now know that, despite that early skepticism, genetic influences are hugely important in the liability to autism, that they involve the operation of several interacting genes, and that the liability extends well beyond traditional concepts of a handicapping disorder usually accompanied by some degree of mental retardation, and often with the development of epilepsy in adolescence. In concluding this paper, I have tried to look ahead into the next 30 years. I think there is every reason to be optimistic about the likelihood that the genetic research will lead to biological studies that will, at last, delineate the underlying causal neural processes and that their understanding will have substantial clinical benefits."
Curiously enough, in the course of writing the article, I met several autistic lesbians, but no autistic gay men -- and I heard several times that there were more "out" gay autistic women than men. I wonder why?
> From the article: "I think all tech people are slightly autistic"
To be clear, I was quoting Douglas Coupland is his novel Microserfs there -- just in case anyone's reading only the comments here and not the article itself (grin).
> Give most kids a healthy dose of minerals (especially magnesium and calcium), some mega multivitamins(not the crappy "1-A-Day" candy animal variety), and one night's quiet rest and in one day you'll have healthier, better-focused, and attentive child.
This may be true, but considering the fact that many parents of autistic children spend decades trying every nutritional strategy in the book (or, should I say, the dozens of books) to alleviate their children's suffering and symptoms, a cavalier attitude of "give these kids some vitamins" is not going to be the answer for parents of profoundly affected children.
Parents of autistic kids are one of the best informed and thoroughly-networked communities out there about issues that affect the health of their kids, such as nutrition -- at least those who can afford computers.
There are also a lot of quacks out there. Raising awareness about the extent of the problem, and some "cures" that don't work, can't hurt.
> I don't think I believe in Asperger's syndrome. Real autism, which I have occasionally come across, is a huge and unmistakeable handicap.
If you met 100 people with Asperger's Syndrome, such as Nick, as I did, the behavioral signatures are quite distinctive, if not 'unmistakeable.' I've been writing for Wired since 1993 -- I'm not apt to mistake standard geeky-kid-dom for a neurological syndrome. I meet very bright, very tech-savvy young people who don't give a flying fuck about social niceties all the time. They're some of my favorite people. This is something else.
Generally, I've found that outright disbelief in the existence of autistic spectrum disorders is in inverse proportion to time spent with autistic people and their families.
This was exactly the point. There is plenty of evidence that at least the majority of cases of autism (not all) have *some* genetic component. Readers might want to check out those studies before making blanket pronouncements that it's "nonsense." I tried to make it pretty clear that genetic predisposition could make kids more vulnerable to environmental factors. I wasn't trying to *rule out* anything, just raise a question as to one possible contributing factor in a very particular and unusual community. The research has barely begun.
By the way, the timing of this ZDTV interview with Larry was rather obviously inspired by my story in the new issue of Wired ("Scripting on the Lido Deck," in issue 8.10, October, with the Napster flag on the cover). It's a lengthy story about Perl Whirl 2000 -- the first Geek Cruise (www.geekcruises.com), which headed north from Vancouver for parts Alaskan last Memorial Day weekend.
Larry was onboard, as were Tom Christiansen, Randal Schwartz, Lincoln Stein, Andreas Koenig, Uri Guttman, "Ziggy" Turoff, and many other Perl luminaries familiar to readers here. It was an amazing week.
The story is on the newsstands now, and will be online at wired.com in a couple of weeks.
Slashdot Mirror
> Wired? Give me a break. Look at this article on their main page about animal washing service [wired.com]
Give me a break. Wired magazine hasn't owned Wired News and wired.com for a couple of years now -- it's owned by TerraLycos: different companies, different staffs, different level of reporting and fact-checking... plus a licensing agreement to run stories from the magazine on their website. I think Declan McCullagh is brilliant and doing important work there, but I frankly can't imagine the magazine running this pet-washing article as its lead story (grin).
> My girlfriend works with many autistic kids - she's got a masters in speech therapy. She thought that the article left out the most commonly suspected cause of autism, which is environmental pollution... Why would Wired leave that out? Silicon Valley has one of the _highest_ concentrations of super-fund sites in the country (if not _the_ highest). While software leaves no mess, hardware - boards and chips - are very messy. I used to work in Samsung's fab in Austin, TX and I've read some very scary MSDSes. Perhaps Wired doesn't want to offend Silicon Valley?
Perhaps she didn't read very carefully? I said this:
"Controversies rage about whether environmental factors - such as mercury and other chemicals in universally administered vaccines, industrial pollutants in air and water, and even certain foods - act as catalysts that trigger the disorder. Bernard Rimland, the first psychologist to oppose Bettelheim and promote the idea that autism was organic in origin, has become a leading advocate for intensified investigation in this area. The father of an autistic son, Rimland has been instrumental in marshaling medical expertise and family data to create better assessment protocols... Genetic hypotheses like these don't rule out environmental factors playing a role in the rising numbers. Autism is almost certainly not caused by the action of a single gene, but by some orchestration of multiple genes that may make the developing child more susceptible to a trigger in the environment. One consequence of increased reproduction among people carrying some of these genes might be to boost 'genetic loading' in successive generations - leaving them more vulnerable to threats posed by toxins in vaccines, candida, or any number of agents lurking in the industrialized world."
I didn't write this article to *rule out* the possibility of environmental factors acting as crucial agents in triggering the disorder. I wrote it to *include* the possibility that something very unusual is happening in the Valley in future research.
> According to her, there is very little research literature that expressed parental traits are any indication of autism.
If what you mean is that she said there is "very little research" to indicate that the majority of cases of autism have some genetic basis, she is wrong. All of the major genetic studies of the last 15 years -- and I've read them -- indicate that autism has a genetic basis in most cases. There certainly does need to be more research done along these lines -- which was why I wrote the article in the first place.
This was the conclusion of a major survey of 30 years of autism genetics studies published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology in February 2000 by Michael Rutter:
"The past 30 years has seen tremendous advances in the understanding of the role of genetic influences in autism. We have come a long way from the views of the early 1970s when even behavior geneticists doubted that there were any genetic effects to be investigated in autism. We now know that, despite that early skepticism, genetic influences are hugely important in the liability to autism, that they involve the operation of several interacting genes, and that the liability extends well beyond traditional concepts of a handicapping disorder usually accompanied by some degree of mental retardation, and often with the development of epilepsy in adolescence. In concluding this paper, I have tried to look ahead into the next 30 years. I think there is every reason to be optimistic about the likelihood that the genetic research will lead to biological studies that will, at last, delineate the underlying causal neural processes and that their understanding will have substantial clinical benefits."
> It probably doesn't help that I'm gay either.
Curiously enough, in the course of writing the article, I met several autistic lesbians, but no autistic gay men -- and I heard several times that there were more "out" gay autistic women than men. I wonder why?
> From the article: "I think all tech people are slightly autistic"
To be clear, I was quoting Douglas Coupland is his novel Microserfs there -- just in case anyone's reading only the comments here and not the article itself (grin).
This may be true, but considering the fact that many parents of autistic children spend decades trying every nutritional strategy in the book (or, should I say, the dozens of books) to alleviate their children's suffering and symptoms, a cavalier attitude of "give these kids some vitamins" is not going to be the answer for parents of profoundly affected children.
Parents of autistic kids are one of the best informed and thoroughly-networked communities out there about issues that affect the health of their kids, such as nutrition -- at least those who can afford computers. There are also a lot of quacks out there. Raising awareness about the extent of the problem, and some "cures" that don't work, can't hurt.
> I don't think I believe in Asperger's syndrome. Real autism, which I have occasionally come across, is a huge and unmistakeable handicap.
If you met 100 people with Asperger's Syndrome, such as Nick, as I did, the behavioral signatures are quite distinctive, if not 'unmistakeable.' I've been writing for Wired since 1993 -- I'm not apt to mistake standard geeky-kid-dom for a neurological syndrome. I meet very bright, very tech-savvy young people who don't give a flying fuck about social niceties all the time. They're some of my favorite people. This is something else.
Generally, I've found that outright disbelief in the existence of autistic spectrum disorders is in inverse proportion to time spent with autistic people and their families.
This was exactly the point. There is plenty of evidence that at least the majority of cases of autism (not all) have *some* genetic component. Readers might want to check out those studies before making blanket pronouncements that it's "nonsense." I tried to make it pretty clear that genetic predisposition could make kids more vulnerable to environmental factors. I wasn't trying to *rule out* anything, just raise a question as to one possible contributing factor in a very particular and unusual community. The research has barely begun.
By the way, the timing of this ZDTV interview with Larry was rather obviously inspired by my story in the new issue of Wired ("Scripting on the Lido Deck," in issue 8.10, October, with the Napster flag on the cover). It's a lengthy story about Perl Whirl 2000 -- the first Geek Cruise (www.geekcruises.com), which headed north from Vancouver for parts Alaskan last Memorial Day weekend.
Larry was onboard, as were Tom Christiansen, Randal Schwartz, Lincoln Stein, Andreas Koenig, Uri Guttman, "Ziggy" Turoff, and many other Perl luminaries familiar to readers here. It was an amazing week.
The story is on the newsstands now, and will be online at wired.com in a couple of weeks.