20 January 2021
The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention
In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution.
How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species's inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but asks people to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
| Title | : | The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention |
| Edition Language | : | English |
| ISBN | : | 9781541647145 |
| Format Type | : |
Readers Also Enjoyed The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention
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The Pattern Seekers by Simon Baron-Cohen review. I request this book on @netgalley last month. As an autistic person the title jumped out at me and I wanted to know more, although I admit I was quite ...
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Intriguing Theory. Full disclosure up front: I *am* Autistic, and thus these types of books tend to demand my attention as I attempt to understand my own mind and body. That noted, Baron-Cohen (no app...
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Definitely MUCH more clinical than I thought it would be. I only read the first two chapters (about 20%) and did the little quiz charts at the end. I was jarred by the assumed strict dichotomy between...
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I am autistic, but this book just frustrated me. Primarily that’s because the author kept hammering it home again and again that animals can’t experiment, don’t have a theory of mind, etc. This ...
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There are two main concepts in this book - one is that the thing that makes humans special is what Simon Baron-Cohen refers to as a systemizing mechanism in the brain, and the other is that two of the...
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The Pattern Seekers takes a close look at the human ability to systematise and thus invent, and draws a parallel with autistic people, many of whom fall into the category of (extreme) systemizers.Whil...
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I really loved this awesome book. Psychology professor, and leading expert in Autism research, Simon Baron-Cohen, is one of my favorite authors. I preordered this book earlier this year and have been ...
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For anyone wondering, the author is Sascha's cousin. Interesting theory about neurodiversity and how the tendency to have a brain partial to systematizing (vs empathizing) is linked to autism. By empa...
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This book is an odd one...it's sort of fragmented and jumps around a bit. The claims are also a bit strong for my taste (as a fellow academic). The book starts off with an interesting compare/contrast...
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The argument that autism drive human invention is basically the same argument as that which was presented by Steven Sielberman in Neurotribes. It is of course true but it is nothing newAs for the actu...