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The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention
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About This Book
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.
Reviews
"Baron-Cohen has a habit of making assertions of fact that I'm not sure have reached that standard of evidence yet."
"Readers interested in accessible and innovative looks at the human mind, such as those of Yuval Noah Harari, will be fascinated."
"But it's a much greater leap to show that this is the main engine of evolution, or that it demonstrates how human brains work in real time, or that the two things have much in common."
"He also briefly discusses how 'we can bring hyper-systemizing into education.' Insightful and mostly convincing."
"His central argument, however, is that autistic people have been 'drivers of the evolution of science, technology, art' and that if we are to progress as a species, we must do more to encourage and benefit from their unique way of thinking."
"Baron-Cohen frequently seems to lose patience with all the explaining that is required and resorts to sweeping statements about what he believes, bolstered more by repetition than explanation ..."
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