The Pattern Seekers
How Autism Drives Human Invention
Published on 10. November 2020
272 pages
978-1-5416-4713-8 (ISBN)
Description
A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity.
Why can humans alone invent? 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 a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
Why can humans alone invent? 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 a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
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Book
11/2020
Basic Books
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Person
Simon Baron-Cohen is professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. He is the author of six hundred scientific articles and four books, including The Science of Evil and The Essential Difference.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- CHAPTER 1 Born Pattern Seekers
- CHAPTER 2 The Systemizing Mechanism
- CHAPTER 3 Five Types of Brain
- CHAPTER 4 The Mind of an Inventor
- CHAPTER 5 A Revolution in the Brain
- CHAPTER 6 System-Blindness: Why Monkeys Don't Skateboard
- CHAPTER 7 The Battle of the Giants
- CHAPTER 8 Sex in the Valley
- CHAPTER 9 Nurturing the Inventors of the Future
- Appendix 1 Take the SQ and the EQ to find out your brain type
- Appendix 2 Take the AQ to find out how many autistic traits you have
- Acknowledgments
- Discover More
- About the Author
- Praise for "The Pattern Seekers
- Notes and Further Reading
- Figure Notes and Credits
