11 January 2009

Feminists Prefer to Abort All Male Geniuses

At the same time that prenatal screening of genes and chromosomes is becoming more common, some parents are choosing abortion for a wider range of conditions.
Just as with Down's syndrome, cystic fibrosis or spina bifida, a mother-to-be could decide whether she can cope with the strain of bringing up a disabled child. With an autistic child, it may mean a lifetime of rejection - living with someone unlikely ever to fit into the family, who responds with blank incomprehension to affection, whose behaviour may be erratic and disturbing, whose condition is permanent. Autism, and its associated condition, Asperger's syndrome, can range from virtual incapacity at one end of the spectrum to the merely strange at the other. To bring up one autistic child is a challenge to the sanity of an entire family. To bring up two might destroy it. _Times
But there is a possibility that male genius and autism follow much the same -- if not identical -- pathway in early development. Famous geniuses from Einstein to Mozart have been posthumously diagnosed as autistic.
Some people with autism have amazed experts with their outstanding memories, mathematical skills or musical talent. Now scientists have found that the genes thought to cause autism may also confer mathematical, musical and other skills on people without the condition.

The finding has emerged from a study of autism among 378 Cambridge University students, which found the condition was up to seven times more common among mathematicians than students in other disciplines. It was also five times more common in the siblings of mathematicians.

...“It seems clear that genes play a significant role in the causes of autism and that those genes are also linked to certain intellectual skills.” _TimesOnline
For feminists, this conundrum presents an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. The more widely abortion can be applied to everyday life in the name of medical necessity, the less likely that socially conservative politicians can ever make abortion illegal or difficult to obtain. In addition, the widespread abortion of males with Asperger's or borderline Asperger's, would conceivably reduce the number of male geniuses and high math functioning males. A drastic reduction of male geniuses would narrow the gender gap, long a top goal of feminist ideologues, politicians, and academics.

Under a nationalised single-payer system of healthcare financing, abortion for specific genetic, chromosomal, or other congenital conditions might even become mandatory -- as a means of controlling costs.

The origin of genius in humans, as well as the preponderance of males within the ranks of geniuses, have never been well explained scientifically. Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, Michael Fitzgerald, believes that "the genes for autism/Asperger’s, and creativity are essentially the same." That remains to be proven, but as a hypothesis it needs to be clarified and tested.

Large areas of higher education in North America have been rendered dysfunctional by militant feminist dogma in the academy. Performing overpriced academic lobotomies on the adolescents and young adults of North America is one thing. Let's make sure it doesn't go further than that.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Stopped Clock said...

There are a thousand quack theories about the origins of autism, but I think that if it really is predominantly genetic, then there has to be some sort of evolutionarily positive syndrome associated with the genes, since if it were not so, the genes for autism would have died out long ago.

However, I warn you, this Cambridge university study really shouldn't be taken seriously. They studied 378 students and found that math majors were 7 times more likely to have Asperger's than other students. The currently most reliable estimate of prevalence is that about 1 in 2000 males meet the criteria for Asperger's Syndrome. Given a sample size of 378, the chances of even getting one person with AS in the whole sample are pretty slight. I suspect that either:

1) Their "7 to 1" ratio is based on single-digit sample sizes, perhaps finding 3 people with Asperger's in the math department and 3 in the other departments all combined (supposing that the other departments make up 6/7 of the university population), or

2) They are using extremely liberal criteria for Asperger's Syndrome instead of insisting on actual diagnoses, a common practice in today's world which largely is responsible for the two cultural stereotypes of Asperger's, the absent-minded professor and the heartless psychopath.

In any case, even a sample size of six demands an explanation, and so I suspect AS people are attracted to mathematics because it is a field that doesn't really require good social skills. It does not necessarily indicate that Asperger's syndrome actually imbues greater mathematical ability, and it still remains that likely more than 99% of math majors and mathematicians do not have Asperger's Syndrome. The correlation among siblings can be explained by the fact that autism is a spectrum disorder, and families with diagnosed autistic children often have mild symptoms themselves. And as I stated in the beginning, it is likely if autism is in fact a genetically-influenced disorder that its continued persistence in the population is evidence of its genetic triggers being responsible for some sort of historically fertility-increasing traits as well.

Monday, 12 January, 2009  
Blogger Stopped Clock said...

It appears the study has a sample size of eight:

http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/19928.aspx

"Among the 378 Cambridge University mathematician students, seven were found to be autistic, compared to only one among the 414 students in the control group."

Monday, 12 January, 2009  

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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell

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