Targeting the Right Species

Since its autistic mice studies have apparently crapped out (who could have predicted it?), Autism Speaks has decided to take the inspired step of ordering up a batch of autistic rats instead. And to think, people were worried the organization might be a hindrance to fruitful research.

On a related note, Autism Speaks also announced today that it is canceling its order with SAGE Labs for the production of some illogical, narrow-minded primates—Autism Speaks discovered it already had an abundant supply running around in the corporate offices.

Mwmpxsmwekcawcsk

Here's an excerpt courtesy of Olga Solomon, in Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of Autism:

“[This review] considers the production of knowledge about autism as a clinically relevant category at the intersection of sense as culturally organized competence in meaning making and the senses as a culturally normative and institutionally ratified sensory and perceptual endowment.”

Is that a sentence? Please don't tell me that's a sentence from the English language. Because if that's a sentence from the English language, I'm going to have to go back to first grade and start over. To be honest, it's a downright shame I felt the need to substitute “[This review]” for “It” in the excerpt, because as far as I can tell “It” was the only word that actually had a referent.

Yes, folks, this is what a postgraduate education can do for you too. Be forewarned.

Tsunami

As harmful as bad science has been to autistic individuals (and that harm has been considerable) it is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the damage inflicted under the heading of good science. Good science has been the tsunami washing across every autistic land, leaving behind an ever expanding legacy of destruction and mayhem.

What autistic peace was disturbed when good science crashed ashore?

Embarrassment of Riches

So now we have best-selling books decrying “bad science,” do we? Hell, I think I would give my left arm and half a fortune to meet a bad scientist—just as Kierkegaard no doubt would have relinquished the entirety of his inheritance for the off chance to encounter a bad Christian, or a Christian of almost any persuasion for that matter, just as long as he or she was not a good Christian. Those, Kierkegaard realized with utter dismay, could not be avoided.

Bad, vicious, grumpy, lazy—yes, I will accept a scientist of almost any ilk, just as long as for God's sake he or she is not another good scientist. I cannot seem to walk across the street without stumbling over another one of those.

Universal

Tripping off Turing's
Tape, like words from human tongue,
Foreground emerges.

To Infinity and Beyond

As regards to the work of John Ioannidis and his colleagues, I have little doubt that it is accurate and revealing, but I remain far less optimistic about where this trend will lead. If our best researchers are now pouring their best efforts into analyzing the methodologies of our worst researchers, then who, might I ask, is actually attending to the science?

And think about what is bound to happen next. Meta-research, now widely regarded as successful and informative, will soon blossom into a distinctive and popular field of its own. How long before the launch of the new and prestigious journals Meta-Science and Meta-Nature? (Might I suggest the latter begin with a thousand-author study on the exponentially increasing trend of co-authorship within the pages of Nature.) Perhaps a Scandinavian committee of committees can begin awarding meta-Nobels for outstanding research into the increasingly trivial results of Nobel prize winners (a surprisingly fertile domain).

But of course as this new field becomes ever more popular and draws in more and more practitioners, the day inevitably comes when the majority of meta-scientists begin doing shoddy work as well, and then how much longer before some enterprising young team, with apparently nothing better to do, begins meta-analyzing the meta-analysis—and so on, to infinity and beyond.

Does anyone remember why humanity turned to science to begin with? I very much doubt it was so that we could learn more about science itself. When the carpenter becomes obsessed with his tools, he forgets to build the house.

Prosopagnosia

Mistaking the current breed of autism researcher for a scientist is like mistaking an all-thumbs carpenter for a brilliant architect—it demeans the value of both brilliant architects and competent carpenters.

Limbo Dancing

Publication—the new standard of scientific evidence.

Statistics software—the new standard of scientific effort.

Postdoctoral fellowship—the new standard of scientific courage.

Peer review—the new standard of critical thinking.

Questionnaire—the new standard of scientific measurement.

Experimental design—the new standard of scientific insight.

Co-authors—the new standard of reproducibility.

Grant proposal—the new standard of scientific innovation.

Grant approval—the new standard of scientific achievement.

Good science—the new standard.

Eloquent Words

Be sure to catch the recent interview of Ari Ne'eman in Wired magazine. While I do not agree with everything Mr. Ne'eman has to say, he does present an eloquent and positive message about the aspirations of autistic individuals, while at the same time being realistic about their ongoing needs.

I have previously noted some concerns about ASAN's methods and policies, and in many ways, Mr. Ne'eman's interview in Wired demonstrates the importance of Mr. Ne'eman and ASAN being open to such questions and criticisms. Mr. Ne'eman and his organization are clearly capable of being a catalyst for constructive change in the community, and thus it is essential that they accept these abilities and responsibilities with courage, wisdom and honesty. When ASAN's actions consistently match the eloquence of Mr. Ne'eman's words, autistic individuals will then have a valuable advocate indeed.

The Uninspired Profession

When modern scientists begin talking process, design and methodology, that's when I know that science has left the room.

Taxonomy

If it were up to me, those who are commonly called modern scientists would instead be classified by their more accurate name—technicians. That would not make them any less valuable—indeed, the work of technicians is often precisely what is called for and can often be the most valuable. For instance, as scientists, Michelson and Morley were not in the same league as Lorentz and Einstein, but where might Lorentz and Einstein have been without the clever experiments of Michelson and Morley helping to light the way. Credit must always be given where credit is due.

But these days, both taxonomic groups—scientists and technicians—find themselves gravely damaged by the insistence of the tens of millions of technicians among us on calling themselves the only true scientists, a total eclipse of the former upon the latter. If one truly understood the nature of science, if one truly thought about it for a moment, then the idea of tens of millions of scientists walking among us would of course be laughable. But this is a joke that never occurs to the gathering throng.

When Ben Goldacre exposes the characteristics of bad scientists, what he is actually describing are the characteristics of bad technicians—science in fact never enters the discussion. Indeed, that's the main problem in nearly every instance of this so-called modern age of science—science never enters the discussion.

In an era in which being a good technician is both stubbornly and somewhat obnoxiously mistaken for being a good scientist, count me as one proud to be instead a bad scientist.

Angling for Trouble

The autism buzz fest du jour is the nearly universal outcry against Sharron Angle's recent remarks regarding autism insurance mandates. Let me state from the outset that I have no sympathy for Ms. Angle—her apparent use of quotes around the word “autism” was uncalled for and off point, and her understanding of actual autism issues appears to be pretty much non-existent. Of course, this distinguishes her from most other public officials, and nearly all autism scientists, only in the sense that Ms. Angle has committed the error of making her ignorance both public and obvious.

On the underlying issue, however—that of autism insurance mandates—the situation is far more murky than the many critics of Ms. Angle would have us blithely believe. As I have stated previously, autism insurance mandates are a clear instance of placing the cart before the horse, because the treatments being mandated for coverage—mostly ABA and pharmaceutical interventions—are not only undemonstrated as effective, they carry considerable risk of actually doing more harm than good. Everyone needs to stop and remember that expense is not a synonym for value, and that intervention is not a synonym for efficacy. Mandating insurance coverage for costly treatments that might be ineffectual at best, and harmful at worst, is certainly not in the best interest of autistic individuals. Ironically enough, what clearly would be in the best interest of autistic individuals, yet are often mandated against—acceptance and understanding—these things cost nary a cent.

Adding further confusion to the matter, we now have ASAN weighing in on the issue, in the form of an online petition calling for an apology from Ms. Angle. Unfortunately for ASAN, it has lost all its credibility on this issue by jumping headlong onto the bandwagon of insurance reform, turning a willfully blind eye to the unscientific and illogical nature of its policy. If ASAN really wants to help autistic individuals, then I think it should be far less concerned with Ms. Angle's remarks than with the potentially harmful effects of the dubious treatments ASAN now publicly and vigorously supports. Indeed, if this is going to become a battle between Ms. Angle and ASAN, then I hope it is a battle both sides lose, because trust me, no matter how ignorant and illogical Ms. Angle's remarks and attitudes might happen to be, the remarks and attitudes on the other side of the autism insurance mandate issue—including those of ASAN—sound no less ignorant and illogical.

Some Housekeeping

A couple quick notes, while I have the chance:

In addition to the posts from Kerry Magro that I have mentioned previously, Autism Speaks has published in recent weeks a near rash of additional accounts coming straight from autistic individuals. There have been at least two posts by Lydia Wayman and another by Dave Beukers. All have been well written and highly informative about the autistic experience, and I greatly recommend them.

With these recent posts and a few other small initiatives involving autistic individuals, I'm almost beginning to believe that it has suddenly dawned on Autism Speaks what “in their own words” actually means. Of course, none of this quite atones for the rest of Autism Speaks' many sins, but I do want to give the organization credit where credit is due.

On a more personal note, there has been little blogging here of late (not to mention, all my other writing has come to a halt as well), and that likely will continue for at least another month or so. My most recent work assignment has become intense, taking more time than usual, and until matters ease I'll have to remain content with being a quiet spectator in the world of autism debate, rather than the surly participant I would much rather be. In the mean time, however, please have a good end to the summer.

In Their Own Words

I want to draw attention to another post made by Kerry Magro on the Autism Speaks blog. Mr. Magro, who apparently is interning for Autism Speaks and will be a senior at Seton Hall this coming year, outlines some of the challenges involved in obtaining “reasonable accommodations” in a college setting. During his description, he provides many helpful insights from his own experience of striving towards independence, with and without support.

Mr. Magro's post is straightforward, accurate and informative, which puts it in stark contrast to nearly all the other posts made on the Autism Speaks blog, including many posts made by non-autistic individuals under the banner of “In Their Own Words” (oh, the irony of it all). These other posts have dealt primarily with such matters as the challenge of being a parent to an autistic individual, the challenge of being the sibling of an autistic individual, the challenge of being an autism researcher working with mouse models, and the challenge of baking autism advocacy cookies. But when it comes to addressing the actual challenges and rewards of autism itself, that mantle is successfully assumed only when Autism Speaks resorts to that rarest of events, publishing the words that come straight from an autistic individual (oh, the doubled-back irony of it all).

It would be hard for me to overemphasize how much this culture can actually learn about autism simply by allowing autistic individuals to speak for themselves and in their own words. Hey, Autism Speaks, are you really listening?

Shocking Words

In a certain sense I of course agree with the many responses given to my recent post that expressed extreme displeasure with that post's choice of words. The use of words such as “cure” and “eradication” to describe individuals and their characteristics is always offensive, insulting, and inexcusable. Count me as guilty. Express your outrage. It's a reasonable thing to do.

But of course I did not choose either those words or the target of those words idly. Ms. Stagliano, her supporters and Autism Speaks all routinely employ words such as “cure” and “eradication” to describe autistic individuals and their characteristics, and the application of those words against autistic individuals is no less offensive, insulting and outrageous than in any other instance. I only wish that those who are so quick to take umbrage at my remarks about Ms. Stagliano would be as equally quick to take umbrage when she and others apply such terms to autistic individuals. If that were to happen more frequently, I would gladly accept any humbling that is my due.

It is interesting to note that a similar course of events has already played out for the most part in the homosexual community. Forty to fifty years ago it was a routine practice to describe homosexuals as in need of a cure and to target their characteristics for eradication. Homosexual individuals quite rightly took offense to such terms and ideas, fought long and hard to overcome them, and today such phrases and efforts have all but disappeared from the culture. The few holdouts who continue to spew mindless invective against homosexuality are now widely recognized as being bigoted and narrow-minded; they are actively spoken out against, they are no longer tacitly approved. (And if someone were to suggest to these homophobic individuals that they were the ones in need of a cure and it was their intolerance that was in need of eradication, you can be sure it would be they and their supporters who would be the first to holler about being insulted and offended.)

If one wants to be treated with respect and dignity, then the place to begin is by treating others with respect and dignity—all others. This is a lesson the autism advocacy community is badly in need of learning, because the number one issue facing that community is its ongoing lack of respect and understanding for autistic individuals. The whole point of my original post was to impress upon the members of that community their need to treat autistic individuals with more acceptance and to see the situation more often from the perspective of autistic individuals. My rhetoric might seem a little too shocking and harsh at times, but if this culture is ever going to rise to the level of treating its autistic members with the dignity and respect they deserve, the autism advocacy community is going to have to be disturbed out of its currently offensive, insulting, and mindless ways. Maybe I go too far at times, but sometimes it's of more value to be a prod than to be polite.

The Ugly Face of Autism

I agree with Kim Stagliano absolutely. Her latest post, in its entirety, would make an excellent choice for an Autism Speaks advertisement. All the essential ingredients are there:

• A picture of a beautiful autistic child engaged in an interesting, meaningful and no doubt productive activity for her—clearly delighted to no end.
• A hovering, disapproving parent describing the entire tableau as “pain,” bemoaning the family's autism fate to the entire world, and wishing for someone—anyone—to do something—anything—to bring this horrible ordeal to an end.

Yes, that captures the ugly face of autism in a nutshell, and Autism Speaks would do well to consider it for its next public service announcement. Now if we could only get Autism Speaks to sponsor some form of cure against the Ms. Staglianos of the world (it can be biomedical, pharmaceutical or behavioral—I really don't care) I might find myself supporting that organization's eradicating mission.

The Cup Half Full

I want to comment quickly on two positive Internet posts that have appeared today in two very negative Internet locations.

The first post is a brief essay entitled Coming Out: Autism in College, written by an autistic individual, Kerry Magro. It appears under the heading In Their Own Words on the Autism Speaks blog, which is something of a doubled-back irony since it is an extremely rare event for the In Their Own Words section to actually incorporate the words of autistic individuals. (Autism Speaks seems to think that phrase means non-autistic individuals speaking for autistic individuals, which although par for the course for Autism Speaks, is both illogical and offensive under the heading In Their Own Words.) And Mr. Magro's post demonstrates quite effectively why it is such a terribly bad idea to have non-autistic individuals speaking for autistic individuals, because Mr. Magro—speaking quite capably for himself—demonstrates that autistic individuals—when allowed to speak for themselves—can be uncommonly articulate, insightful and courageous. Addressing both the challenges and the triumphs of his condition with a precision an outsider could never dream to muster, Mr. Magro manages to expose the relentless pity- and fear-mongering of Autism Speaks as little more than an outrageous lie.

I don't always agree with what autistic individuals have to say. I undoubtedly would not agree with everything Mr. Magro might have to say. In some instances (Jonathan Mitchell comes readily to mind), I might not agree with much of anything at all. But I can't stress strongly enough how important it is that we actually hear those autistic voices and that we provide autistic individuals with every possible opportunity to speak for themselves. It is an atrocity—an offensive atrocity—to have non-autistic individuals speaking as mouthpieces on behalf of autistic individuals. I would note that Mr. Magro is described as a staffer for Autism Speaks. He might want to consider questioning his organization about why that organization seems so intent on putting words into his own mouth, when Mr. Magro is so clearly capable of speaking eloquently and rightfully for himself.

The second positive post coming from a negative location arrives courtesy of Mark Blaxill and the Age of Autism web site. In his lengthy report New Autism Consortium Study Proves (Again) that Inherited Genes Don't Cause Autism, Mr. Blaxill outlines the many reasons for his skepticism regarding the recently publicized report in Nature regarding autism genetics. Mr. Blaxill has done this kind of thing before (and I have commented upon it), and as hard as it might be to believe, he's actually getting better at it. This most recent post is detailed, well researched, sanely reasoned, and even manages to avoid (for the most part) Mr. Blaxill's rather unfortunate and common tendency to descend into ad hominem and other lazy forms of argument. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say his use of logic and scientific analysis rises to the standards of say a Michelle Dawson, it does come within a reasonable shouting distance, and it makes a telling contrast to the commentary supplied for instance at Respectful Insolence, a blog for which I have a much greater philosophical affinity in general, but which seems, at least in this instance, to be willing to take traditional scientists at their word instead of looking more carefully at their data. (A skeptic who is skeptical only of opposing points of view is not really a skeptic).

It's not lost on me of course that this is Mark Blaxill we're talking about. It remains utterly dumbfounding to me that someone who can be so thorough and insightful in criticizing a report on autism genetics can also be so willfully dense when it comes to analyzing his own perspective. For instance I shudder to imagine what gobs of illogical and non-scientific drivel will most likely ooze out of Mr. Blaxill's forthcoming book The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Manmade Epidemic (co-authored with Dan Olmsted). Or to consider it another way, if we could only take Mr. Blaxill's post and substitute the word “vaccines” for “genes” and the phrase “environmental toxins” for “copy number variants,” I am sure we would have the perfect outline for an accurate criticism of Mr. Blaxill's own form of autism science.

As I have suggested in other places, what both Mr. Blaxill and many autism research scientists need to do is take a step back from their entrenched positions and find out what they actually have in common. Because in point of fact everyone is beginning from the same place. Neuroscientists assume that autism is the evidence of something gone horribly wrong and begin looking all over the place for brain dysfunction—and get essentially nowhere. Genetic researchers assume that autism is the evidence of something gone horribly wrong and begin looking all over the place for genetic defects—and get essentially nowhere. Mr. Blaxill and his supporters assume that autism is the evidence of something gone horribly wrong and begin looking all over the place for environmental toxins—and get essentially nowhere. My question is, how long do we allow these groups to get essentially nowhere before we begin wondering if perhaps autism is not the evidence of something gone horribly wrong?

Which brings us back to Mr. Magro and his post at Autism Speaks. It is clear from his words (his own words, not the words of others) that it has been impressed upon him quite frequently that his autism is the evidence of something gone horribly wrong. But there remains something defiant in Mr. Magro's words (his own words, not the words of others). There is a defiance in his content, in his tone, in his execution. It is almost as if Mr. Magro is forcing us to address that question, what can possibly be so horribly wrong about an individual who is so hopeful, insightful, courageous and eloquent? And the answer of course is obvious: there is not one damn thing wrong with that individual.

Perhaps it is time to consider autism as the evidence of something gone remarkably right.

Genetic Litany

Chromosome 7q36, engrailed homeobox 2(EN2), the 16p11.2 region, 15q11.2, 15q13.3, 16p13.11; four regions located on 18q (MBD1, TCF4, NETO1, FBXO15); the PON1 gene; MECP2, TM4SF2, TSPAN7, PPP1R3F, PSMD10, MCF2, SLITRK2, GPRASP2, and OPHN1; encoding methyl CpG-binding protein 2; the SHANK2 synaptic scaffolding gene; the 5-HT(2A) receptor gene; neurexin-1 (NRXN1), chromosome 17p13.3, the two genes TUSC5 and YWHAE.

Cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADM1); RELN and GRIK2; MKL2 and SND1; chromosome Xp22.11-p21.2 that encompasses the IL1RAPL1 gene; the GABA receptor gamma 3 (GABRG3); neuroligin (NLGN4X); the FMR1 gene; region 10p14-p15, 7p22.1, the Q6NUR6 gene, JMJD2C gene at 9p24.1, 1p21.1, 6p21.3 and 8q21.13; Mecp2-null microglia; R1117X and R536W; SHANK3 mutations, GABA(A) receptor subunits, ASMT, MTNR1A, MTNR1B; RORA and BCL-2 proteins; DOCK4 microdeletion on 7q31.1, 2q14.3 microdeletion disrupting CNTNAP5; chromosome 2q24.2-->q24.3, telencephalic GABAergic neurons, position 614 of diaphanous homolog 3 (DIAPH3), 22q13.3.

Chromosome 2q37, 4q35.1-35.2, 8p23.2; chromosome 8p and 4q, P-glycoprotein gene (MDR1/ABCB1); glutamate transporter gene SLC1A1, IL1RAPL1 gene mutations, neuroligin mutants; SCAMP5, CLIC4 and PPCDC; fatty acid-binding protein (FABP7), 5-HT transporter gene (HTT, SERT, SLC6A4); proteins neurexin1 and PSD95; Cav3.2 T-type channels, chromosome 7q22-31 region; neuroligin-4 missense mutation; ADRA1A, ARHGEF10, CHRNA2, CHRNA6, CHRNB3, DKK4, DPYSL2, EGR3, FGF17, FGF20, FGFR1, FZD3, LDL, NAT2, NEF3, NRG1, PCM1, PLAT, PPP3CC, SFRP1, VMAT1; SLC18A1, microcephalin 1 gene (MCPH1).

Genetic polymorphisms of cytochrome P450 enzymes, 2p15-16.1, neurobeachin (Nbea); rs1858830 C allele variant, 3q26.31, serotonin receptor 2A gene (HTR2A); 1q42 deletion involving DISC1, DISC2, and TSNAX; alpha4beta 2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, adenosine A(2A) receptor gene (ADORA2A) variants; chromosome 1p34.2p34.3, synaptic vesicle gene RIMS3; microdeletions at 17q21.31, linkage loci on chromosomes 7 and 2; 2q37.3 deletion, neuroligin-3 R451C mutation; 2q24-2q31, 7q, 17q11-17q21; synaptic genes NLGN3, NLGN4, and CNTNAP2; dysfunctional ERK and PI3K signaling, ribosomal protein L10 (RPL10) gene, glutamate decarboxylase gene 1 (GAD1) located within chromosome 2q31.

Breakpoints on chromosomes 5 and 18; short arm of chromosome 20, chromosome 20p12.2, serotonin receptor genes HTR1B and HTR2C; genes at 3q25-27, deletion of chromosome 2p25.2, chromosome 10, chromosome 1q21.1; Joubert syndrome gene (AHI1), deletion in 6q16.1, including GPR63 and FUT9; duplication of 8p23.1-8p23.2, NLGN4Y gene, inverted duplication of proximal chromosome 14; SYNGAP1, DLGAP2, X-linked DDX53-PTCHD1 locus; interstitial deletion 9q31.2 to q33.1, methyl-CpG binding protein 1; balanced de novo translocation between chromosomes 2 and 9; contactin 4 (CNTN4), chromosome 2q24-q33 region, PAX6 gene; deletion on 18q12, chromosome 5q31, PTEN, 13q21.

Microdeletions at 7q11.23, chromosomes 1p, 4p, 6q, 7q, 13q, 15q, 16p, 17q, 19q, 22q; FMR1 protein, FOXP2 gene; 2q35 and 8q21.2 breakpoint, sodium channels SCN1A, SCN2A and SCN3A; paternally derived chromosome 13, somatostatin receptor 5 (SSTR5) on chromosome 16p13.3; terminal 11q deletion and a distal 12q duplication, APOE protein, allelic variants of HOXA1/HOXB1; notch4 gene polymorphisms, AVP receptor 1a (AVPR1a), mitochondrial aspartate/glutamate carrier SLC25A12 gene; Arg451Cys-neuroligin-3 mutation, language loci on chromosomes 2, 7, and 13; de novo translocation t(5;18)(q33.1;q12.1), p11.2p12.2.

Mu-opioid receptor gene, chromosome 16p13.3, trisomy 15q25.2-qter; 14q32.3 deletion, autism loci on 17q and 19p, linkage at 17q11-17q21, linkage on 21q and 7q; 3q29 microdeletion, haplotypes in the gene encoding protein kinase c-beta (PRKCB1) on chromosome 16; 6p25.3-22.3, SLC25A12 and CMYA3 gene variants; chromosome 3q25-27, inversion inv(4)(p12-p15.3), partial trisomy of chromosome 8p; locus in 15q14 region, terminal deletion of 4q, duplication at Xp11.22-p11.23; SEMA5A expression Tachykinin 1 (TAC1) gene SNPs, TPH2 and GLO1; biallelic PRODH mutation, recurrent 10q22-q23 deletions, neuropilin-2 (NRP2) gene polymorphisms.

Yes, I know—it might have taken less space to list the genetic features scientists have not implicated in autism's etiology.

A Different Perspective on a Likely Mirage

One more thought regarding the report recently published in the journal Nature, Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders (Pinto et al., 2010):

If someone wanted to put forth the hypothesis that rare copy number variation has no causal relationship whatsoever to autism, he would be hard pressed to find a more supportive set of evidence than the data supposedly backing the claims being made in (Pinto et al., 2010). Desperate people often see fantastic visions.

A Futuristic Vision

I can see where this co-authorship thing is heading. One day in the not too distant future a paper will appear entitled Today, consisting of a single sentence: “We did some stuff.” The authorship list will comprise the names of the six billion some human inhabitants of this planet, and the paper will be published in the journal Nature, which seems to have a hankering for these things. Everyone can then go about their business of applying for tenure, comfortable in the knowledge it will not be denied.

I hope that day comes soon; in fact, it cannot arrive fast enough. Because then maybe someone—anyone—will finally feel free enough to develop an idea on his own.

How To Talk Like a Modern Scientist

Humans were once curious as to why certain homes had an address of Toledo, Ohio while most homes did not. Modern scientists, attracted by some sizable grants, decided to look into the matter. Here is what a few of them had to say about their findings:

“We compared furniture arrangements of a large set of Toledo homes versus controls and found that if we focused on unusual furniture arrangements (those found in less than 1% of the homes), we could get some interesting and hopefully publishable results. At first we were disappointed to discover that both Toledo and non-Toledo homes were equally likely to have unusual furniture arrangements, but when we cast our statistical eye further we noticed that for unusual furniture arrangements involving television sets (rare televisionic furniture arrangements), Toledo homes were somewhat more likely to have such arrangements than controls. This is a major breakthrough.”

“We discovered novel candidate furniture arrangements that significantly increase the risk of having a Toledo address. This will allow us to develop home decorative intervention strategies and get furniture therapists to front doors much quicker—in some instances preventing homes from ever appearing in Toledo, Ohio.”

“Our results substantiate the importance of unusual furniture arrangements in Toledo homes, and this is likely to change how home decoration is viewed in the Toledo area. Most people in the field believed that Toledo homes shared common furniture arrangements perhaps in just a few rooms. But in fact most Toledo homes are probably decoratively quite unique—each having their own form of furniture arrangement.”

“You and I may have just as many unusual furniture arrangements in our homes, but since they don't involve television sets, we don't live in Toledo, Ohio.”

“Of great significance to us was the finding that in seven of the Toledo homes there was an unusual furniture arrangement involving a Go Mud Hens pennant, whereas this unusual furniture arrangement did not show up in any of the controls. We double checked against a broad population of Canadian homes and confirmed that those also did not have any Go Mud Hens pennants. This is consistent with earlier findings of high risk Toledo furniture arrangements—such as those involving cheap bowling trophies.”

“The findings, to some extent, are not unexpected. These unusual furniture arrangements are turning up in a number of other cities so it is no surprise that they may be involved in Toledo, Ohio as well. How significant they are will await further testing as to how sensitive and specific these furniture arrangements are as well as what percent of Toledo, Ohio is involved.”

“We have been trying to put together a very large jigsaw puzzle without having the benefit of a nice colorful picture on the box. The unusual furniture arrangements are like the edges, you might say, and they give us an idea of what the picture may look like. With these findings, we are starting to find some of the edge pieces, and that may provide us with some sort of framework for looking at how these decorative schemes work in Toledo, Ohio, leading to cartological features and how these might work in collaboration with the geography, thus producing some of the Toledo houses that we can see around us.”

“The exciting thing about the findings of this study is that it highlights fashionable pathways that can be targets for renovation.”

“Even with these findings, we are able to explain only about 10 percent of the homes in Toledo, Ohio. What causes the other 90 percent of Toledo homes to be located where they are is still on the table. Every little victory is important, but it's still amazing how little we know.”

Indeed.

Questions Unasked

One of the advantages of being an outsider to autism science is that I get to ask simple questions. Take for instance autism's latest hullabaloo, the paper recently published in the journal Nature, Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders (Pinto et al., 2010). There are questions about this study that the media will not ask, nor apparently will any of the study's nearly two hundred authors. I, on the other hand, have no such reservation:

• If particular types of rare copy number variants (CNVs) are only slightly more likely in autistic individuals than in non-autistic individuals (which is what the study indicates), and if the ratio of autistic individuals to non-autistic individuals is approximately 1:99, then aren't the vast majority of instances of these particular CNVs going to be found within the non-autistic population? And if so, how distinctive for autism can these CNVs possibly be?

• How is it that only the CNVs which are more likely in autistic individuals can produce significant consequence, whereas the hundreds of other CNVs (from both populations) are apparently benign? Is this science—or wishful thinking?

• How is it that the broad variety of CNVs more likely in autistic individuals (which are apparently the only ones that can produce significant consequence)—how is it that this diverse hodge-podge of CNVs can all lead to the same diagnosable condition? Is this science—or an amazing coincidence?

• If the purpose of this study was to uncover a genetic signature underlying autism, shouldn't the major conclusion of this study be that there isn't one?

There are reasons that simple questions go unasked, but those reasons seldom have anything to do with the actual results. I have heard the spin being placed on this study in the media, and I have also listened to what the study's authors have had to say, but I can tell you without hesitation that the study's raw data imparts an entirely different story. Let me put it this way: if you are one of the nearly two hundred scientists who has managed to finagle your name onto the authorship list, then the publication of this study is a positive result; otherwise, it is a whole bunch of nothing.

The Unique Accomplishment of Laurent Mottron

I have written previously on this blog about the many innovative and original contributions made by Laurent Mottron and the members of his autism research team, but it would appear this time Dr. Mottron has gone and completely outdone himself in the new paper appearing in the journal Nature, Functional impact of global rare copy number variation in autism spectrum disorders (Dalila Pinto, Alistair T. Pagnamenta, Lambertus Klei, Richard Anney, Daniele Merico, Regina Regan, Judith Conroy, Tiago R. Magalhaes, Catarina Correia, Brett S. Abrahams, Joana Almeida, Elena Bacchelli, Gary D. Bader, Anthony J. Bailey, Gillian Baird, Agatino Battaglia, Tom Berney, Nadia Bolshakova, Sven Bolte, Patrick F. Bolton, Thomas Bourgeron, Sean Brennan, Jessica Brian, Susan E. Bryson, Andrew R. Carson, Guillermo Casallo, Jillian Casey, Brian H.Y. Chung, Lynne Cochrane, Christina Corsello, Emily L. Crawford, Andrew Crossett, Cheryl Cytrynbaum, Geraldine Dawson, Maretha de Jonge, Richard Delorme, Irene Drmic, Eftichia Duketis, Frederico Duque, Annette Estes, Penny Farrar, Bridget A. Fernandez, Susan E. Folstein, Eric Fombonne, Christine M. Freitag, John Gilbert, Christopher Gillberg, Joseph T. Glessner, Jeremy Goldberg, Andrew Green, Jonathan Green, Stephen J. Guter, Hakon Hakonarson, Elizabeth A. Heron, Matthew Hill, Richard Holt, Jennifer L. Howe, Gillian Hughes, Vanessa Hus, Roberta Igliozzi, Cecilia Kim, Sabine M. Klauck, Alexander Kolevzon, Olena Korvatska, Vlad Kustanovich, Clara M. Lajonchere, Janine A. Lamb, Magdalena Laskawiec, Marion Leboyer, Ann Le Couteur, Bennett L. Leventhal, Anath C. Lionel, Xiao-Qing Liu, Catherine Lord, Linda Lotspeich, Sabata C. Lund, Elena Maestrini, William Mahoney, Carine Mantoulan, Christian R. Marshall, Helen McConachie, Christopher J. McDougle, Jane McGrath, William M. McMahon, Alison Merikangas, Ohsuke Migita, Nancy J. Minshew, Ghazala K. Mirza, Jeff Munson, Stanley F. Nelson, Carolyn Noakes, Abdul Noor, Gudrun Nygren, Guiomar Oliveira, Katerina Papanikolaou, Jeremy R. Parr, Barbara Parrini, Tara Paton, Andrew Pickles, Marion Pilorge, Joseph Piven, Chris P. Ponting, David J. Posey, Annemarie Poustka, Fritz Poustka, Aparna Prasad, Jiannis Ragoussis, Katy Renshaw, Jessica Rickaby, Wendy Roberts, Kathryn Roeder, Bernadette Roge, Michael L. Rutter, Laura J. Bierut, John P. Rice, Jeff Salt, Katherine Sansom, Daisuke Sato, Ricardo Segurado, Ana F. Sequeira, Lili Senman, Naisha Shah, Val C. Sheffield, Latha Soorya, Ines Sousa, Olaf Stein, Nuala Sykes, Vera Stoppioni, Christina Strawbridge, Raffaella Tancredi, Katherine Tansey, Bhooma Thiruvahindrapduram, Ann P. Thompson, Susanne Thomson, Ana Tryfon, John Tsiantis, Herman Van Engeland, John B. Vincent, Fred Volkmar, Simon Wallace, Kai Wang, Zhouzhi Wang, Thomas H. Wassink, Caleb Webber, Rosanna Weksberg, Kirsty Wing, Kerstin Wittemeyer, Shawn Wood, Jing Wu, Brian L. Yaspan, Danielle Zurawiecki, Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, Joseph D. Buxbaum, Rita M. Cantor, Edwin H. Cook, Hilary Coon, Michael L. Cuccaro, Bernie Devlin, Sean Ennis, Louise Gallagher, Daniel H. Geschwind, Michael Gill, Jonathan L. Haines, Joachim Hallmayer, Judith Miller, Anthony P. Monaco, John I. Nurnberger Jr, Andrew D. Paterson, Margaret A. Pericak-Vance, Gerard D. Schellenberg, Peter Szatmari, Astrid M. Vicente, Veronica J. Vieland, Ellen M. Wijsman, Stephen W. Scherer, James S. Sutcliffe and Catalina Betancur, 2010).

There you can see it for yourself, in plain black and white, defying what must have been nearly insurmountable odds—Laurent Mottron has somehow managed to get himself not included in the list of contributing authors. What else can I say—this is clearly a unique accomplishment within the current field of autism research.

Indeed, Dr. Mottron's feat is so unusual and amazing that it leaves me wondering how he possibly could have pulled it off. My suspicion is that Geraldine Dawson, panicked at the thought of perhaps being excluded from the authorship list (which would itself be a unique and amazing event), during her mad, entreating rush to track down the head author must have knocked Dr. Mottron over and rendered him totally unconscious for a considerable period of time, thus leading to his name not appearing on the roll. But little matter. In an accomplishment like this—where one has so definitively set himself apart from all his peers—the means are merely a secondary consideration, the accomplishment is the thing. My heartiest congratulations!

Memetic Residue

Can we assume that Richard Dawkins has plunged headlong (and superciliously) into his anti-religion career mostly because the biology gig did not work out?

Bright Dissent

I was thinking of fostering an Atheists Against Richard Dawkins movement, but unfortunately, its first commandment would have to be, “Thou shalt not be so fatuous as to foster a movement.”