Brief Respite

This blog will be on break for about a month. Posts will resume around the first or second week of October.

The Blind Fighting the Blind

I have little to say about vaccines: this blog is about the subject of autism, and vaccines have nothing to do with the subject of autism. But unfortunately, the society around me cannot seem to stop talking about vaccines and autism, so perhaps from my distress at the level of noise, I am going to make a candid observation about the two main parties to this so-called debate.

The current focal point of the autism-vaccine wars is the Autism Omnibus Proceeding, a set of hearings in which a rabid mob of charlatans, shrews, shriekers and legal bottom feeders have engaged themselves in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink effort to extract a large sum of settlement money from the United States Treasury, and in which a team of respondent attorneys representing the Department of Health and Human Services—and by extension much of the established scientific community—has taken on the unenviable task of fending off this mob. But as it is, I can find almost no one to cheer for in this battle royal, although if pressed I might be willing to express a little sympathy for the government lawyers. Faced with an onslaught of crackpot theories, off-the-cuff evidence and emotional appeals to everything except the facts, the government legal team finds itself forced into adopting a strategy that at first glance might seem to be the most prudent, the most promising, and indeed, in a practical sense, is most likely the best. They counter this torrent of irrationality by responding with the established tenets and practices arising out of the autism research and medical community—they call on that community’s experts to offer a reasoned defense.

Ah, but there is the rub.

If this were a question of calling on scientific experts with an established track record of aid and understanding for the autistic individuals in their care, then indeed a reasoned defense would have a most salutary effect. But the established track record of the autism research and medical community—more than sixty years in its making—is now one of the most abysmal in the land. Indeed, the very concepts of aid and understanding for autistic individuals seem to have barely scratched the surface for this community, except perhaps as occasional lip service, for on its juggernaut path to becoming the medical profession’s preeminent growth industry, the autism research and medical community has shown little patience for anything, or anyone, hampering the course of its rapid expansion. Thus it is we see that community amassing positions, grants, chairs, journals, expensive equipment and massive hospital wings, while for the autistic individuals in its care we see it amassing overpowering drugs, invasive therapies, haphazard genetic testing, and a relentless confirmation of the words illness, defect and burden. In this age of heightened awareness of autism, in this era of expanding diagnoses stoking the growth industry’s flames, we see the autism research and medical community reaping all the rewards of the added attention and additional resources, while the autistic individuals themselves are reaping the back of that community’s hand.

To employ an example from the omnibus hearings themselves, we have the case of Dr. Bennett Leventhal, an expert witness brought forth by the government to counter the now stale argument that thimerosal in vaccines has spawned an epidemic of regressive autism (whatever that may be). To his credit, Dr. Leventhal manages to swat away the thimerosal hypothesis with the greatest of ease—for after all, a six year old child can swat away a fantasy. But before passing out handshakes, cigars and pats on the back all around, let us consider what else Dr. Leventhal manages to accomplish during his self-assured time upon the stand. He manages to accomplish a good deal of myth promulgation (mental retardation is co-morbid with autism 70-80% of the time; parents with autistic children have unusually high divorce rates). He manages to accomplish the all-too-common disparagement of autistic children as burdens to bear and a gigantic stress upon the family. He manages to accomplish the promotion of his profession’s superior “gold standard” tools and brand new centers of excellence—despite his profession’s dreadful history in exactly these areas—and he manages to accomplish a subtle plug for the use of risperidone in treatment. Perhaps it is just me, but more than anything during his brief and authoritative time upon the stand, Dr. Leventhal manages to accomplish—do you get this whiff too?—an air of arrogance for himself and a massive dose of condescension for all his patients. And of course it goes without saying that in the autism research and medical community, there are literally thousands and thousands of Dr. Leventhals.

The question must be asked: how are the subtly malignant efforts of such so-called experts any the less harmful to autistic individuals than the more obvious quackery of, say, Messieurs Geier and Geier?

In this battle of the vaccine-hating militia versus the scientific establishment, we have a perfect example of the blind fighting the blind. If we must insist upon supplying uniforms to tell the two sides apart, then I suppose we can characterize the vaccine haters as the willfully blind, and the autism research and medical community as the ignorantly blind, but the added distinction does little to make the battle any the more compelling.

Evolutionary Theory versus Creationism

When I happen upon two third-graders engaged in a heated debate about whose dad is the best, I walk on past. I’m an adult now.

Faint Praise for the Brain

A healthy human brain is essential for the manifestation of human intelligence. But then again, a working ignition system is essential for a drive to the grocery store.

Today’s neuroscientists, cognitive researchers, evolutionary psychologists, etc.—they need re-schooling in the concepts of necessity and sufficiency.

The Many Autisms

The research community’s trend du jour is to characterize autism not as a single condition, but instead as a term embodying many distinct conditions, each with separate etiology (albeit unknown). Ami Klin, David Amaral, and Francesca Happé, for instance, have lent their support to such percolations.

Fracturing autism into more pieces might indeed prove useful in expanding the number of grant applications and research chairs, but if we hope to expand our understanding of autistic individuals, attention should be turned in the opposite direction. We already have too many autism diagnoses at our disposal—Autistic Disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder (and all the informal variations thereupon). What have these distinctions gained for us other than increased confusion?

If instead, autism’s umbrella were put back together and expanded to include similar conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, we might eventually get around to asking some important questions, such as why do certain individuals perceive their world differently than the norm, and what are the consequences?

In retrospect, this fashionable period of the “many autisms” will be seen not as a time when we advanced our understanding of the condition, but as a tacit admission we did not possess the first clue of what we were dealing with.

Fountain of Information

My son has taught me about autism—certainly not the other way around. Why do researchers assume they understand their topic better than the subjects of their investigation?

The Distinguished Professor of Philosophy

I could spend the remainder of my days railing against that absurdity known as modern academic philosophy. Let me save us all some time and concentrate instead on one of its more fatuous examples—Professor A. C. Grayling.

I first stumbled upon Professor Grayling while he was still hacking out a career at the expense of a great man:

Once one has sifted his texts and has ceased to be dazzled by the brilliance of metaphor and the poetical quality, one finds much less argument, and very much less definiteness in the crucial conceptions, than is expected in and demanded from philosophical enquiry. This is disappointing.

I hold little hope for the present age, but I trust history will forever enjoy the irony of that assured lecture—Professor A. C. Grayling passing eternal judgment upon Ludwig Wittgenstein.

And from this noble launching pad, Professor Grayling has embarked upon a two-decade quest to define the very attributes of the word philosopher for my generation: university chairs, societal fellowships, a trenchant volume or two each year, a pleasant abode or so in the country, good food and good wine—lots and lots of good food and good wine. Do not get me wrong—it is not that Professor Grayling has been renegade in this particular form of philosophical pursuit. Far from it—there are literally throngs just like him scratching out a similar existence in all the collegial wings. But Professor Grayling has established himself at the forefront of this knowledgeable horde, primarily through means of a considerable marketing talent. For not only has Professor Grayling proven remarkably successful in bringing his message to the masses, he has indeed brought the very essence of himself to the masses, and has thereby convinced a weekend breakfast audience that the trappings of a philosophy professor’s life constitute the good life of modern perspicacity. From editorial boards to off-Broadway theater, Professor Grayling has rubbed a hair-draped shoulder against nearly every intelligentsia-favored artifact from this all too leisurely age, and the Sunday supplement public has eaten it up. Ask anyone in the know: Professor A. C. Grayling has garnered quite the following.

Well, of course he has garnered a following.

And the definiteness in crucial conception propping this mass appeal? The brilliance of metaphor and poetical qualities tugging at the heartstrings of his admiring audience? Let us sift through Professor Grayling’s dazzling arguments on the subject of death:

The fundamental question is how to deal with others’ deaths. We grieve the loss of an element in what made our world meaningful. There is an unavoidable process of healing—of making whole—to be endured, marked in many societies by formal periods of mourning, between one and three years long. But the world is never again entire after bereavement. We do not get over losses; we merely learn to live with them.

But there is a great consolation. Two facts—that the dead once lived; and that one loved them and mourned their loss—are inexpungeably part of the world’s history. So the presence of those who lived can never be removed from time, which is to say that there is a kind of eternity after all.

I admit freely to my bias: I do not belong to the Sunday Times intelligentsia, I am not one of those who are in the know, and I am not a member of Professor Grayling’s admiring crowd. For me this excerpt, along with all the rest, is pabulum I could forgive only coming from a pre-pubescent child; how am I to tolerate it off the pen of a man trumpeting his abilities to think for himself? Elsewhere in his remarks upon Wittgenstein, Professor Grayling holds forth that Wittgenstein has the distinction of being the last of a breed—history’s final example of a non-academically trained philosopher. I cannot say for certain whether this assertion of Professor Grayling’s might indeed be true, but if it is, I would note it also marks the end of an entire era—the end of all that has been creative, useful and eye-opening in the realm of philosophical thought. For there has never been, and there never will be, a true philosopher of the academic kind. When I consider the example of Wittgenstein, and the others much like him—such as Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche—I realize a truism is at work here that would be a danger to overlook: a philosopher for the ages cannot possibly be the philosopher of his day. And, of course, vice versa.

Listen. I am just a simple man from Indiana. I cannot distinguish the good life from a good swig of beer. I have not the slightest idea what it takes to be a philosopher. But I do know exactly what it takes not to be a philosopher, and if I could just get Professor A. C. Grayling’s fat ass up on a pedestal, I could put it on display for everyone to see.

Oh, wait—he has already done it for me.

Two Sides of an Expressive Coin

Which came first for humans: 1) language, or 2) temporal, spatial, and other conceptual patterns?

Try imagining one without the other.

Fractions Are Hard

I see that the autism research community has vigorously taken up my challenge to publish an article in which the list of authors exceeds the length of the article’s content. The latest attempt, although not quite adequate, is nonetheless impressive: Autism symptoms in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Familial trait which Correlates with Conduct, Oppositional Defiant, Language and Motor Disorders (A. Mulligan, R. J. L. Anney, M. O’Regan, W. Chen, L. Butler, M. Fitzgerald, J. Buitelaar, H. Steinhausen, A. Rothenberger, R. Minderaa, J. Nijmeijer, P. J. Hoekstra, R. D. Oades, H. Roeyers, C. Buschgens, H. Christiansen, B. Franke, I. Gabriels, C. Hartman, J. Kuntsi, R. Marco, S. Meidad, U. Mueller, L. Psychogiou, N. Rommelse, M. Thompson, H. Uebel, T. Banaschewski, R. Ebstein, J. Eisenberg, I. Manor, A. Miranda, F. Mulas, J. Sergeant, E. Sonuga-Barke, P. Asherson, S. V. Faraone, M. Gill, 2008).

However, as an outsider, I am perplexed about one particular aspect of this practice. In the reckoning of publishing credit—the kind that can be cashed in for tenure, grants, editorial board appointments, offices with a nice view and so forth (the crucial matters in the field of autism research)—does an author get one full credit for having his or her name attached to such a lengthy list, or does the publishing credit get divided throughout the list’s members? Because if the latter, I am having a hard time understanding how 1/38^th of a publishing credit can go very far. Speaking for myself, if I had to participate in thirty-eight such enterprises to earn one full credit, I might find it easier just to do some original work and write it up on my own.

Or am I being too naïve?

Autism and Disability

The statement that autism is a disability can stir controversy, all the more so because the grammar of the word disability is itself imprecise. That imprecision notwithstanding, let me offer two observations I think shed some light on the subject:

• There are many autistic individuals who are not, have not been, and will not ever be disabled.
• There are many autistic individuals who are currently, have been in the past, and/or will be in the future disabled.

Those two assertions suggest that discussing the concept of autism alongside the concept of disability makes perfectly good sense, but that predicating the concept of autism with the concept of disability is far less precise—if not downright fallacious. We do not know what produces disability in certain autistic individuals—attributing that outcome to autism itself is only an assumption, and in my eyes, not a very good one.

Bicycle Built for Three

Autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic depression) are listed separately in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but a discerning eye will recognize the commonality among these three conditions:

• Each is classified as a mental illness without any evidence of sickness.
• Each is diagnosed through peripheral characteristics instead of direct etiology.
• Each manifests as a cognitive perception distinct from the species-driven norm.

These three conditions are eerily similar, and for a misunderstanding humanity, they ride past as triplets in crime.

Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett

Short-sighted science, intellectual fatuousness, a simpleton’s atheism—who needs to believe in a Hell’s afterlife when we have the tortures themselves right here?

Choosing Up Sides

My stand is always with the autistic individual, never with the relative of any autistic individual.

That is not to say a parent of an autistic child cannot win me over. The ones who argue doggedly for their child’s abilities, who fight and scrap for environments always affirmative, who celebrate autism along with every other feature—my stand is also with them, not because of their status as parent, but because they have chosen the constructive course.

And those parents who make themselves heard by disparaging their autistic child? Who clamor ad nauseum for their child’s limitations, and insist limitations alone be heard? I oppose these with bitter force, not because I have ignored their standing as parent, but because I am resolved to human decency—it is there I draw the line.

The Prerequisites of Language

Nearly all animal species have sufficient biological equipment for producing an abstract language—they can make sounds, they can gesture, they can rub against one another. With access to some mud, most organisms could write things down.

Almost any physical artifact can serve the purpose of conveying a language, as we humans have by now so ably demonstrated. What the other animals lack is what language represents. For what good is an abstract language when one’s entire world is already present, always in the here and now?

And we humans too—we had nothing to talk about until just so recently.

Evidence Against the Flynn Effect

In this era of Google maps and GPS systems, it seems most delivery drivers still need to call and ask for directions.

Control Group

For clinical trials of various autism treatment options, why does no researcher ever think to make use of the most obvious control group—the autistic children who have escaped diagnosis? It should be a simple matter to round them up from the institutions, graveyards and other dumping grounds of irretrievably broken lives.

Or is it not that easy to track them down?

The Two Forms of Human Logic

Humanity currently perceives its world with the aid of two distinct forms of logic.

The first logic derives from the evolutionary inheritance of our animal past. Its goal is survival and procreation of the species, and its impact has been to conceptualize the sensory world into food sources, danger, sex, shelter, and so on. Darwin’s genius was to expose the structure of this biological logic and to lay out its influence as seen from the outside and experienced from within. Non-autistics are born naturally into this form of logic—it is the other logic they must learn to acquire.

The second logic has been extremely recent in its genesis. Its goal remains unclear, but its impact has been to conceptualize the sensory world into pattern, shape, space, time, and the like. The genius of the Greeks and the fruit of the Renaissance was to expose the structure of this non-biological logic and to lay out its influence as seen from the outside and experienced from within. Autistics are born naturally into this form of logic—it is the other logic they must learn to acquire.

Neither form of logic by itself appears to have transcendent power, but combined, they have rapidly transformed a species and its world. Combined, they have transfigured individuals.

An Aside to the Two Forms of Human Logic

Wittgenstein would have employed the word grammar instead of the word logic, and in many ways, grammar is the more illuminating choice.

The Printing Press and the Internet

Each quantum leap in language dissemination breaks the stranglehold of a fossilized institution—the Church formerly, academia now.

Medieval and mediocrity share a similar root.

Snapshot

Someone should take the time to perform an MRI study on personal computers—say Intel-based machines versus some Macs. Each comparison group could be resonance photographed while performing the same task, for instance the monthly payroll. I suspect there will be some differences.

Since the Intel-based machines are in more widespread use than the Macs, their images could be taken as the healthy ones. The areas of highest concentrated glow might be described as the presumptive location for a monthly payroll module, and the authors of the study could claim they have greatly advanced our insight into the concept of computing. By comparison, the electronic flows of the Macs could be described as disordered, and various treatment plans—such as battery boost, a well-placed bobby pin, or just a good shake—might be suggested.

What today’s brain imaging studies show most clearly is our own muddled thinking.

Phantom of the Pinker

Is our tool use mental? Do we toil with hammers, wrenches, knives and awls because we thought them up at one point? Is there a brain module for each tool—a saw module, a lathe module, etc.—or is there instead an all-purpose module for tool use?

Or does this talk of tool modules sound silly?

Then why do we treat language differently? Humans now have many different forms of language, but each form manifests as a physical and immediate fact—sound vibrations, movements of fingers, marks on a page, flips in computer memory, etc. I can imagine a spoken conversation, but only because there have been such conversations, they have actually existed in physical and immediate reality—just like hammers, wrenches and saws.

Mentalizing language distracts us from what language actually is. And dreaming up language modules for the brain sounds like the work of someone confused by what exists right before his eyes.

The Crucial Importance of Early Diagnosis

It seems the world is now awash in paeans to the importance of early diagnosis of autism in young children, and I guess looking back on the experience with my own son, I would have to go along. In our case, early recognition kept our family from accidentally stumbling into such traps as ABA, Risperdal, or chelation therapy, and it is hard to imagine what horrors we might be dealing with around here had we inadvertently gone down one of those roads.

Autistic Children Grow Up

Harold Doherty has written recently about one of the irrepressible aspects of his autism reality—namely that autistic children grow up—and I would like to take a moment to wholly concur with that observation.

Autistic children do indeed grow up. In the case of my son, I find him fast approaching a milestone I can only describe as filling me with a type of very real fear. You see, he is nearly 48 inches tall now, and around these parts that means he can soon ride on the biggest rollercoasters—accompanied by an adult, I am sorry to say. Up to this point, I have managed to control this rollercoaster riding behavior through the use of many carefully arranged discrete trials, dutifully noting all the height restriction signs around the amusement park and accurately pointing out the clear difference between the top of Brian’s head and the bottom of the delimiting line. But that clear difference is not so clear anymore, and besides, my rapidly aging arm can only take so many more tugs upon its fast lengthening sleeve, so I am afraid I must face up to the obvious fact—that inevitable day is about to arrive. Then up up up we must ruthlessly go, and if I dare to look I know I will see Brian there on the seat beside me—hands clasped, rubbing and flapping, his laughs much like a kind of madness, the shrieks a little too loud, his giggles far too inappropriate (well, how can they be described as anything but inappropriate when I myself have a death grip on the restraining bar and mouth formed into the shape of a giant O?)—and then down down down, rushing, twisting and bashing about, the perfect metaphor for those chaotic experiences we as parents of autistic children know all too well. And then the briefest interlude near the very end, the tiniest respite before the terror-inducing words are spoken once more—“I want to go again.”

But perhaps Mr. Doherty would rather I wax more serious on his chosen topic, for indeed, as he has rightly noted, autistic children do grow up. So let me speak of another reality my son will soon be facing, that of entering school—entering school, that is, if my wife and I can ever come to a decision about where that experience should best be had. On the one hand, the possibilities seem far too numerous—public school, private school, home school, special needs, Montessori—but on the other hand the choices seem not nearly adequate enough, for what educational setting can possibly meet our son’s many divergent needs? What school system is going to remain flexible enough to accept him pacing the halls when the urge so urgently strikes, and also allow him to drill deeply into a set of encyclopedias when a particular topic has caught his fancy? And how to avoid the bullies? And how to encourage the making of friends? Heck, how to trick him into eating a cafeteria lunch, considering how stark his diet currently is? The challenges are certainly going to be many. The potential problems will undoubtedly be troubling. The world is a daunting place, my wife and I well know it, and launching our son onto life’s expansive path fills us both with a kind of awe and dread. But then we recall how our young traveler is of the category autistic—and thus how his potential is endlessly surprising and creative—and then we relax and smile just a little, for really, how can we ask for anything more?

But I suspect that vision will remain much too short-sighted for Mr. Doherty’s taste, who having perceived that autistic children grow up, has contemplated the consequences all the way to their very end—all the way to the doors of institutions. Well, why not? We too have institutions hereabouts, some of them particularly well suited for handling the troubles of a child such as my own. After all, what else can I be expected to do with a son endlessly obsessed with ceiling fans, a son constantly fussing about with knobs and buttons and switches? Unless experts recommend otherwise and insist he be committed to a more specialized place of residence—such as M.I.T.—then I will have to make the call to Purdue, I think, it is there I will have him placed. (My wife, however, focused on the issues of Brian’s perfect pitch and rhythmic singing, suggests the wards of Juilliard would make a better home.) It is possible I am being much too pessimistic, of course—perhaps Brian will surprise us all and defy our most carefully crafted expectations, striving first to do some simple, honest work and only later discovering his more expanded calling (such as Ms. Dawson and Ms. Harp seem to have so ably done). What fills me with the greatest emotion, however—and here I think Mr. Doherty could hasten to agree—is thinking about what might happen if I were not there to help Brian make the most difficult decisions. What would happen if, God forbid, both I and my wife were irretrievably gone? What if Brian were somehow forced to rely upon his own unique perspective—along with whatever meager tools his parents had managed to instill? What if he had to decide for himself what indelible marks to cast upon his world? What if he had to go forth as an individual? Have I fully considered those possibilities, have I contemplated the consequences all the way to their very end?

Yes, Mr. Doherty, autistic children grow up—what an inspiring thought that is! What incredible terror, awe and joy!

Fresh Air

When nearly everyone has become lost examining the details on the barks of all the trees, the one who maps the forest performs a great and thankless task. And the one who charts the country surrounding the forest—he does an even greater and still more thankless service. And the one who suggests that insight is to be gained in the forest and in the country—and not on the barks of all the trees—he gets to play the role of today’s pariah, and tomorrow’s savior.

As always, when the problem has become intractable, the way out is to examine the context. Forever digging deeper into details only clouds the landscape with dust.

Putrefaction

The modern scientist, with a hint of superiority, will often extol the steady and methodical pace of scientific progress. But consider the work of Newton, Darwin and Einstein—what was steady and methodical about that?

The systematic advance of science is the smell of science gone bad.