7 January 2005: Assumptions, Theories, and Muppets
The Saint has started a journal!
The Saint's January 5th entry was about Edge.org's "Edge Annual Question of 2005." The question, which the folks at Edge.org posed to 120 scientists and thinkers in various fields, was: "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"
Great question; many fascinating answers. Worth checking out, over at Edge.org's World Question Center 2005.
Since one of the central themes in my own life's work is the questioning of hidden assumptions, I was particularly delighted by the first two paragraphs of Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's answer:
When I first read your question, I was sure it was a trick - after all, almost nothing I believe in I can prove. I believe the earth is round, but I cannot prove it, nor can I prove that the earth revolves around the sun or that the naked fig tree in the garden will have leaves in a few months. I can't prove quarks exist or that there was a Big Bang - all of these and millions of other beliefs are based on faith in a community of knowledge whose proofs I am willing to accept, hoping they will accept on faith the few measly claims to proof I might advance.
But then I realized - after reading some of the early postings - that every one else has assumed implicitly that the "you" in: "even if you cannot prove it" referred not to the individual respondent, but to the community of knowledge - it actually stood for "one" rather than for "you." That everyone seems to have understood this seems to me a remarkable achievement, a merging of the self with the collective that only great religions and profound ideologies occasionally achieve.
Another one of the scientists polled was Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, of Cambridge University's Autism Research Center. This is what he said:
In my chosen field of autism, I believe that the cause will turn out to be assortative mating of two hyper-systemizers. I believe this because we already have 3 pieces of the jig-saw: (1) that fathers of children with autism are more likely to work in the field of engineering (compared to fathers of children without autism); (2) that grandfathers of children with autism—on both sides of the family—were also more likely to work in the field of engineering (compared to grandfathers of children without autism); and (3) that both mothers and fathers of children with autism are super-fast at the embedded figures test, a task requiring analysis of patterns and rules. (Note that engineering is a chosen example because it involves strong systemizing. But other related scientific and technical fields [such as math or physics] would have been equally good examples to study).
We have had these three pieces of the jigsaw since 1997, published in the scientific literature. They do not yet prove the assortative mating theory. They simply point to it being highly likely. Direct tests of the theory are still needed. I will be the first to give up this idea if it is proven wrong, since I'm not in the business of holding onto wrong ideas. But I won't give up the idea simply because it will be unpopular to certain groups (such as those who want to believe that the cause of autism is purely environmental). I will hold onto the idea until it has been properly tested. Popperian science is about being able to let go of an idea when the evidence goes against it, but it is also about being able to hold onto an idea until the evidence has been collected, if you have enough reasons to believe it might be true.
The causes of autism are likely to be complex, including at the very least multiple genes interacting with environmental factors, but the assortative mating theory may describe some contributing factors.
I posted this to the Asperger community on LiveJournal (the only web-based discussion community that I bother with these days), along with my own comments on it:
I don't agree with all of Baron-Cohen's theories, but I like that he's a well-known, highly-placed, and listened-to Autism researcher who's not a curebie. The "purely environmental causes" explanation of Autism is a curebie explanation.
In addition to publicly opposing the curebie "purely environmental causes" explanation in the above statement, Baron-Cohen also implies that the genetic aspect of Autism is not a result of "defective" genes, but rather, a byproduct of certain genes (those for "systemizing intelligence") that are valuable to the human species.
[Note: “curebie” is a pejorative term used in the Autistic community to refer to people who regard Autism as a “disease” or “disorder” that should be “cured.” The majority of curebies are Normal parents (and other relatives) who hate and fear everything that is not Normal, and who want their children to be Normals for the same reasons that they want their clothes, hairstyles, and cars to look like the ones advertised on television. The curebie community also consists of a huge cadre of organizations and quack pseudoscientist “experts” who prey on such parents, and who exploit the Normal public’s infinite capacity for superstitious terror by creating “Autism Epidemic” scares in order to bilk the ignorant out of their money – the ignorant, in this case, often including local, state, and national governments whose money is your money.]
In addition to several comments of general agreement, that post led to this brief exchange:
Firecrest: That's got to be a pretty biased survey, though I'm not disagreeing with him.
I'm from a working class family, my parents, grandparents, etc, no matter how intelligent they were, were all coal miners, mill workers and alike because they didn't get a choice.
Me: Yes, I think that a lot of Autism research has a classist bias, because it's the middle-class and upper-middle-class parents who can afford to send their kids to the high-end Autism clinics like Baron-Cohen's from which the survey samplings are drawn.
Baron-Cohen does indeed make the incorrect and classist assumption that everyone has the opportunity to succeed in the fields for which their minds qualify them (classist because such opportunity tends to be taken for granted by those whose families can afford to buy opportunity). But ultimately, his point still stands, insofar as it's not really about what kind of careers run in Autism-prone families, but what kind of minds.
Meanwhile, on the Moot email list, someone raised a much deeper and more important question: “Who is your favorite Muppet, and why?”
My answer, arrived at after much research, analysis, soul-searching, and prayer:
I find myself unable to choose between Gonzo and Animal.
I like Gonzo because he is unabashedly odd and wistful and blue, and because his yearning and daring has the same spirit as the poetry of Rumi, and because "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" is number one on my list of Songs I'll Probably Sing to My Children.
I like Animal because he is funny, because he bites, and because I aspire to be more like him.
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