Saturday, August 11, 2018

Simon Baron Cohen Compares people who don't want chldren to be autistic to nazis and the ku klux klan

Recently, a new hashtag has emerged on twitter.  #endautismnow.  predictably, many neurodiversity proponents have taken umbrage at this, and have engaged in backlash on twitter.

One of their main complaints about this hashtag is that it was apparently originated by anti-vaxxer and controversial autism mom Jenny McCarthy.  Because some of us want to cure autistic people and prevent people from acquiring autism, we apparently are endorsing the fact that vaccines cause autism and the menace to public health that stopping vaccines would cause.

The most renowned person to pontificate vociferous objections to this new twitter campaign is Simon Baron Cohen.

Dr. Baron Cohen and his colleagues have been well known for making claims autistics have superior visual capabilities based on small sample sizes and mismatching of autistic children with younger controls who might not have the same development.

He has written that autism versus non-autism is not different from right-handedness or left-handedness.

He's written essays stating that autism should not be considered a disability or disorder.

His most recent contribution to the autism discourse are these words of wisdom on twitter:


I will have to show great restraint and not lose my temper here. It should be obvious to the good doctor that there is a difference between persons who don't want children to become autistic or cure them of their autism and people who commit murder as the nazis and members of the ku klux klan have done. One would think this would be especially obvious to someone who has a Ph.D. in psychology from a major university in the United Kingdom.

How can anyone take this man seriously?  Why are journals still publishing his articles and why are funding bodies still paying money for his research? 

I believe this is a new low, even for this person.  I believe Baron-Cohen should check into some mental health facility in the UK and get the help he needs.