Neurotribes by Steve Silberman - review

The term autism, coined by the psychiatrist Leo Kanner, is derived from the Greek word autos, which means “self” because Kanner noticed that his autistic patients wanted, or needed, to be alone. Silberman looks at autism in today’s world, and he also goes back in time and tells us about historical figures who might well have been “on the spectrum”.

For instance, the brilliant scientist Henry Cavendish, “the Wizard of Clapham Common”, who ate the same meal over and over and found human communication excruciating. And the physicist Paul Dirac, the pioneer of quantum theory. Dirac’s biographer, Graham Farmelo, told Silberman: “My conclusion was that he very clearly passed every criterion for autistic behaviour.”

But was Dirac on the spectrum? The Viennese psychiatrist Hans Asperger, who believed in a broad spectrum, might have said yes. Asperger thought autistic traits were common, and not all bad — Leo Kanner, Asperger’s rival, thought they were rare and much more debilitating. Until recently Kanner’s ideas were in the ascendency. Now Asperger’s are gaining ground. We’re beginning to see that “the geek syndrome” has its compensations.

So are there more people being born on the spectrum? Possibly. Maybe it’s partly down to what Silberman calls “assortative mating”. For centuries, if you were a male geek, you wouldn’t meet many female geeks. But now male mathematicians and programmers meet female mathematicians and programmers all the time. The gene pool is denser. Geeks get together in labs and start-ups and even on cruise ships. Their children will write our software, design our robots and cure our diseases.