Why Is It Raining Rain Men?

What causes autism? TV? Havin’ smart parents ‘n’ stuff? A couple of crazy new theories dropped this month to explain the spike in autism diagnoses we’ve been seeing over the past couple decades.

On his relatively new Discover-based blog, John Horgan covers the hypothesis that the qualities that make successful science-y types can lead to autistic children. In Slate, Gregg Easterbrook says TV might turn kids autistic.

As for the first idea, first reported in IEEE Spectrum, a British researcher hypothesizes that autism is an extreme version of a normal human trait called systematizing, the tendency to focus on grouped things and patterns in the world. Scientists and engineers have this trait, and they are meeting and mating more than ever, suggests Simon Baron-Cohen.

In the Slate piece, Gregg Easterbrook—who can always be counted on for a blood-pressure-raising crazy piece of science journalism—trumpets new research suggesting that watching TV before age three is linked autism. However, a quick glance at the new research reveals that it is a non-peer-reviewed work by some economists. This is not immediately damning, but raises those red flags. I’m no fan of Easterbrook, so I did appreciate the wild take-downs in the Slate comments. Actually, many of the comments rip into what seems like pretty shoddy research. I’m not surprised Easterbrook is giving high-profile attention to such problematic stuff. He’s a quite poor science writer.

For my part, I’m still not convinced that autism is one thing, biologically speaking. As I say in the comments section of Horgan’s blog:

Autism seems to be a bit of a trash-can diagnosis. I've often thought that so-called high-functioning autistic people were just extreme types of normal human ways of being. This would be consistent with the systematizer theory. However, some people classified as autistic seem to be so disabled, unable to talk, unable to live independently, that I wonder if their "disease" has different underlying causes than the higher functioning individuals. It is harder for me to see the more severely disabled folks as just being outliers in a normal distribution. This is a problem I have when trying to understand possible causes for all sorts of spectrum disorders.

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Modern-Day Book Burners Ban Blankets

The modern-day equivalent of book burners have struck again in the heart of conservative and ignorant America (a previous attack here). As reported at the Comics Reporter, and then picked up in local and blogospheric media, a library in Missouri has pulled from its shelves two graphic novels, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Blankets by Craig Thompson. I haven't read Fun Home, but Blankets is probably the most emotionally resonant graphic novel I have ever read. Of course readers will find drawings of boobies, a couple penises, teenage sexuality, sexual abuse, and a community of closed-minded religious conservatives in the book. They will also find a very moving and honest portrait of a young man growing up, and a thoughtful analysis of the way we make meaning in our lives through art.

Defenders of comic books and free expression generally have written to the library board in Marshall, Missouri, asking them to protect First Amendment rights. The letter also points out what seems like a no-brainer in this case: Blankets, at least, is not pornographic as the one complaining moron in Marshall claimed. Why closed-minded and conservative types will forever seek to deny aspects of the world around them is beyond me. To deal with difficult things that young adults face in their lives is noble, and literature that does this should be embraced by honest people everywhere.

The library has only temporarily removed the books from its shelves. I'm hoping they wisely decide to replace them. Stay tuned, as more meetings are expected this week.

[Thanks Marc!]

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Aspidistra Update

I'm swtiching The Aspidistra to Blogger Beta. This means my whole template got scrapped and I have to beautify the new one.

On top of that, real life demands my full attention this week, so expect the changes to roll out slowly. I hope to be back to normal by next weekend.

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Big $$$ Ads Targeting Gamers?

Last night I was watching TV, and I see this ad for Travelers Insurance. I know the snowball rolling out of control is an old staple in cartoons and such, but to a gamer like me images of a ball rolling around the city picking up chairs, people, lamposts, and cars calls to mind one thing: Katamari Damacy. Is it possible that this commercial is NOT based directly on that game?

Then on the train to work this morning I'm daydreaming and looking out the window, and a billboard at the Pelham station catches my eye: "Make Rupees" it says. The ad is for Bloomberg. Now, I know rupees are the name for currencies in some south Asian countries--and this is clearly a play on "Make Whopee"--but rupees are also the currency in the Legend of Zelda games.

So I make a connection. And I begin to think. Can these ads be targeted at gamers? Both Travelers and Bloomberg serve people with lots of money. Like, you know, grownups and such. Not gamers. If these ads are at all related to games, I think it is because the creative types who make the ads are in fact gamers.

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Two Kinds of Art

1UP.com has an interesting essay up about the evolution of videogame box art that manages to stay clear of the nostalgia-drenched tone that normally permeates such features. Judging a Game By Its Cover traces some interesting trends over the years, including the de-Japanification of box art that used to be routine when a Japanese game was released in the US. In the case of Ico, the US changes completely erased the lonely atmosphere of the Japanese and European versions. This example doesn't seem as much de-Japanification as dumbing-down to me.

Props are given to the US version of the Legend of Zelda art, while the universally derided Mega Man box is held up to ridicule yet again. This obviously got me thinking of my favorite art. When I was little I was quite captivated by box art from Imagic. Faxanadu for the NES was classy. You may have noticed that I am a fan of Golgo 13; this includes the box art for the first game (check out the sequel for a study in contrasts). Recently, I've enjoyed the art for Katamari Damacy and Pikmin 2 (although I think I like an alternate version more). Feel free to get nostalgic and list some favorites in the comments section.

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A Connecting Principle Linked To The Invisible

The end of last week found me investigating the large extra dimensions model of the universe for work. Then in my internet ramblings I stumbled as a Sally-come-lately into the cryptozoological phenomenon of rods. Next, I was paging through Carl Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World, again for work. Finally, yesterday morning on the train I read H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond.” Clearly, I am in the midst of a full-blown synchronicitous event, directing my attention to considerations of the reality of things we can’t see. Join me in ruminations on unobservables after the jump.

• The large extra dimensions model, or ADD model, is an attempt to understand the relative weakness of gravity compared to the other four fundamental forces. It posits extra dimensions, folded up very small, which are filled with gravity. We can’t see or feel these dimensions because they are so small, but the high-energy Large Hadron Collider may test the model when it starts up next year.
• Rods, also known as skyfish, are cryptozoological entities that can only be seen with video cameras. Enthusiasts suggest that rods move too fast to be seen without these tools. The pictures are real, believe it or not. But critics make an utterly convincing argument, suggesting the rods are motion-blurred insects captured mid-flight with long exposure times.
• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is Sagan’s defense of scientific rationality against all forms of superstition, religious and otherwise. He charts the fine line good scientists must trace between skepticism and acceptance of new ideas.

  We humans have a talent for deceiving ourselves. Skepticism must be a component of the explorer’s toolkit, or we will lose our way. There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.

• Lovecraft’s short story “From Beyond” involves a mad-scientist-type who invents a machine that stimulates dormant senses in human beings, allowing people to see normally-invisible entities in the world. Quoth the mad scientist:

  You see them? You see them? You see the things that float and flop about you and through you every moment of your life? You see the creatures that form what men call the pure air and blue sky? Have I not succeeded in breaking down the barrier; have I not shown you worlds that no other living men have seen?

Interesting, no? But I’ll admit right away that I’m enough of a skeptic to doubt the reality of synchronicity. I would subscribe to a soft version of the idea, one in which we give synchronicitous events meaning, one in which our behavior patterns create a pattern in events in our lives. But a harder version of the theory, in which we tap into a dynamic that is bigger than ourselves and directs history, seems impossible to me.

Skepticism, as Sagan points out, is a necessary tool for people trying to understand the world. Too little, and people will end up thinking that blurry insects on video are a life form that is all around us but has never been detected in the thousands of years of recorded human history. Simple logical exercises fail these people in their desperate wish to believe (Where are the dead skyfish?).

Maybe they were sucked into extra dimensions?

Seriously, though, some very smart scientists do suggest the world is queerer than we had previously imagined, and may include invisible dimensions. I’m less comfortable saying these ideas are BS, but I’m still inclined to doubt. Sure, I accept other things no one has seen, like electrons, but those entities are based on innumerable experimental observations. Extra dimensions seem to pop up as predictions of equations nestled in often-untestable models. But maybe the LHC will test at least the large extra dimensions model. I just expect this model to fail.

So, considering this flood of skepticism and my doubt of deep synchronicity, I’m content to simply wonder why these events struck me now. Obviously, science deals with a lot of unobservable phenomena, so the fact that I work in a science-related field means I’m going to encounter a lot of this. As a committed materialist, I’m convinced my experience is just coincidence. But I think that, as is the case with Lovecraft, my materialism spawns a fascination with supernaturalism. Part of me wishes the world was a bit more magical than it seems to be, and yet another part of me delights in putting the smack down on magical thinking.

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Free Rock!!!

The Hold Steady, a rockin NYC band that is releasing a new album tomorrow, has made the songs from the album available for streaming here, for free! I thought their previous album was pretty good, but I am still really impressed by and loving these new songs. I detect something decidedly Springsteen-esque in the way these guys can make music that has so much energy and real emotion, and still have it be so accessible. Hey, I'm still in the midst of a months-long metal phase, and even I'm taking a break to get goosebumps to this album. The site was up on Saturday, down on Sunday, but seems to be working again today.

[UPDATE: By now (11/18/06) it looks like this streaming business is over. So sorry to see it go. If anyone comes by, they can at least see the Hold Steady rock out live on "Stuck Between Stations" on YouTube.]

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