The Week reports the director of the Cambridge University Autism Research Center, Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of actor Sasha Baron-Cohen) is a leader in this field.
Baron-Cohen has expanded upon that theory to posit entire communities of people with some tendency toward autism or Asperger’s syndrome, a related disorder.
Take Silicon Valley, for instance. It's populated with lots of men — and an increasing number of women — who are drawn to science and technology, but are deficient in areas like empathy and relating to others.
When these people start raising families, Baron-Cohen argues, it's more likely that their kids will develop the same tendencies to even more pronounced degrees.Beyond anecdotal evidence, what hard evidence do we have in support of this theory? Not a lot, except:
One study that found kids living in Eindhoven — the Dutch Silicon Valley — were two to four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than kids in similar but less tech-centric areas.
Time also has covered this story.
