Flawed Design of Drug Trials for Autism

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It is believed approximately 10 percent of autistics are savants. Savant does not equal genius.

You're just repeating your assertion here. What else do I need?! Gee, maybe a little EVIDENCE would do the trick. You can't just make a claim and expect others to accept it. You have to provide reasons, you have to back up your claim with something. You've provided nothing, just a list of names of people who MAY have had the condition.

Let me ask you: why wouldn't Asperger's have some connection to their genius? Aspies are often blessed with above average intelligence - some even are geniuses - and are obsessed with a limited scope of subjects, often in the arts and sciences, in which they excel.

Why are so many autistic people against a cure or treatment? Some of you might be proud, and see it as a wonderful positive thing, but there are just as many of us who see it as an unwanted burden.

I know a kid who is so profoundly autistic that he isn't even toilet-trained. He's six years old and he wears a diaper. He can't read or write or speak, he can't eat without assistance, he needs to be constantly watched so that he doesn't swallow anything that might kill him. Grabbing chairs and toppling them over is the extent of his motor skills. I don't think anyone would benefit more from a cure. And all of us are so thoroughly blessed to even be able to have this conversation, but the people who should be his biggest advocates are perfectly eager to throw him under the bus out of some ill-guided sense of "pride", a child sacrifice on the altar of unchecked hubris.

I'm against a cure ... for me. I'm in favor of a cure ... for those who truly need and want one.

As for treatment, personally I'd be happy if there were seminars or training workshops I could attend
to gain insight on things like body language, small talk, social situations, interactions, and etiquette, job interviews,
nutrition for Aspies, etc.

Others on the autism spectrum may want other types of treatment ...
so certainly, let's look into providing some help for them.

...

Many "aspies" are of average intelligence though, just as many "en-tees" are as well. You can't generalise like this. We don't all like computers, or maths, or science fiction.

I didn't say that a link between being a genius and being an aspie was impossible, that there couldn't be any connection. I did, however, ask you to provide something substantial to back up YOUR claim that being "on the spectrum" is in some way connected with being a genius, and that if the people you listed were not autistic or didn't have Asperger's Syndrome there would be (or would have been) nothing special about them. I am sceptical of this claim, and yet you are asking me to justify my scepticism. The old cliche, "The burden of evidence lies with the claimant" comes to mind here.

In any case, even if you are absolutely right about this, we DO know that even the mild forms of autism (or H.F.A., or any of the other labels now associated with autism, like Asperger's Syndrome) have problems associated with them that far outweigh any perceived benefits. You know, like being afraid of change and needing routine in one's life, a characteristic of the condition that you (mysteriously) don't mention in your quote above. I will give you a name as well: Grigori Perelman. A mathematician believed, by some, to also be amongst your list of geniuses who are autistic, but who now spends most of his time living with his mother, turned down a million dollar prize because he believed he simply didn't need it (because he claimed he could control reality somehow, if that particular quote was accurate), doesn't look after himself properly, and is believed to be unemployed at this moment in time. He is a recluse who cannot handle contact with others. In spite of numerous offers from various universities, all of which he has turned down, and in spite of his achievements (the primary one being his solution of the Poincare Conjecture), his life is, overall and all things considered, a failure.

Being a genius in a specific field hardly means one will be a success in life. Lovecraft died in poverty, with a broken marriage under his belt. Newton remained a lifelong, lonely virgin. I was simply meaning that those with an acumen for the arts or sciences often are on the spectrum, but I never said that ensured a life of material comfort and gain. Ultimately, my point was that the world would be losing out on the accomplishments made by those particular individuals if autism was cured.