A Theory of Mind? Or A Theory of War....

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Another issue I would be glad of definitive information on regarding the Sally-Ann research design is how the researchers identified the neurotyical sample they used. If they pre-screened them, what test did they use?

OK, here's one source in which he doesn't exactly claim that autistic people have absolutely no empathy, he says that Aspies & HFAs "may not have zero degrees of empathy but they do tend to have below average levels of empathy," and that "Many people with autism in the remainder of the spectrum may well have absolutely zero degrees of empathy." So you do seem to be correct, as judged by that source, at least literally correct. He only says that Aspies tend to have below average levels of empathy. It appears that I stand corrected, but only to a degree. He doesn't put it about that Aspies have zero empathy, only that we're likely to be lacking in it. My assertion is therefore not very different than it was before - i.e the casual reader might end up thinking we're less likely to know the difference between right and wrong, less likely to care about others. One can split hairs about the exact statements, as we have done, but it doesn't radically change the concern of which I wrote before. The gist of the message, it seems to me, remains the same, I can still understand the concern. The link has been posted before in this thread I think, but here it is again to make it easier for folks to look at, if they wish:
http://www.science20.com/countering_tac ... lity-79669

In "The Science of Evil", SBC does write that Autistic people have zero positive empathy (verbatim) which he presents as a definitive feature, asserting a number of times that zero empathy is the common factor between three groups, psychopaths, the mentally ill and autism (though not all to the same degree).

There are many depictions and notions of evil - criminal law, philosophy, religious concepts and so on. SBC has made it absolutely clear in his own words that as far as he is concerned, and convinced, evil can be and should be reduced solely to a lack of empathy. He explains that as a small Jewish child his father told him about what the Nazis did to Jews, and so he wanted to find out why they did those terrible things, and is on record as stating this as his original motivation and starting point for the TOM research later on. That he doesn't consider other factors is a stark example of classic reductionism.

Political scientists, as we know, have very different answers, and apparently even Hitler had empathy for animals and those close associates he most favoured, though the idea that empathy is influenced by personal, political, and situational factors is overlooked by SBC.

He used to, saying autistic people have "zero-posistive" empathy, meaning no empathy, but still behave morally.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blo ... aron-cohen

And notice at the time he specifically claimed people with aspergers lacked affective empathy , even though it's now well known that that is completely false. So the problem isn't that people don't understand what Cohen says, but you're just his yes-man parroting his own attempts to save his own ass.



And now that you've thought you've silenced me with your sealioning you've gone back to arrogantly proclaiming you understand everything better than everyone else, even though either you clearly don't based on responses to what other people have said in this thread. You've just cherry picked specific comments from the discussion in a vain attempt to prove your claim that people don't understand Cohen's theories, while ignoring the rest of the conversation. Your behavior is absolutely despicable.

Well let's compare what SBC actually says to what people on this forum claim he says.

"This is not to say that all people with autism have zero degrees of empathy, since being below average on a cognitive test of empathy does not equate to scoring zero. It may simply mean scoring statistically below the average in the general population. Nor does it mean that people with autism are necessarily below average on other components of empathy, though some may be."



"I’m glad you asked this question [can you only be autistic if you have zero degrees of empathy] as it clears up a common misunderstanding, namely that people with autism all have zero degrees of empathy. As you rightly state, empathy is on a continuum and the theory is that people on the autistic spectrum are simply lower down this spectrum than people in the general population. But within the autistic population there is a spectrum of individual differences."



"the book explores the different routes that can lead a person to end up at zero degrees of empathy. In particular, there are some medical/psychiatric conditions that cause this outcome and most are negative (Zero Negative). These include the personality disorders, such as psychopaths and people with Borderline Personality Disorder.

But one is surprisingly positive (autism spectrum conditions)

...

I make it crystal clear in the book that whilst acts of cruelty always entail zero degrees of empathy, it is not a symmetric relationship: zero degrees of empathy does not necessarily lead to acts of cruelty. In the case of people with autism spectrum conditions, their low empathy usually leads them to avoid other people because they find other people confusing. Their low empathy doesn't lead them to commit acts of cruelty any more than anyone else in the population, but it does often lead them to feel socially isolated, with the added risk of depression."

While you are keen to imply that SBC lumps autistic people in with the criminally minded it's clear he actually does nothing of the sort (instead differentiating zero positive from zero negative).



"Many people with autism also form very strong emotional relationships with their pets, worrying about their welfare, and find that whilst they struggle to ‘read’ human behaviour and human intentions, they can read the arguably more predictable behaviour of a pet. Finally, as mentioned earlier, the difficulties with the cognitive element of empathy by no means leave people with autism devoid of a moral code, and their strong systemizing can mean that they often end up with a more principled moral code than many people without autism."

SBC is also on record many times regarding the areas where autistic people lack empathy or not such as the distinction between cognitive and effective. As I've been saying all along, people's objections are almost always based on misinterpretation of the work.

"So why might people with autism in the online community challenge this view? One possibility is that it is in the nature of empathy that people who are low in empathy are often the last people to be aware of it. This is because empathy goes hand-in-hand with self-awareness, or imagining how others see you, and it is in this very area that people with autism struggle. A better source of information for whether someone with autism has an empathy disability might therefore be a third party, such as a teacher or parent or independent observer. When it comes to empathy, self-report is highly unreliable. For this reason, I would always advise that results from the questionnaires like the EQ (the self-report version) should be corroborated by other independent sources of evidence. An analogy might be with colour blindness. Many people who are colour blind are the last people to know about it, until they are given a test of it by an optician or vision scientist. They simply assumed that they were seeing the same colours as everyone else."

That quote is from an interview with him, not the book being referenced. He changed his position to deflect criticism as he knew he couldn't defend the position he expressed in the book. This is exactly one of the reasons SBC is so despised, he keeps backpedalling when cornered without actually abandoning his flawed theories and makes it look like it's other people's fault for not understanding his theory in the first place when it's clear that in the past he said something quite different.


Saying that "the theory is that people on the autistic spectrum are simply lower down this spectrum than people in the general population" still places it as a definitive feature.



Baggs pointed out why this is utter BS in one of the articles linked. THIS is the main reason why his theory is so destructive. And it is a misinterpretation, but not of SBC's theory, but of the facts by SBC, and likely deliberate to avoid being challenged on his BS theories. Aside from the fact the color blindness is analogy is extremely poor as unlike colors emotions cannot be objectively observed, here is the statement where the argument breaks: "This is because empathy goes hand-in-hand with self-awareness" He manages to slip this piece of nonsense by by falsely equating it with "imagining how others see you". Also, there is not enough evidence to support the theory that "imagining how others see you" is actually an inherent trait of autism rather than the result of poor testing or factors of the social environment. One of his main problems is his reductionist approach to empathy, when the truth is it's MUCH more complicated than his theory requires. Anyway, third parties HAVE confirmed that many people on the autism spectrum do have more empathy than SBC suggests, and they main reason it took them so long to figure that out is because SBC's theories hampered their analysis with the circular reasoning this creates.

I can't understand what Baron-Cohen wrote because I am on the spectrum, and that means I can't have sufficient empathy to understand that I lack it, so Simon Baron-Cohen's assertions prove his theory must be right???

Spare me! I'd rather talk to the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland!

Moving the goal posts.


Ad hominem.



Straw-man argument, the statement by B19 was that zero empathy was the defining feature, not a lower level of it.

Have it your way and we will have it our way. Your relentless contrarianism has been noted!

Because my opinion differs from yours?

It doesn't interest me, because I have heard it, read it, on and on all before... been there and done that, thanks. Don't want the T-shirt either..

Many people in the online autistic community have argued that autistics express empathy differently than NTs and that how they express it is often misinterpreted. See, for example, “Homonyms” in #Asperger Behaviour, part 1.

If that's the case, then the standard SBC proposes (in the bits I bolded) wouldn't work because, unless those "independent sources" are familiar with how autistics express empathy, all they could report is that the autistic person didn't express empathy the way they are used to seeing it. Many "independent sources" will then draw the incorrect inference that the autistic person doesn't show empathy and conclude that's because they don't have empathy.

It's the same problem as the "reading emotion in the eyes" test pointed out earlier in this thread. Empathy is defined as being valid only if it's expressed in the way that most people in the locality express it. I don't think this standard would work even with NTs, since how empathy and other emotions are expressed is strongly mediated by culture, with some cultures valuing reserve and self control while others prefer much greater demonstrativeness.

Last edited by Amaltheia on 08 Jun 2016, 7:36 am, edited 2 times in total.

Here are some of the ACTUAL reasons why people criticize SBCs EQ/SQ theory:

1. Framing empathizing as the opposite of systematizing makes no sense.
Statistically, they only have a very weak negative correlation, which makes sense there are some things listed under systematizing which someone might be drawn to if they find it hard to socialize, which would reflect in a lower EQ. However, there is nothing about that two which is actually opposite. The actual opposite of empathizing would be Machiavellian behavior, which is NEGATIVELY correlated with autism, but is generally more of a male than female characteristic. Then there is the fact the notion of the two categories is so vague that empathizing could actually be considered an application of systematizing.

2. The EQ measures more than just empathy
First, there is no consistency in what type of empathy the questions are geared to: some are related to empathetic concern, but most relate to emotional recognition. Two very different things, again empathy is not a single trait but multiple (and it's probably better seen as process rather than a trait). A lot of the questions though have nothing to do with empathy and are just social functioning: social anxiety is actually positively correlated with empathy, but more of it results in making it harder to make friends. There is also a question about being able to keep track of multiple conversations at once, which relates more to audio processing than empathy. In some of those areas, autistic people are likely to fail in as it directly relates to the condition, regardless of whether or not they are otherwise empathetic.

3. The SQ demonstrates a bias towards males with it's question choice
Many of the questions in the SQ are about very male interests, like trains, which are especially common among males on the autism spectrum. However, many areas which could be considered systematizing which are traditionally female interests like fashion are not listed at all (studies have found girls with autism often have typically feminine interests, just more intense...so what does that say for males with autism and their interests? ). Also, as listed before, many areas of empathizing could easily be reclassified as areas of systematizing.

4. There is little evidence that autism is actually any sort of predisposition towards systematizing
Many people on the spectrum actually perform very poorly on the systematizing test. SBC largely excludes those people from his studies as he focuses on people on the spectrum who test higher on intelligence tests. The fact is according to one study only 65% of people on the spectrum score in the Extreme Male Brain zone he defines autism as being, and even that 65% is likely more due to scoring low on the EQ than scoring high on the SQ. The fact that the majority of the people on the spectrum the test has been done on are male and the SQ test has a male bias doesn't help.

5. The EQ/SQ theory does not explain many if not most autistic symptoms
It only works as a very simplified explanation for Criterion A (low EQ) and Criterion B (high SQ), but most of the specific traits in each criterion have absolutely nothing to do with EQ or SQ. For example, stimming has absolutely nothing to do with systematizing. It also doesn't account for other autistic traits unrelated to those two areas like poor executive functioning (high systematizing should suggest better executive function!) and sensory issues.

6. Most the tests are highly circular
Most studies which support the theory are conducted in Cambridge. SBC is the head of autism research at Cambridge. Hmm, that doesn't sound suspicious at all... It's also worth noting a lot of those studies don't actually deal with diagnosed autism, but autistic traits....which are largely defined by which traits are identified by the EQ/SQ theory. Some studies have actually contradicted SBC's theories, for example, one studyfound males with autism actually tend to have "feminized" brains, directly contradicting the Extreme Male Brain hypothesis (it doesn't deserve to be called a theory). As for the tests SBC created, the validity testing done on them has been largely circular. The fact there is some overlap in the AQ and SQ with questions and the AQ is geared more towards personality than disability is quite suspect. When you acknowledge that the EQ and SQ tests were specifically designed with autism in mind for purpose of finding evidence for the empathizing/systematizing theory it throws all validity out the window as there on it's just statistical witchcraft, by using careful application of correlation it's not that hard to rig a questionnaire by mathematically ensuring both internal and external correlation.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg....

Falsely declaring logical fallacies does not constitute an argument, it constitutes being a contrarian prick. YOU moved the goal post, as B9 said "In "The Science of Evil", SBC does write that Autistic people have zero positive empathy (verbatim)", and then you pulled something that was in the book being referenced. It's not an ad hominem unless it's an attack on character unrelated to the logical argument that is still being used as part of the logical argument. And the straw-man argument doesn't apply, as in again, in context she was referring specially to the book.



Misconstruing people's arguments isn't an opinion, it's just being wrong.

Framing them as opposites may not make sense, but the idea that the brain has two modes for dealing with information predates SBC's work by about a decade. These days the preferred terms, as I understand it, are mechanistic — looking for patterns and causal relationships and interpreting the world through them — and mentalistic — looking for motivations and intent and interpreting things through that.

The relationship between the two, if there is one, is still up in the air. The mechanistic mode seems to develop before the mentalistic one and most people seem to have a preferred mode they default to. Beyond that, there are theories, but, as they say, more research is required.


Wouldn't Machiavellian behaviour require a high level of empathy, to monitor how well the manipulation is going and to adjust tactics as necessary to maneuver other party towards the desired end?

The word "empathy" seems to being used to mean three different, albeit related, things:
1. Sensing how others are feeling;
2. Caring how others are feeling;
3. Trying to comfort others when they are distressed.

The first may be a prerequisite for the other two, but the other two need not follow on from the first. Machiavellian behaviour would seem to be an example of someone possessing the first ability, but using it for different ends than those covered by usages 2 and 3.

And this is not quite the same thing as empathizing versus systematizing, and makes much more sense. To some extent though mentalistic thinking can still be covered by an applied sort of mechanistic thinking as motivations and intent still follow patterns, and it's still cause and effect.


Again, it's confusion of the definition of empathy. I think the reason why Machiavellian behavior is the ideal opposite is because 1. it's a personally beneficial strategy and 2. it requires a lack of empathy in order for someone to engage in it. Also I think in this context Machiavellian behavior refers to more than just being manipulative, it's anything where you act to get what you want regardless of how it impacts others. So having good cognitive empathy helps, but it's not required.