This is a rather interesting article. There has been quite some press
about the possible connection between computer-skilled people (although
most press make the mistake of using the term "hacker") having some kind
of medical "problem" that results in their computer interest.
Of course, the connections that researchers are trying to make seem to be
flawed, because when I apply the "typicals" of the disease in question to
myself or to others they invariably break down because I know why I became
interested in computers. A possibility would be that a "disease" causes
interaction problems at a young age, resulting in a ripple effect leading
to computers.
I also don't buy the "disease" theory because I've been able to modify my
behaviour in places where I saw that it didn't work. Unless, of course,
there is some kind of social interaction blueprint gene being mislabelled
as a "disease".
Further, labelling it as a "disease" is misleading because the effects
that these researchers claim are hardly bad. An ability to work with
numbers? The ability to focus on one thing for long periods of time?
Honest and law-abiding? Intelligent? These are hardly problems that we
need to fix. If only everybody had these abilities.
The idea that an engineer knows other engineers in their immediate family
is not surprising, and it doesn't support the idea that being an engineer
is a genetic trait. In my case, I knew an engineer who was a close family
friend, but not genetically related. At the age of eight, I asked for a
robot for Christmas. I did not get a robot, instead the engineer gave me
a box of computer parts. He helped me set it up, and I was hooked. This
kind of mentoring can result in an engineer. As for the abilities,
childhood patterning can account for most, if not all, traits.
-Ben
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"But as we know, Buddhists too are made up only of non-Buddhist
elements" -- Thich Nhat Han
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Received on Sun Apr 1 00:46 CST 2001