[OKIEDOC]

M203M4 wrote:
Boo-hoo. I have never listened to Savage, I don't even know what his voice sounds like. But this criticism is crybaby stuff. “His science is wrong because he hurt my feelings” should not be coming out of the mouth (or pen) of anyone, let alone a professor (even a “professor of government”, which itself is a frightening thing).

If we allowed the purveyors of perpetual victimhood free reign, nobody would be “normal”, every last person would have some “condition” attached. “Subclinical” this, “asymptomatic” that, “high functioning”, “spectrum disorders”, etc etc etc. Legitimate terms, warped beyond any rational medical meaning, are used to feed a spectrum of interests (pharmaceuticals, adult babysitters therapists, folks who just want more handouts, crappy parents looking to shift the blame).

When I was a kid, words like awkward, shy, and withdrawn, or energetic, loud, and troublemaker, were used to describe children now “diagnosed” with autism or ADHD. The supposedly blighted children (by today's standards) are all normal functioning adults today. Hell, I probably would have been labeled autistic because I mixed (informal) sign language and English in near equal proportions until age 4. Is that unusual? YES! Is it a medical condition? Of course not.

If anything, projecting ones own hypochondria is a mental sickness that needs to be addressed.

Comment:

Little Mickey Savage is dat youse?

[M203M4]

Pointing out the growth of fabricated "symptoms" in children with no actual medical condition is in no way an attack on the children or parents involved with a legitimate medical problem. Just as highlighting hypochondria in no way should be taken as an attack on those with cancer, etc.

In fact, I cannot fathom why any genuine autism sufferers or their families would defend the gradual bastardization of clinical diagnosis standards. Conflating autistic and non-autistic children into one clinical group is going to make medical progress extremely difficult. Those with a legitimate personal stake in the matter should be 10x as furious as an arm's length observer. Something that could very well help your child could be discarded as worthless because it failed to help the brat kids with crappy parents (in the case of ADHD), or because it failed to help children with vanilla shyness or whatnot (in the case of autism).

I personally know the families of children afflicted with what any sane individual would call shyness (quiet, poor eye contact, interest in peculiar solitary tasks as a short phase) being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders - there is nothing wrong with these kids! If 3/10 children were diagnosed with autism, and another 3/10 with ADHD, would you fault me for raising concerns about the quality of clinical diagnoses? That is all this is, albeit with the alarm raised well before such a point.