Sam Wang on Genes, Experience, and the Biological Roots of Autism

Princeton's Sam Wang was the Bartlett Lecturer this year at the Linda Hall Science Library in Kansas City.  I have been turning over in my mind, since attending his April 17, 2018 talk, the idea of Austism as both aloneness and sameness, the craving for repetition and the inward turning focus.  Sam Wang's most interesting observation was a sort of parlor trick where members of the audience plugged their own mental responses into a formula  tracking both the prevalence of autism and major mental illness in their families along with correlation of certain end scores with certain college majors. Afterwards, I believe I located the article he was tracking with his observations.  The relationship between certain brain characteristics and academic interests is a fascinating one.