Simon Baron-Cohen - Media

Media

Baron-Cohen appeared on Private Passions, on 13 April 2008, the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3.

He was featured on the BBC news page calling for an ethical debate on the issue of a prenatal test for autism, arguing it is important to debate this in advance of such a test existing, given the pace of biomedical research in autism. In an article in 2000 (Development and Psychopathology) Baron-Cohen argued that high-functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome need not just lead to disability, but can also lead to talent. He has found over 25 years that the media largely report his work accurately but in March 2009, he wrote a piece in New Scientist on the misrepresentation over his group's research into foetal testosterone in typically developing children.

He has appeared in many television science documentaries, one example being Brainman in which he diagnosed Daniel Tammet (who has extreme memory) with both synaesthesia and Asperger Syndrome.

In 2008 Baron-Cohen assessed Gary McKinnon, the British computer hacker who had been accused of breaking into 97 United States military and NASA computer networks in 2001 and 2002, and diagnosed him as having Asperger Syndrome.

He appeared in TIME Magazine, featuring his 'assortative mating' theory of autism.

Read more about this topic:  Simon Baron-Cohen

Famous quotes containing the word media:

    The media no longer ask those who know something ... to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.
    Serge Daney (1944–1992)

    The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite. Formerly constituting a secret, the real now talks constantly. News reports, information, statistics, and surveys are everywhere.
    Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)

    Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why—but the editorialists forget it—terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.
    John Berger (b. 1926)