Overview

A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity. Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution. How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species' inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.

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Reviews

"""A fascinating account of the mechanisms underlying the related capacities of both autistic individuals and innovators."" -- ""Brian Josephson, professor emeritus of physics, University of Cambridge, and director of the Mind-Matter Unification Project"" ""Based on massive research, Simon Baron-Cohen argues that most of us are specialized in how we perceive the world around us. There are those who focus on people and those who focus on things. The author makes a compelling case that the second kind of mind--the pattern seeker--is at the root of modern human civilization."" -- ""Frans de Waal, New York Times bestselling author"""

Author Information

Simon Baron-Cohen is a professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of books including Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind and The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth About Autism. A recipient of the McAndless Award from the American Psychological Association, he is a vice president of the National Autistic Society (UK) and was president of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) for 2009. Simon lives in the United Kingdom. Jonathan Cowley, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, is a British actor hailing from Eastbourne, East Sussex, but he currently calls Los Angeles home. He has narrated many audiobooks and can also be heard on both sides of the Atlantic narrating film trailers and documentaries. He is also an active television and film actor who has appeared in Grey's Anatomy, Veep, and WestWorld.

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