Another biography about a dead autistic genius

The recent publication of a biography of Paul Dirac, The Strangest Man: The hidden life of Paul Dirac, quantum genius by Graham Farmelo, can only add to the huge body of writing about famous people, living and dead, who have displayed characteristics of the autistic side of the human condition.

In a review of the book by Pedro G. Ferreira, the reviewer admits that "I have to confess that he comes across as a truly unpleasant man." A truly unpleasant man? Really? Let's look at the facts of Dirac's life. Did he murder anyone? I can't say I noticed any mention of any crimes in Dirac's biography in the Wikipedia. Did Dirac swindle people of their life's savings? Did he incite genocide? I'm pretty sure he didn't do that. Did he authorize the bombing of civilian targets? I doubt it, he was a physicist, not a politician or a military man. I doubt that the Dirac described in this new biography could fairly be described as a truly unpleasant man, compared with the full range of unpleasantness that one can find in all of humanity, but to be fair, I have not yet read the book, so I can't give my own final judgement on this question. Maybe Dirac was unpleasant company, but that's no big deal. If one looks beyond the trivial world of social interactions, and looks at the question with a proper perspective, one would most likely conclude that there are a great many people who are or were probably much more deserving of a description as "a truly unpleasant person". Idi Amin was a truly unpleasant man. So was Adolph Hitler. Mugabe is most unpleasant, a menace to humanity. Con artists, child abusers and serial killers are truly unpleasant people. Being a poor conversationalist or socially cold is not sufficient justifiaction for the label "a truly unpleasant man". When non-autistic writers describe socially objectionable but law-abiding autistic people in exaggerated negative terms, it only highlights the limited social-centric perspective within which many neurotypical people appear to view the world.

Link to book review by Pedro G. Ferreira in New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.400-review-ithe-hidden-life-of-paul-diraci-by-graham-farmelo.html

Strange tales about Paul Dirac. New Scientist. Issue 2690. January 7th 2009. p. 43.http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.500-strange-tales-about-paul-dirac.html


References that include discussion about Paul Dirac and autism/Asperger syndrome:

Baron-Cohen, Simon (2003) The essential difference. Penguin Books.
[Richard Borcherds (his formal diagnosis described in detail), Paul Dirac, Einstein, Newton, William Shockley, Michael Ventris]

Farmelo, Graham (2009) The strangest man : the hidden life of Paul Dirac, quantum genius. Faber And Faber, 2009.

Ferreira, Pedro G. (2009) Review: The hidden life of Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo. New Scientist. Issue 2690. January 7th 2009. p.43.http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.400-review-ithe-hidden-life-of-paul-diraci-by-graham-farmelo.html

James, Ioan (2003) Singular scientists. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. January 2003. Vol. 96, number 1, p. 36-39.http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=12519805
[Irene Joliot-Curie, J. M. W. Turner, Paul Dirac, Bela Bartok, Wittgenstein, Cavendish, Newton, Einstein]


These references were taken from my huge and impressive list of 138 famous or important people diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition or subject of published speculation about whether they are or were on the autistic spectrum
http://incorrectpleasures.blogspot.com/2006/09/referenced-list-of-famous-or-important.html