A list of interesting recently published popular science books that debunk the myth that vaccines cause autism


50 great myths of popular psychology: shattering widespread misconceptions about human behavior
by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and Barry L. Beyerstein (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010)
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Myths-Popular-Psychology-Misconceptions/dp/1405131128

Don't Swallow Your Gum!: Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health
by Aaron Carroll MD and Rachel Vreeman MD
http://www.dontswallowyourgum.com/Home.html

Bad science
by Dr Ben Goldacre
http://www.badscience.net/

Defeating autism: a damaging delusion
by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick
http://www.amazon.com/Defeating-Autism-Damaging-Michael-Fitzpatrick/dp/0415449812
(see also Google Books)


I can’t recommend the first book by Lilienfeld et al without some definite reservations, despite the fact that it is a very detailed, interesting and thought-provoking book, with authors who clearly aspired to present this book as one that is based on research. Without really trying I’ve found a couple of important assertions in this book about autism that are highly questionable.

On page 195 the authors claim that “three fourths of individuals with autism are mentally retarded”, basing this assertion on the 2000 edition of the DSM. The DSM is a highly respected book, but this respect is not deserved. I would have thought any authors who have tackled the question of autism diagnosis rates would be very aware of the hazards of basing a conclusion about a defined group when the completeness of the sampling of the group is disputable, and the definition of the group is also disputable. In other words – how do we know three quarters of autistic people are retarded when we don’t even know how many autistic people there are in the population? We don’t know how many autistic people are never diagnosed, identified or counted as autistic. There is much debate about where to draw the line between normal and autistic, and there always will be. And if you find my criticism of this book’s assertion unconvincing, I can offer you a study published in an autism journal:

Edelson, Meredyth Goldberg Are the majority of children with autism mentally retarded? : a systematic evaluation of the data. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities. Vol. 21, no. 2, summer 2006.
http://www.willamette.edu/dept/comm/reprint/edelson/

If Lilienfeld et al had written a piece specifically about the question of intelligence in autistic people, I’d hope they would have read and cited papers such as this one, and been much more cautious in their conclusion.

Another questionable assertion in this book, on page 200 is that probably no more than 10% of autistic people display savant abilities. This assertion is presented as a debunking, so the authors should have done their best to get this one right. But this smug bit of debunking is contradicted by a study that was recently published in a prestigious scientific journal. A study of autistic people, published in 2009 in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B found that 28.5% “met criteria for either a savant skill or an exceptional cognitive skill”. I guess the whole argument revolves around how one defines “savant”. If autistic people generally have any type of superior mental ability, that is important for many reasons. It would be stupid to limit the study of autistic cognitive gifts to the study of freaky sideshow stunts such as calendar calculation or memorizing phone books. Here are links to more information about the 2009 study:

Patricia Howlin, Susan Goode, Jane Hutton and Michael Rutter Savant skills in autism: psychometric approaches and parental reports. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 27 May 2009 vol. 364 no. 1522 1359-1367.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1522.toc

Biever, Celeste Savant skills may be widespread in people with autism. New Scientist. April 14th 2009.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16941-savant-skills-may-be-widespread-in-people-with-autism.html