Talk:Autistic savant

The term autistic savant is misleading as it suggests that all of these people are autistic. In fact less than half of all savants are autistic. Most scientists working in this area now simply refer to theses people as savants or as having savant syndrome. Refer to the further reading that I have added for more information, once I have collected more I will change the heading.

Jef Reinten 06:43, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Who were some mathematical savants? I doubt their existence and I suspect that the author of these words was confused, thinking that an ability to calculate constitutes ingenuity in mathematics. Michael Hardy 01:54, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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Shouldn't this article be merged with idiot savant? --Wik 00:55, Sep 24, 2003 (UTC)

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This is called autistic savant now, isn't it?

It is, I'm making the necessary redirects. Cecropia 01:47, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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I've moved and edited this page to reflect modern nomenclature. An idiot savant is not the same as a savant, as evidenced by the oxymoronic pairing of the term "idiot" with "savant". A savant is a person with a (usually) high and specialized intellect in a field or fields without regard to other capabilities.

The term "autistic savant" is now used partly to remove the pejorative sense of "idiot" but more in recognition that the disability is seen most often in diagnosed autism. Cecropia 02:09, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nonsense removed

I have removed nonsense to the effect that some of these people work in mathematics. Numerical calculation is not at all the same as mathematics. Lest anyone think I'm talking about sophisticated mathematics understood only by professionals, I hasten to add that I am not. Consider the Pythagorean theorem, a statement known to all 15-year-olds (except, perhaps, in the USA and among some isolated xenophobic tribes of cannibals). If one discovers a new proof of that theorem, one has done a bit of elementary mathematics. If one relies on the theorem to know which numerical calculations need to be done to solve a problem, then the person to whom one entrusts the details of the calculation need not understand the mathematics. This is not to say that calculating prodigies do not understand any of the mathematics that justifies their calculations; rather, it means that the field in which they are prodigies is numerical calculation; they are not discovering any new mathematics. This error is another instance of the fact that most educated lay persons do not suspect that such a field as mathematics exists. For example, a professor of medicine once asked me whether graduate students in mathematics must discover new things in mathematics in order to earn a PhD. Of course, as in other fields, the answer is "yes", but this professor went on to say, "Isn't all of mathematics already known?" In fact, hundreds of scholarly journals are devoted primarily to the incessant publication of new discoveries in mathematics -- not something that those autistic savants do, contrary to the statement I've just corrected on this page. Notice the strange negative way in which the medical doctor phrased the question: instead of saying "Is everything already known?" she said "Isn't everything already known?" It seems as if people use that negative form only when their talking about an assumption they've made without thinking about it. I question any assertion that those autistic savants to who someone said may be working "in the field of mathematics" have made novel discoveries suitable for publication in the aforementioned journals. And no one replied here on this talk page, for months. That is why, being reminded on my own discussion page that I had written that query, I came back to this page today and altered it. Michael Hardy 22:38, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just how well can they calculate?

I'm curious as to the extent at which an autistic savant with calculating skills can calculate -- both for an "average" savant with this skill (insofar as much as there can be such a thing as an average savant ;)) and for somebody who is particularly adept at calculation. For instance, in Rain Man, Raymond is shown calculating the square root of a randomly-chosen number (presumably with an irrational result; I haven't checked) accurately to a good number of decimal places. That seems outrageous to me, as if it were just fictional drama that couldn't really happen, but has it actually been done? - Furrykef 01:56, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I can't give you the kind of documentary evidence you're probably seeking (though I'm sure there's literature on the web) but there are stories of actual autistic savants who could calculate quite a few primes, or give a day of the week for any date in the past, correcting for leap years and the switch from the Gregorian calendar. Most of these stories deal with an area of specialization, as opposed to all-around calculating genius. I would not be at all surprised if a Rain Man could calculate square roots with precision. I can even envision how it could be done, though I certainly couldn't do it.

I should remark, though, that autistic savants are a tiny, tiny, fraction of the autistic community, but there are quite a few autistics who are able to impressively excell in various intellectual pursuits, especially when they are able to use visualization to understand the problem. Temple Grandin has become an expert in humane treatment of food animals by being able to visualize the animals' fears. This is qualitatively different from the more typical scientific method, which might make decisions based on strictly human testing and observation. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 02:14, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Right, I understand all that, I'm just thinking the information would be good to have when somebody who knows or bothers to look it up comes along. Calculating primes or giving the day of the week for a date in the past is pretty darn impressive, but it doesn't seem to be something that the layman would relate to as easily -- primes don't mean much to most people and quickly calculating dates to that precision doesn't sound as impressive as it is. People can relate to a square root, though, because they know what it is and they know that doing one of a randomly-chosen number (with that precision) in your head is pretty impossible for the normal person no matter how smart they are. Of course this is only my opinion, but in any case I think it's good information to have here. :) - Furrykef 15:07, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)