Selling Out the Spectrum
How Science Lost the Trust of Autistic People, and How It Can Win It Back
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
How Science Lost the Trust of Autistic People, and How It Can Win It Back
Ratings1
Average rating4
When trust breaks down, how do we begin to fix it?
Set against the controversial history of genetic research into autism, from the Spectrum 10k study led by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen to the legacy of the Andrew Wakefield MMR scandal, this book explores the ways in which autistic people have been let down by science and what needs to be done to build more effective partnerships in the future.
Written by leading autistic journalist Liam O'Dell, Selling Out the Spectrum takes a thorough, balanced deep-dive into the issues surrounding the relationship between science and the autistic community, can explores how past damage can be effectively and meaningfully repaired.
Reviews with the most likes.
Solid Enough Primer On The Topic Marred By Dearth Of Bibliography. This is one of those books where, as others have noted, O'Dell clearly has his own perspectives and they clearly come through, and yet he also does a reasonably balanced job of showing both sides to any given issue - while clearly favoring whichever side he does. For those perhaps unfamiliar with the Actually Autistic/ Autistic Adult community and the reasons it clashes so often with researchers of all forms and levels, this is a solid compendium of the issues at hand and an introduction to just how complicated some of them can be.
The primary blemish here is the dearth of the bibliography, clocking in at just 10% of the overall text - at least in the Advance Review Copy form I read weeks before publication. Adding to this is the editing/ formatting choices of at least this format - hopefully corrected in the full final form - that left footnotes in odd places that made it unclear at times whether one was reading a part of the narrative or a footnote, which got quite jarring indeed at times.
Still, for the actual information contained here, even while this particular Autistic doesn't *fully* agree with many of the perspectives of the author, this truly does at least show the relevant issues and shows each of them from a variety of angles - which is always appreciated.
Recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
