Okay, perhaps being the father of an autistic child I have a one sided point of view. I do see these so called "negative" effects such as difficulty in structured social interaction. My son does not always pay attention school and will be focused on other things. I also see so many positives. He can draw pictures that I couldn't draw until I got to high school and he's 9. He also builds things with his toys that would amaze an engineer... at least it amazes me. It's almost like, much like the story from this thread that he possesses another level of intelligence that I can't even grasp. When a 9 year old builds a 3 foot tall robot out of toys and starts explaining the intricate detail of the supporting structures on the legs I just stare in amazement.

There is so much more to autism than these scientist can begin to even fathom so I'm really not buying the fact that it's a disorder. Why is it a disorder? Because it's not normal? Can you tell me what normal is? We are too quick to label people and put them into a category. I think there's allot we can learn from autistic people and will not call it a disorder just because it doesn't fit the social norm. I may call it a blessing though.

So true Daedrius so true.

Autism is a spectrum. Just because your kid (or the kid in the article) is brilliant and relatively well adjusted doesn't make all autistics brilliant and well adjusted. The vast majority aren't, afaik, and in order for something to be the next step in evolution it has to spread among the population at large.

As for the OP, eh. He points out the holes in the theory, which is impressive for a 12 year old, but he doesn't actually (dis)prove anything.

It is wonderful that you can see the positive side of autism in your child. Really it is.

However, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMMwG7RrFQ.

Autism is a mental disorder / neurological disorder (recent research such as http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature09965.html suggests that it might have something to do with brain synapses) that lies along a broad spectrum of impact. It is an internationally recognized mental disorder that affects children around the world. Children (and advlts) with autism can fall anywhere along this spectrum-based disorder - producing children like the one in the OP who is mathematically gifted yet socially reclusive (or rather was once socially reclusive), or children who will simply not interact with anyone (amongst other behavioral issues). Scientists have been studying this mental disorder for years and have made amazing strides in helping treat children who develop differing forms of autism.

And, on a broader note, no one can tell anyone what "normal" really is - the best they can do is provide, to varying measures, examples of what the large majority of a group does (or does not do). The larger the majority the more "normalized" people generally consider X behavior to be. Likewise what is normal amongst some groups is considered utterly abnormal amongst others. Autism is not considered a mental disorder simply because it produces abnormal behavior in children. It is considered a mental disorder because it can keep a child from developing, both socially and cognitively, as other children without autism do.

Wait a 12 year old disproves (or think he disproves) the big bang theory?! Then how was the universe created, how old is it really? If the big bang didn't exsit, then that means it dosen't exsit, then that means I don't exsit then how---oh !@#? it I'll just go back to playing Killzone 3...wait minuet I can't even play that yet---DANG IT!

Eh, it ain't all the great a game anyway.

I doubt that. Why? Because you have obviously began to fathom it and scientists are human beings just like you. I don't see what would make you different compared to any of them, so whatever you are capable of fathoming, so are they.


"...not buying the fact..." Interesting choice of words, that is. I could ramble on about what that seemingly minor word you've written tells about what you really think but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'll just ask you to tell me when do you think a certain condition is a disorder? Is Down's syndrome a disorder? Huntington's disease? Haemophilia? Where do you draw the line? I sympathise for your son's condition, but it is still a disorder. That doesn't say anything bad about your child, it just says that he is unlike an average human child, which you yourself admit is true - and that's precisely what the word "disorder" means.

Consitering you need a controller with six axis in order TO PLAY it. A little something they forgot to tell you on the package <_< . Well that will change once I get the PS move controller and play it with the Sharp Shooter.

Crazy! I wonder where he'll be when hes older...

I don't know I think the Big Bang theory is correct, but there maybe a few things wrong with the idea itself which the kid might have stumbled upon. Personally I still believe black holes are a gateway to the "original" time and place of the universe acting like universal garbage collectors. Whenever an item enters the blackhole it becomes so dense it is unfathomable by current scientific concepts. When this dense object hits/encounters another dense heavy object of similar makeup it could produce enough energy to be equivalent to several http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exatonof force. Read somewhere about a formula that could plausible have enough energy to equal or rival the big bang, but can't seem to find it atm.

Even if an item becomes immensely dense as per the gravitational forces of a black hole, at some point the item will be crushed to such a size that the likelihood of it hitting anything else is basically zero. Or, also due to the intense gravitational forces at the event horizon, the item could get ripped apart into its constituent atoms. And even if two heavy masses somehow collided in a black hole... they are two heavy masses colliding in a black hole. Any energy produced by that collision will not really leave the event horizon itself. And that doesn't even take into account the time-dilation (to an outside observer) caused by being so close to the event horizon of a black hole. But this is obviously off-topic. Black hole thread, maybe?

You do know that the big bang hasn't been proven yet, so why are you talking as if it was fact? It is pretty foolish to say that if the big band didn't exsist then you or me didn't exsist. We are here and know, so that means we exsist. The creation of the universe can be proven tomorrow or 1000 years from now. It may not even be the Big Bang. Nothing has been proven one way or the other.

I clearly rememeber a few years ago, it was impossible by the Scientific Communit that no Jupiter size planet can be so close to a star like Mercurey and Venus. Going by logic and numbers and science it was an impossibility. Now it has been proven that there are planets 4X or even more the size of Jupiter in the orbit of Mercury, or Venus. Heck on planet only takes 4 days to rotate around it's star. So it can be proven that the Big Bang Theory is false then.

Right now they have nothing better to go on, so it's a good plausible explanation, but please don't talk on it as it was fact, it hasn't been proven yet that it is.

Huh?
Mercury and Venus only appear as stars to us, from our point of reference here on earth. They are planets. Galileo Galilei proved this with a telescope in the early 1600's, by tracking Venus's orbit.
The surface of Mercury most certainly shows impact from collisions with asteroids and other astronomical debris, but no planets orbit it. Venus has no satellites.
Now as to whether large planets can orbit in close proximity to binary stars, one does so in Gamma Cephi system.
As far as BBT, I find it far more plausible than "intelligent design".

This. I don't buy the "Big Bang" theory at all. Seems very very very fishy to me.

Ha! I like this kid! I gotta say, I hate when people pick between choices. I say, make up your own mind. Throw out what you've been told and reason your way to your own belief.

Jake has done just that. Good stuff.

Nevermind.

Please. Stop. That's skirting dangerously close to the line. And you're probably about to get e-mauled to death by more than a few people here.

I believe this discussion has already crossed the line. THe big scary bear would probably only give a warning at this point though.

I was just stating me opinion, not going te' get far more into it.

Here are some videos of Jacob Barnett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2cKcIljTEo. Pretty amazing stuff.

Scientists are generally capable of admitting when they are wrong, for one. Simply because the prevailing evidence pointed to gas giants not having extremely close orbits to their sun a few years ago means very little (also, where did you hear this?) - the important thing is that it was discovered that gas giants can have such a close orbit and most astronomers probably said "That's neat" and went on with their day.

Your overall point, which seems to be that "nothing is proven" is true - very few scientists or researchers would ever truly say that something has been "proven" - since there is always the possibility (both statistically and otherwise) that the prevailing theories, no matter how much evidence may be found to support them, could be wrong. It's one of the major tenants of the scientific method. Of course, what you (seem to) assume scientists said was "impossible" was, to them, probably more along the lines of "very, very unlikely and inconsistent with current models."

Even your point about "nothing is proven" applies to something like the Big Bang theory - no one knows if the Big Bang occurred or not for 100% certainty - there is simply a great deal of evidence that suggests that it did occur in some form or another. The model of how the universe was created could change tomorrow, given new evidence. That is the beauty of science and the scientific method.