These kinds of things are Serious Business to people with autism. You have caused him great mental anguish by accepting his apology, and you should take it back immediately before he has a screaming fit. Judge Wapner!
Yeah, but your quote reminded me that I left a word out of my post, something I missed even after going back to edit it. I should have said: “it’s not like I was using it as collateral”.
Since I have occasional bouts of obsessive-compulsion, this is going to bug me for days.
Jerk.
If it is false, post a study that indicates that when blacks and whites are of the same income level they perform comparably in school. There are plenty of studies that indicate the opposite.
Here is another one:
What are the causes of this persistent gap in achievement? In study after study, scholars have investigated the effects of differences among white and black students in their socioeconomic status, family structure, and neighborhood characteristics and in the quality of their schools. To be sure, socioeconomic status and the trappings of poverty are important factors in explaining racial differences in educational achievement. Yet a substantial gap remains even after these crucial influences are accounted for.
It’s a developmental disorder or developmental disability. It almost always develops in early childhood and can have physical as well as behavioral symptoms. It’s similar, but not the same as a mental illness.
Many sources document a relationship between the racial composition of a country’s population and the murder rate:
According to the OECD/PISA Study countries where school children outperform American children are always countries where the vast majority is white European, or Oriental:
You’re using an idiosyncratic definition of mental illness. Autistic Disorder is certainly included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). Lots of other disorders have physical symptoms (e.g. anxiety disorders, depression). ADHD always develops in early childhood, as does Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Many, many disorders show developmental progressions. Are these not mental disorders?
So, what is a mental disorder, in your definition?
“Mental disorder” isn’t the same as “mental illness.” Subtle distinction, yes, but important.
Here the defiitions from the DSM:
"Axis I: Clinical Syndromes
This is what we typically think of as the diagnosis (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, social phobia)
Axis II: Developmental Disorders and Personality Disorders
Developmental disorders include autism and mental retardation, disorders which are typically first evident in childhood
Personality disorders are clinical syndromes which have a more long lasting symptoms and encompass the individual's way of interacting with the world. They include Paranoid, Antisocial, and Borderline Personality Disorders."
The bottom line is that there’s overlap in all these terms. Most professionals wouldn’t call autism a mental illness though. They would call it a developmental disorder, which may also be subset of mental disorders.
Developmental disorders are basically things that you are born with or probably born with, or at least develops in early childhood, whereas mental illness can happen to a normal person at any time in life.
The durability of the race gap in both academic performance and crime gives impressive evidence for biological differences. All that remains is the discovery of genes for intelligence and crime, and the corresponding discovery that these genes are unevenly distributed between the races. Those discoveries will be more than evidence, they will be proof that ends the debate.
Meanwhile, the burden of proof is in those who claim that the races are biologically equivalent.
You are a bully, a coward, and a fool. You and your kind are also a disappointment. Initially I though The Straight Dope was a place to have civil, erudite discussions of controversial issues.