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The Pattern Seekers

How Autism Drives Human Invention

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The Pattern Seekers

By: Simon Baron-Cohen
Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
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About this listen

A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity.

Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for 70,000 years, from the first tools to the digital revolution.

How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species' inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.

©2020 Simon Baron-Cohen (P)2021 Tantor Archaeology Biological Sciences Evolution Evolution & Genetics Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science

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All stars
Most relevant
The narration of this audiobook is mechanical and stilted.

The content is interesting. It is a sham that charts and appendices are not provided in a pdf.

A poor audiobook. I may well have to buy this to do the content justice.

Awful reading, fascinating text

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Excellent book but the narration is awful, the guy speaks every sentence with the same cadence and inflection, and i found it impossible to focus on the content as i just wanted it to end. Switched to the written format and highly recommend. Please though, stay away from anything narrated by Jonathan Cowley

Can't listen to this narrator

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There are so many other books to read or listen to, I have decided to drop this one in the middle. If you have ever picked up a book or a lecture on neuroscience, you will very easily notice holes in author's argumentation.

Move along....

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I really wanted to listen to this book but the style of the narration stopped me getting further than the first couple of chapters. The speed and tone felt very robotic and this made it hard for me to take in the information.

Not keen on the narration

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I learned a lot about myself, which is why I bought the book in the first place. The information was well presented and comprehensive. This didn't have the kind of bias against autism other books I've read have (sadly) had, but went instead into the details of how it's possibly formed, how it affects people's lives in both good and challenging ways, and gave me personally a lot of tools to manage everyday life as an autistic adult.

Interesting read

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