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From: Rich Ulrich <rich.ulrich@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: PTD was the most-respected of the AUE regulars ...
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2024 12:52:19 -0400
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On Sat, 27 Jul 2024 21:07:49 +1000, Peter Moylan <peter@pmoylan.org>
wrote:

>On 27/07/24 20:32, Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>> [PTD] would pronounce that something someone else had said was
>> wrong, when it wasn't and continue to insist on it even when several
>> people had produced evbidence that it was true.
>
>The Australian coat of arms shows a kangaroo and an emu holding a
>shield. These two animals have something in common: they cannot walk
>backwards. Their anatomy does not allow it.
>
>That was PTD's problem. When caught in an error, he was completely
>incapable of backing out. His only option was to dig a deeper hole.
>
>He's the only person I've encountered with such a severe form of this
>disability. Some others came close, but they got out of the impasse by
>responding with a non sequitur.

Anecdote: The great mathmetician/statistician Karl Pearson was
also the first editor of Biometrika (for 35 years).  He described
what we know as the Pearson chisquared test -- but for a few 
years, he insisted that it had 3 degrees of freedom, not 1.  And 
he refused to publish the folks who argued (what he finally
conceded) for 1. 


This is frequent a characteristic of Aspergers Syndrome (which
is a diagnosis no longer in the book; too bad). 

I learned about autism and Aspergers when trying to figure out
what was wrong with a bright fellow who started contributing 
and arguing in the statistics groups.  He also refused to reread
what was written, to see that he got something wrong, which
happened fairly often. - He was a smart mathematician but he
had no experience with research, which is where the questions
cam from. 

Also typical for the autistic spectrum --he frequently called people 
'stupid' and 'liar'. STUPID meant he didn't understand what was said,
and LIAR meant he thought it was 'obviously' wrong.  Oh, a lot of
autistics have trouble (for instance) in learning to 'choose the best
answer' on multiple choice when unsure, because endorsing an
answer that they are not sure of feels too much like lying, which
they avoid (and are very bad at).  

-- 
Rich Ulrich