>If this piece of psudoscientific drivel is typical of the stuff put out by
>the Institute of Public Relations then I'm glad I'm not a member.
I don't see what this research has to do with the PR profession - other than
as convenient scapegoat. The research was published in the journal Autism
which "provides a major international forum for research of direct and
practical relevance to improving the quality of life for individuals with
autism or autism-related disorders."
According to the abstract: "Relative to a control group of students studying
literature, autism was reported to occur significantly more often in
families of students in the fields of physics, engineering, and mathematics.
Such results are consistent with the prediction. This study necessarily
involved anonymous self-report methods, so the reliability and validity of
diagnoses are unknown. Future replications should attempt a non-anonymous
study so as to establish if this association is robust."
Reference:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/frame.html?http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/detail
s/issue/j0192v02i03.html
David
_____________________
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River Path Associates
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Wimborne
Dorset UK
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-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Ellam [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12 September 2000 00:05
To: Dianne Stilwell; recipients - psci; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The problem with engineers......
What a pity that the silly season is over, and what a shame that anyone
believes that an 'experiment' which analysed the 'medical results' (whatever
they are) of a sample of 200 people can be interpreted to tell us anything
about the real world at all.
This sounds to me like another example of the old canard 'engineers have no
social skills' dressed up in shiny new clothes for the new millenium.
Surely anyone who knows anything at all about engineering will realise that
once you get beyond one person projects communication is vital to getting
the job done at all. You can't function as an engineer without the ability
to communicate.
However, one thing that engineers have to avoid in communication is the kind
of elliptical distortion of the truth which passes for PR, or spin, in many
circles. After all if you are working on a safety critical system you can't
afford to fudge problems. This may mean that engineers are too good at
seeing through the tall tales told by the PR brigade, and so when they get
to run companies themselves they don't hire expensive PR consultants. This
may explain why such companies are percieved by the PR lobby as having
communication problems.
Indeed
I'd much rather be a mildly autistic engineer than an innumerate
psudoscientist any day!
Richard Ellam
----------
>From: Dianne Stilwell <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "recipients - psci" <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask]
>Subject: The problem with engineers......
>Date: Mon, Sep 11, 2000, 10:08 AM
>
>
> Reading the latest issue of the Institute of Public Relation's mag
'Profile'
> I came across this in an article by Alison Canning (MD of First and 42nd
> management consultancy)
>
> "Dr Simon Baron-Cohen at the University of Cambridge recently published
the
> results of an experiment that analysed the medical results of 100
> engineering undergraduates and compared them with those of 100 arts
> undergraduates. A mild form of autism was detected in the engineering
> graduates (or their relatives) in proportions way beyond what would be
> expected statistically - in a ratio of six to one versus the arts
students.
>
> In industries where senior management is prdominantly from an engineering
> background, therefore, we may find a genetic predisposition underlying the
> often remarked-upon poor communications performance"
>
> Interesting.... I'll e-mail Alison to try to get the full reference for
the
> article, has anyone out there come across this work?
>
> Dianne
>
>
>
> Dianne Stilwell
> Chair - STEMPRA
> (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine Public Relations
Association)
> c/o The Institute of Physics
> 76 Portland Place
> London
> W1B 1NT
>
> Tel 020 7470 4875
> Fax 020 7470 4848
>
> e-mail [log in to unmask]
>
> STEMPRA website www2.ifr.bbsrc.ac.uk/stempra
>
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