Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder (39 page)

All of this has led Baron-Cohen to surmise that genes that contribute to autism might overlap with genes that make people exceptionally good at systemizing—and that these genes might be passed down from parent to child. He has found that fathers and even grandfathers of children with autism are more likely to work in the field of engineering. Remember Einstein's father, Hermann? He had a knack for math and might have pursued a technical career if he'd had the chance; Hermann's brother, Jakob, did complete his studies in the field and later became a respected engineer. There's no cause and effect here—we'll never know how Einstein's DNA compared to his father's or, for that matter, if either one had genes linked to autism—but it's interesting to ponder.

Baron-Cohen's research is far from conclusive; critics say his findings need to be replicated in other studies. Without more research, there is no proof that a scientist is more likely to be on the autism spectrum than a poet—or that an engineer in Einstein's family had anything to do with the physicist's tenacious focus or wrinkled khakis. Still, the potential association between scientific talent and the autism spectrum is a rich area of exploration, and several experts have weighed in on the possibility that some of history's preeminent scientists may have had the condition.

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and unrivaled explicator of the human mind, believed that the evidence for Henry Cavendish, the great 18th-century chemist and physicist who discovered hydrogen, is strong. In a report for the medical journal
Neurology
,
Sacks asserted that Cavendish's behavioral characteristics line up with Asperger's syndrome, and the evidence in his case is “almost overwhelming.” Exceptionally quiet, Cavendish rarely communicated with anyone and had little understanding of social interaction and human relationships. He held unorthodox ideas and was single-minded in his scientific pursuits, passionate about number crunching, and strikingly literal and direct. “Many of these are the very traits he used so brilliantly in his pioneering scientific research,” Sacks wrote, “and we are perhaps fortunate that he also happened to have the means and opportunity to pursue his ‘eccentric' interests despite his lack of worldliness.”

In his public talks about the science-autism link, Baron-Cohen cites the Royal Society of Medicine paper written by Ioan James, which was published in 2003. In that report, James suggested that not only Cavendish but also Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and her daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, the theoretical physicist Paul Dirac, and, yes, Einstein, all exhibited traits consistent with Asperger's. In one of Baron-Cohen's lectures, he flashes a picture of Einstein onto the screen and ticks off the scientist's language delay and dearth of childhood friends. As an adult, Baron-Cohen says, “He wanted to be away from people and to really focus, some people would say obsessionally, on the world of physics.” Baron-Cohen stops short of a diagnosis. “We don't really know whether if we saw them today, alive, would they meet the criteria,” he says of Einstein and the other scientists, “but certainly it's pointing at this connection between great scientific talent and autism or Asperger's.”

Had Einstein been born in the 21st century, it is almost certain that he would have been assessed for autism spectrum disorder as a very young child. His parents, already concerned about his delayed development, would have been bombarded by headlines about a surge in diagnoses—one in 68 children is now identified as falling
somewhere on the spectrum—so they and their doctors would have surely been on the lookout. Pediatricians are now trained to identify initial signs of the disorder in young children, even in babies just a few months old. Early treatment, which includes intensive sessions of speech and language therapy and hands-on social skills building, can help improve verbal and nonverbal communication dramatically. If Einstein's parents had taken him for a checkup today, his late talking, intense focus, and social detachment would have raised red flags, prompted an autism screening, and possibly warranted a diagnosis.

Would Einstein have qualified for an autism spectrum diagnosis as an adult? Impossible to say. Several of his characteristics appear to fall outside the general conception of the condition, including his numerous romantic liaisons and his humor, which can be a challenge for people with autism given their literal interpretation of information. Reminiscences by people who knew him refer to Einstein's fondness for a good joke and his booming, enveloping laugh. In his writing, Sacks argued that while Cavendish's case is convincing, he found it highly unlikely that Einstein—or Newton or the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, for that matter—was “significantly autistic.”

Still, the condition varies widely, and it may come down to degree—the “dash” that Hans Asperger referred to. Grandin, who is a renowned professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University, likens small doses of autism to the marked creativity documented among people with bipolar disorder. Full-blown bipolar, she writes in her book, makes people unable to function; a mild form of the disorder, however, allows them to produce their best work. Similarly, “mild autistic traits can provide the singlemindedness that gets things done,” she writes. Einstein, in Grandin's view, fits into this category.

Grandin exemplifies the ability of some people with autism to integrate themselves into the world while still maintaining their unique characteristics. Although she didn't speak until she was three and a half, Grandin is now a best-selling author and public speaker, lecturing at conferences worldwide. She states emphatically that a person's capacity for human interaction can evolve. “You keep learning more and more social rules,” she says. New imaging studies show that therapy can even change the activity in the brains of children with autism, making them look more like typically developing children. Uta Frith, a pioneering autism researcher who brought Hans Asperger's original report to light when she translated it from German to English, has written that some people with Asperger's can achieve “near-normal” behavior by learning social routines well enough that they “strike others as merely eccentric.”

In a foreword to Grandin's book, Oliver Sacks described Grandin's classic autistic characteristics—social awkwardness and difficulty processing human emotions—but noted that she had learned “many sorts of humanness” over the years he had known her. “Not least among these is a capacity for humor and even subterfuge,” he wrote, “which one would have thought impossible in someone who is autistic.” Grandin displays this trait in a point she often makes in interviews and in her public appearances. “Who do you think made the first stone spear?” she asked a
Wall Street Journal
reporter. “That wasn't the yakkity yaks sitting around the campfire. It was some Asperger sitting in the back of a cave figuring out how to chip rocks into spearheads.”

It is not surprising that support groups for people with autism and their families are eager to claim visionaries like Grandin and Einstein as their own. Indeed, what used to be known as Asperger's has become something of a diagnosis du jour. Many historical
figures, in addition to scientists, have attracted the label, including Thomas Jefferson, Mozart, and Bill Gates. Others have proudly announced their own diagnoses, including Tim Page, the Pulitzer Prize–winning music critic, who was diagnosed with Asperger's in 2000 at the age of 45. “My pervasive childhood memory is an excruciating awareness of my own strangeness,” he writes in his memoir,
Parallel Play
. The title comes from his feeling that “my life has been spent in a perpetual state of parallel play, alongside, but distinctly apart from, the rest of humanity.”

A whole movement of pride has developed with “Aspies,” as they call themselves, relishing their unique characteristics and celebrating their “neurodiversity” as natural variation in the human genome. So what if they're not great cocktail party conversationalists? They might be math geeks who grow up to run billion-dollar software companies. T-shirts that read “Asperger's: Another kind of normal” and “Can't fix what's not broken” constitute one small part of their effort to raise awareness. Some even want to put an end to genetic research, because they fear that hunting down genes in the search for a cure could mean the end of the special qualities they offer the world. Grandin worries about this, too. “I feel very strongly that if you got rid of all of the autistic genetics, you're not going to have any scientists. There'd be no computer people. You'd lose a lot of artists and musicians. There'd be a horrible price to pay,” she said in an interview with NPR.

People are intricate puzzles—biologically, genetically, behaviorally—and a psychological label cannot begin to do justice to our rich complexities. Nor can it or should it define anyone, including Albert Einstein and his extraordinary mind. In the end, an exploration of Einstein and the autism spectrum should not determine an absolute diagnosis, but rather unveil the phenomenal heights to
which human beings can soar, no matter how “normal” or “odd” they may seem.

I
N
O
CTOBER 1933, AFTER THE
N
AZIS
seized power in Germany, Albert and Elsa Einstein moved to the United States. At 54, the physicist launched what would be a 22-year career at Princeton, where he remained as brilliant and offbeat as ever, spending much of his time in sweatshirts and baggy pants with no socks. He didn't drive, instead walking the mile or so from his home to his office. A neighbor remembered Einstein inviting her and two other girls in for lunch in his study one day. Einstein's hair shot out in every direction, she recalled, and his office was a mess, with stacks of books and papers everywhere. The physicist heated four cans of beans on a Sterno stove, stuck a spoon into each, and handed them out. “That,” she told biographer Denis Brian, “was our lunch.”

A lifelong pacifist, Einstein supported antiwar movements and civil rights, and identified strongly with his Jewish heritage. In the fall of 1952, he was offered the presidency of Israel. He turned it down. “All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions,” he responded. “For these reasons alone I should be unsuited to fulfill the duties of that high office, even if advancing age was not making increasing inroads on my strength.” Almost three years later, on April 18, 1955, Einstein died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at the age of 76.

Einstein's brain, however, lives on. For years, researchers have been studying pieces of it to see if and how it differs from those of the average person. Several reports have emerged. One found that Einstein had a greater density of neurons in his brain; another
determined that Einstein's inferior parietal lobe, which has been linked to mathematical wizardry, was 15 percent wider. Scientists have also reported unusual ridges and grooves, as well as a pronounced knoblike structure in an area linked to musical talent. One analysis even found that while Einstein's brain was average size overall, certain regions responsible for focus and perseverance were greatly expanded.

One of the simplest observations, however, may be the most telling of all. Dr. Lucy Rorke-Adams, a longtime neuropathologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, spent more time with Einstein's brain than just about anyone. She inherited one of the boxes of Einstein's brain slides from a colleague in the 1970s, and it was she who donated her box to the Mütter Museum after guarding it closely in a file drawer next to her desk for more than 30 years. What struck Rorke-Adams more than anything was the pristine quality of Einstein's brain. “I was extremely impressed,” she says. There was very little evidence of a brownish pigment that tends to accumulate over a lifetime and is usually prominent by the time a person reaches the age Einstein was when he died. “The neurons were absolutely exquisite,” she says. “It basically looked like the brain of a young person.” Einstein's brain seemed untouched by the advance of years.

Youth. It was the essence of how Einstein lived and how he thought, his soaring intellect powered by a childlike curiosity and wonder. “The pursuit of truth and beauty,” he once said, “is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

R
ESEARCHING THIS BOOK
has given me the extraordinary experience of feeling like a child with 12 imaginary friends. And what a privilege it has been. I have gotten to know these complex, intriguing historical figures at both a personal and public level through the luminous bits of creative energy they left behind—letters, diaries, autobiographies, films, literary works, paintings, scientific treatises, musical compositions, architectural designs, presidential proclamations.

Much of what I discovered in these pages came to life through the wonders of the Internet. In a matter of minutes, I was able to call up correspondence written by Dostoevsky in the 1800s and Einstein in the 1900s. I found stunning photos of Lincoln's second Inauguration in 1865 and a medical report about Darwin's ills dating back to 1901. YouTube made it possible to relive Princess Diana's walk down the aisle at St. Paul's Cathedral, watch Marilyn Monroe sing “Happy Birthday” to JFK, and marvel as Mike Wallace interviewed Frank Lloyd Wright in a cloud of cigarette smoke on black-and-white television. One of my greatest pleasures was listening to live recordings of Gershwin playing
Rhapsody in Blue
while I tapped away on my keyboard.