>As an autistic person I agree with this, but it comes at a huge cost of much worse understanding of facial expressions of people and much less adaptability to

>As an autistic person I agree with this, but it comes at a huge cost of much worse understanding of facial expressions of people and much less adaptability to change. I don't believe that intellectual ability necessarily requires you to miss out on facial expressions or adaptability. It occurs in some people, but even, e.g., John von Neumann was famously gregarious and friendly. Furthermore, it is worth noting that autism (even high-functioning autism) does not consistently present with exceptional ability in formal reasoning — that is also a "sometimes". >Dr House is a good example of a person focused on saving lifes, but still people think he's an a@@hole Dr. House is a fictional character. I don't think there has ever been a real life doctor who diagnoses his patients consistently from intuition and then sends his residents on a scavenger hunt for kicks.