The Pattern Seekers cover art

The Pattern Seekers

How Autism Drives Human Invention

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

The Pattern Seekers

By: Simon Baron-Cohen
Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £12.10

Buy Now for £12.10

Summary

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
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
All stars
Most relevant
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....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
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

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book was bitter sweet for having two Autistic children myself.

The overall message is great, breaking down how Neurodiverse identify, analyse and interact with their world, the problem really is that it was all said within a few chapters and therefore adding nothing of real substance once the message was clear.

Highlights the benefits of difference

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
big fan of SBC but, for me, there are a few very slow chapters of this book that I feel excessively cover what is essentially a 3 step process, which is easy to grasp pretty much immediately....diluted the book, again just my opinion

mixed bag

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews