The 2020 SlateStarCodex survey has some data on this. Obviously it is quite limited by the fact that the sample is pre-selected for the (rationalist-leaning) SSC audience already, which you might also expect to be associated with autism.
This survey asked about identification as EA (No/Sorta/Yes) and autism (I don’t have this condition and neither does anyone in my family/I have family members (within two generations) with this condition/I think I might have this condition, although I have never been formally diagnosed/I have a formal diagnosis of this condition). Unfortunately, these leave a lot of researcher degrees of freedom (e.g. what to do with the “Sorta” and the “never been formally diagnosed” respondents).
Just looking at the two raw measures straightforwardly, we see no significant differences, though you can see that there are more people with a formal diagnosis in the “Yes” category.
I’d be wary of p-hacking from here, though fwiw, with different, more focused analyses, the results are borderline significant (both sides of the borderline), e.g. looking at whether someone said “Yes” they are an EA * whether they are formally diagnosed with autism, there is a significant association (p=0.022).
I have previously considered whether it would be worth including a question about this in the EAS, but it seems quite sensitive and relatively low value given our high space constraints.
Hi John,
Is there concrete data on the prevalence of autism in the EA community?
The 2020 SlateStarCodex survey has some data on this. Obviously it is quite limited by the fact that the sample is pre-selected for the (rationalist-leaning) SSC audience already, which you might also expect to be associated with autism.
This survey asked about identification as EA (No/Sorta/Yes) and autism (I don’t have this condition and neither does anyone in my family/I have family members (within two generations) with this condition/I think I might have this condition, although I have never been formally diagnosed/I have a formal diagnosis of this condition). Unfortunately, these leave a lot of researcher degrees of freedom (e.g. what to do with the “Sorta” and the “never been formally diagnosed” respondents).
Just looking at the two raw measures straightforwardly, we see no significant differences, though you can see that there are more people with a formal diagnosis in the “Yes” category.
I’d be wary of p-hacking from here, though fwiw, with different, more focused analyses, the results are borderline significant (both sides of the borderline), e.g. looking at whether someone said “Yes” they are an EA * whether they are formally diagnosed with autism, there is a significant association (p=0.022).
I have previously considered whether it would be worth including a question about this in the EAS, but it seems quite sensitive and relatively low value given our high space constraints.
Not to my knowledge, though I think it’s pretty clear