It has been speculated that both Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were mildly autistic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2988647.stm
Apparently, mild autism is often linked to enhanced abilities in such things as mathematics, computer science, and physics. It has also been observed that families that have many members that were physicists or mathematicians have a higher risk of having children born into them with autism.
In my personal experience, I noticed that the people that were at the top of the class in the physics and math classes I took in college often showed signs of being mildly autistic, (social ineptitude, etc).
Recently, experts have found a major increase in autism in the population. Those findings have been disputed, but the most recent studies indicate that it true.
http://www.webmd.com/brain/Autism/news/20050307/study-childhood-rise-in-autism-cases-real
Does it seem odd to any of you that we would be seeing an increase in autism at a time when the technological level of our society would make mildly autistic people especially useful to society?

