The Latest in Autism Claptrap | Stuart Vyse

Just when you thought the craziness couldn’t get any worse, 2024 finished with The Telepathy Tapes becoming the most popular podcast in the country, knocking the Joe Rogan Experience into the #2 spot. The Telepathy Tapes claimed that many nonspeaking children and adults with autism were not only capable of articulate conversation, they were psychic. Many of them from all over the world met up regularly in a kind of psychic chat room called “The Hill,” and others were capable of a long list of psychic powers. Autism has long been described as a “fad magnet,” and 2024 was a prime example. Psychologist and writer Stuart Vyse will take you on a tour of latest troubling developments in the field of autism pseudoscience.

Stuart Vyse is a behavioral scientist, teacher, and writer. He is a contributing editor for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, for which he writes the “Behavior & Belief” column, both online and in print.

Vyse is the author of five books and winner of the William James Book Award of the American Psychological Association for Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition (1997, updated in 2013).

Vyse holds a PhD in psychology and BA and MA degrees in English Literature. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He taught at Providence College, the University of Rhode Island, and Connecticut College.

[seans]

This is fantastic. Please keep up the good work. We need it more than ever.

[sgerbic]

This could have been 3 hours long, there is so much content available, but Stuart did a terrific job summing this world up.

Some thoughts ... FC is closely related to mediumship, the ability to community with a loved one is powerful and once someone truly believes that they have had communication and they hear that they are watched, loved, forgiven ... then just like with FC, it is impossible to reason with them. They KNOW that their loved one has communicated with them. So our best goal is to educate people first to what this is so they won't fall into the rabbit hole, inoculate people.

I think Stuart is a very wise man, but I disagree with him on one thing, he sees this upcoming Telepathy Tapes docuseries and second season of the podcast as a bad thing. I do not. I think we (the community fighting against this) are as prepared as we can possibly be to take this on. One of the problems we have had in the past with pseudoscience is that we were broad-sided, science was smug and thought it was in the past, we didn't have current articles, experts, videos and so on to explain the pseudoscience ... this time we are prepared. The proponents we have lined up are discussing this topic often, we are aware of each other's work, we are filling in gaps of understanding for the public, and we have people like Stuart who can do these excellent presentations. Plus we have the wonderful URL for the website ... and we have Wikipedia. If you are interested you will find excellent well-written, well-sourced articles on one of the most viewed websites in the world, Wikipedia about many of the people involved pro/con on this subject, PLUS the subjects themselves, FC and RPM. This did not happen by accident, this was completed many years ago and have been tested over time and nothing will happen to these important articles. And if people don't go directly to Wikipedia, I say, try a Google for a term and see what comes up, other websites are drawing on the content in the Wikipedia article.

I say "bring it on" we have to fight, and when they show their quality of work, what they are doing will be exposed and the people will be appalled and educated, just like this audience at CFI is experiencing. And when it is finally revealed, then we can't smugly move on to a new pseudoscience, we need to grind this into a pulp to make sure that any form of FC or telepathy is not taught in any schools, and no government funding and the police and court systems MUST be educated. We can not allow this to crop back up under another name.

The dog and causal setting for the demonstration shows the ridiculousness of looking like they are doing "science" while admitting when asked that it was not supposed to be science. The supporters of FC claim that it is too stressful to be tested and the student will be harmed if questioned. YET they are trying to also say that their now-communicating student is on par with the rest of their peers who are always being tested for their understanding of what they are learning. We can't allow them to get away with that contradiction and every time they try to make this argument, we need to counter it.

I think the most important thing Stuart said ... "In my opinion ... this young mans rights are being violated ... not loved for who he really is, he is instead being turned into a fantasy for his parents."

And thank you for the shout-out for LA SkeptiCamp ... we will be meeting in this space on the March 7-8 weekend. Please join us!

[christopherhamilton]

I’m shocked only 1 camera was used in the UNO card study. It would be killer to see the other side of the board. What an utter fail…

[foxtrotyankee]

Why can't you people (zealots) stay on topic? I was content to listen to you open-mindedly, and you have to stick it to this Elon Musk. I would think it would be beneath you, and your topic would be more important to you than your politics. Ridiculous

[fcisnotscience]

Thank you for taking on this topic. Great job. 

I'd also recommend two books by Dr. Katharine Beals: Cutting-Edge Language and Literacy Tools for Students on the Autism Spectrum and Students with Autism: How to Improve Language, Literacy, and Academic Success.