Darwin ‘had Asperger’s Syndrome’ – TCD Professor
The father of the theory of evolution through natural selection, Charles Darwin, most likely had Asperger’s syndrome, a TCD professor has claimed.
Psychiatrist Prof Michael Fitzgerald believes the mild form of autism gave Darwin the ability to “hyperfocus, the extra capacity for persistence, the enormous ability to see detail that other people missed, the endless energy for a lifetime dedication to a narrow task, and the independence of mind so critical to original research.”
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Speaking later today (Wednesday February 18) at the annual meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Faculty of Academic Psychiatry in Wales, Prof Fitzgerald will tell delegates that the same genes that produce autism and Asperger’s syndrome are also thought to be responsible for great creativity and originality.
Those diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome often have difficulties with social communication and interaction. Prof Fitzgerald believes Darwin shared many of these traits. He was a solitary child, as are many people with Asperger’s syndrome. His emotional immaturity and fear of intimacy extended to adulthood. He avoided socialising and took long solitary walks, travelling the same route daily. He was also a compulsive letter writer; yet these were almost devoid of ‘social chat’.
Darwin was also a great collector. “As a child, he hoarded insects and shells, and while at university he became obsessed with chemistry and gadgets. Darwin had a massive capacity to observe, to introspect and to analyse. From adolescence he was a massive systematiser, initially of insects and other specimens, which he catalogued.
“He had a tremendously visual brain. He spent eight years studying barnacles, and wrote books on his observations of earthworms and even on his own children. He was a rather obsessive-compulsive and ritualistic man,” commented Prof Fitzgerald, who has written several books on the condition.
In his 2007 text ‘Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World’, the TCD professor suggested that creative geniuses such as Archimedes, Newton, Darwin and Einstein may all have had Asperger’s syndrome. Having examined the biographies of numerous prominent figures, Prof Fitzgerald believes others such as WB Yeats, de Valera, author Lewis Carroll and even Socrates also probably had the condition.
“Creativity is extremely complex, and so far no theory or model of brain function has been able to explain it fully,” he commented. “But I hope that future progress in understanding the basis of autism may lead to a better understanding of autistic creativity and creativity in general.”
This year sees the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth (February 12) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work, ‘On the Origin of Species’.