TITLE: An Outsider’s Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are (Kindle Edition)
AUTHOR: Pang, Camilla
SUBJECT AREA: Autism-Social Functioning
PUBLISHER: Penguin Books
PUBLICATION DATE: 2020
NUMBER OF PAGES: 239
Of all the books written by autistic adults that I have reviewed over the years, Camilla Pang’s book An Outsider’s Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are, is the most unique. The author bases her social learning and development on science rather than social coaching from others or social skills classes in school.
Growing up with ASD, ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Camilla had a triple load to deal with, so she became resourceful. Using her love of science, she uses scientific principles to guide her through the social maze. She starts out with a discussion of how machine learning relates to decision making, pointing out the similarities between how we think and how a computer operates. We process thoughts and sort out data to help in the decision-making process, and the brain is like a computer!
The author describes machine learning in detail, and one can’t help but see the similarities between the various aspects of machine learning and how we think. So fascinating! This also includes decision-making, where she includes one of many hand drawn diagrams of the process at hand throughout the book to illustrate the concepts.
Subsequent chapters include her discussion of biochemistry and how that would relate to human connections such as how the binding of protein molecules to make the body function better would be parallel to the cooperation of a football team. She also discusses thermal dynamics, how energy works, order and disorder and how she tried to create order in her own life.
Other topics in the book include principles of light, wave theory; molecular dynamics and conformity; quantum theory; probability and evolution as it relates to empathy, and chemical bonds such as the covalent bond. There is so much more! Pang intersperses descriptions of how the potent combination of ASD, ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder affect her everyday life. The book is full of meaty material for sure, but the reader needs to keep going, otherwise one would miss out on some potentially cool and utterly brilliant ideas!