Seems like the article is making fun of these claims more than anything.
> The plurality of worlds debates provided wonderful opportunities to make definitive pronouncements without the inconvenience of providing solid evidence: after all, it was impossible to be proved wrong.
I think Fifty Shades of Grey has had more commercial success than The Martian. It was originally published as an episodic piece of Twilight fan fiction (Master of the Universe)
Regular occurrence here in Austria as well. Funnily enough back in school when we watched "Der Untergang" (Downfall), we were escorted out of the movie theatre by policemen right after the movie ended because they'd just found a big WWII bomb nearby at a construction site.
I'm pretty sure the majority of people on the internet who claim to be "neurodivergent" and/or have a diagnosis for some sort of ASD or ADHD do not show "actual, neurological differences in connectivity" though. For my little brothers it seemed like half the school suddenly had ADHD, mostly the kids who would in the past have been described as lazy, which I find hard to believe to be based on actual neurological differences.
> For my little brothers it seemed like half the school suddenly had ADHD
ADHD is simultaneously overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed; the case of your brothers' school could be the former, or correction of the latter (or both).
> mostly the kids who would in the past have been described as lazy, which I find hard to believe to be based on actual neurological differences
ADHD manifests as laziness to observers making snap judgements, so this actually tracks - turns out, some of the specific symptoms that, in the past, would make someone branded as lazy, are actually a disorder.
The problem with calling people lazy is that it's a moral judgement, which sometimes may be helpful as a form of corrective social pressure, but absolutely does not help when "laziness" is a result of a disorder like ADHD; it only makes them suffer that much more.
The key part here is "related to general intelligence" (not sure how they measured that as I haven't read the whole study). They obviously don't have 6.5 times more gray matter as a whole.
What do you mean by 'obviously' here? How precisely has that manifested to you in such obvious manner? Genuinely curious since you seem to take that as a given.
Doesn't your last point support OP's point? If you call it the "language of maths" instead of "skill", it would appear that they were indeed limited by their language. At least basic mathematical ability is ingrained in the language one experiences and uses everyday. Just think of a shopping receipt, or discussion of wages among colleagues, personal expenditures and budgets, poker games, recipes, etc.
> The plurality of worlds debates provided wonderful opportunities to make definitive pronouncements without the inconvenience of providing solid evidence: after all, it was impossible to be proved wrong.