Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen is not afraid of making himself unpopular. The professor of the university of Cambridge is said to be one of the greatest experts in autism research in the world. He argues that there are serious differences - at least on average - between the male and the female brain. The female brain is an ’E-brain’, he says, ’E ’ for empathy, the ability to put oneself in the emotional position of others. On the other hand men are more likely to be ’S-brains’, which stands for ’System ’: motor, computer etc. In extreme cases this male brain-configuration leads to autism and other malfunctions, more likely to become a savant, possessing wondrous abilities but social deficits.
Baron-Cohen’s findings break with the socially requested dogma that there are no big differences between the male and the female brain. The dysfunction of the extreme male brain can bring up masterminds and monsters - and savants.
As a little girl Temple Grandin didn't speak at all. Later the other kids in her school laughed at her, because she seemed to repeat words and sentences she picked up like a tape recorder. Thanks to her brainpower she was able to learn the language of men like others learn foreign languages. In contrast Temple feels at home in the language of animals, who - like her - think in pictures and not in words. Prof. Baron-Cohen guesses that a male ’S-brain’ and not a female ’E-brain’ works in Temple´s head. Today Dr. Temple Grandin is the most important woman in the steak and burger obsessed USA. She designed more then half of all cattle breeding farms of the biggest meat producing nation in the world, because she knows the fears of cows, pigs and sheep by heart. But the thoughts and minds of average people are still a mystery to her, in her life she will never be able to fall in love.
It´s the same with Christopher Taylor. He wouldn't be able to find the way to the pub in the village he has been living in for 20 years, but Chri
