Simon Baron-Cohen
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Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen (born 15 August 1958) is a British clinical psychologist and professor of
developmental psychopathology Developmental psychopathology is the study of the development of psychological disorders (e.g., psychopathy, autism, schizophrenia and depression) with a life course perspective. Researchers who work from this perspective emphasize how psychopatho ...
at the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. He is the director of the university's
Autism Research Centre The Autism Research Centre (ARC) is a research institute that is a part of the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, England. ARC's research goal is to understand the biomedical causes of autism spectrum condit ...
and a Fellow of
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
. In 1985, Baron-Cohen formulated the
mind-blindness Mind-blindness, mindblindness or mind blindness is a theory initially developed in 1990 that explains Autism, autistic people as having a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind (ToM), meaning they are unable to attribute mental states to ot ...
theory of
autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
, the evidence for which he collated and published in 1995. In 1997, he formulated the foetal sex steroid theory of autism, the key test of which was published in 2015. He has also made major contributions to the fields of typical cognitive sex differences, autism prevalence and screening, autism genetics, autism
neuroimaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incr ...
, autism and technical ability, and synaesthesia. Baron-Cohen was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to autistic people.


Early life and education

Baron-Cohen was born into a middle-class
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. He has an elder brother Dan Baron Cohen and three younger siblings, brother
Ash Baron-Cohen Ashley Louis Baron-Cohen, also known mononymously as Ash, is an English filmmaker. He has a bachelor's degree in experimental psychology from University of Sussex, and trained as a filmmaker at the Pasadena Art Center. He currently resides in ...
and sisters Suzie and Liz. His cousins include actor and comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral ...
and composer
Erran Baron Cohen Erran Boaz Baron Cohen (born May 1968) is an English composer and trumpet player known for collaborations with his younger brother, Sacha Baron Cohen. Life and career Baron Cohen is a founding member of the world music group Zohar who are sig ...
. He completed a BA in
human sciences Human science (or human sciences in the plural), also known as humanistic social science and moral science (or moral sciences), studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand our ...
at
New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...
, and an MPhil in clinical psychology at the
Institute of Psychiatry The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways ...
,
King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
. He received a PhD in
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
; his doctoral research was in collaboration with his supervisor
Uta Frith Dame Uta Frith (''née'' Aurnhammer; born 25 May 1941) is a German-British developmental psychologist at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has pioneered much of the current research into autism and dysle ...
.


Autism research

In 1997 Baron-Cohen developed the " empathizing-systemizing (E-S) theory" which states that humans may be classified on the basis of their scores along two dimensions (empathizing and systemizing). The E-S theory argues that typical females on average score higher on empathizing relative to systemizing (they are more likely to have a brain of type E), and typical males on average score higher on systemizing relative to empathizing (they are more likely to have a brain of type S). Autistic people are predicted to score as an extreme of the typical male (they are more likely to have a brain of type S or extreme type S).Pdf
Now in
Baron-Cohen's "assortative mating theory" that if individuals with a "systemizing" focus or "type S" brain are selecting each other as mates, they are more likely to have children with autism.  This has been supported in a population study in Eindhoven, where autism rates are twice as high in that city that is an IT hub, compared to other Dutch cities. In 2001 he developed the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ), a set of fifty questions that can be used to help determine whether or not an adult exhibits symptoms of autism. The AQ has subsequently been used in hundreds of studies including one study of half a million people, showing robust sex differences and higher scores in those who work in STEM.


Prenatal neuroendocrinology

Baron-Cohen's work in E-S theory led him to investigate whether higher levels of prenatal
testosterone Testosterone is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of Male reproductive system, male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondar ...
explain the increased rate of autism among males. His prenatal sex steroid theory of autism gained additional support in 2015 and 2019 in finding elevated prenatal androgens estrogens are associated with autism. In his 2004 book ''Prenatal Testosterone in Mind'' (
MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...
) Baron-Cohen put forward the prenatal sex steroid theory of autism. He proposed this theory to understand why autism is more common in males. Using the Cambridge Child Development Project that he established in 1997, a
longitudinal study A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over short or long periods of time (i.e., uses longitudinal data). It is often a type of obs ...
studying children of 600 women who had undergone
amniocentesis Amniocentesis is a medical procedure used primarily in the prenatal diagnosis of genetic conditions. It has other uses such as in the assessment of infection and fetal lung maturity. Prenatal diagnostic testing, which includes amniocentesis, is n ...
in
pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
, he followed these children postnatally. This study demonstrated, for the first time in humans, how normative variation in amniotic prenatal testosterone levels correlates with individual differences in typical postnatal brain and behavioral development. His team discovered that in typical children, amount of eye contact, rate of vocabulary development, quality of social relationships, theory of mind performance, and scores on the
empathy quotient Empathy quotient (EQ) is a psychological self-report measure of empathy developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. EQ is based on a definition of empathy that includes cogniti ...
are all inversely correlated with prenatal testosterone levels. In contrast, he found that scores on the embedded figures test (of attention to detail), on the systemizing quotient (SQ), measures of narrow interests, and number of autistic traits are positively correlated with prenatal testosterone levels. Within this study his team conducted the first human neuroimaging studies of brain grey matter regional volumes and brain activity associated with prenatal testosterone. Other clues for the theory came from Baron-Cohen's postnatal hormonal studies which found that autistic adults have elevated circulating
androgen An androgen (from Greek ''andr-'', the stem of the word meaning "man") is any natural or synthetic steroid hormone that regulates the development and maintenance of male characteristics in vertebrates by binding to androgen receptors. This in ...
s in serum and that the autistic brain in women is ‘masculinized’ in both
grey Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
and
white matter White matter refers to areas of the central nervous system (CNS) that are mainly made up of myelinated axons, also called tracts. Long thought to be passive tissue, white matter affects learning and brain functions, modulating the distributi ...
brain volume. An independent animal model by Xu et al. (2015, Physiology and Behavior, 138, 13–20) showed that elevated prenatal testosterone during pregnancy leads to reduced social interest in the offspring. Baron-Cohen's group also studied the rate of autism in offspring of mothers with
polycystic ovary syndrome Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, is the most common endocrine disorder in women of reproductive age. The syndrome is named after the characteristic cysts which may form on the ovaries, though it is important to note that this is a sign and no ...
(PCOS), a medical condition caused by elevated prenatal testosterone. He found that in women with PCOS, the odds of having a child with autism are significantly increased. This has been replicated in three other countries (Sweden, Finland, and Israel) and is in line with the finding that mothers of autistic children themselves have elevated sex steroid hormones. But to really test the theory Baron-Cohen needed a much larger sample than his Cambridge Child Development Project, since autism only occurs in 1% of the population. So, in 2015, he set up a collaboration with the Danish Biobank which has stored over 20 thousand
amniotic fluid The amniotic fluid is the protective liquid contained by the amniotic sac of a gravid amniote. This fluid serves as a cushion for the growing fetus, but also serves to facilitate the exchange of nutrients, water, and biochemical products betwee ...
samples which he linked to later diagnosis of autism via the Danish Psychiatric Register. He tested the prenatal androgens and found that children later diagnosed as autistic were exposed to elevated levels of prenatal testosterone, and the Δ4 sex steroid precursors to prenatal testosterone. In 2019 he tested the same cohort's levels of exposure to prenatal estrogens and again found these were elevated in pregnancies that resulted in autism. These novel studies provide evidence of the role of prenatal hormones, interacting with genetic predisposition, in the cause of autism.


Developmental social cognitive neuroscience

While a member of the Cognitive Development Unit (CDU) in London in 1985, to explain the social-communication deficits in autism, Baron-Cohen and his colleagues Frith and Alan Leslie formulated the "
theory of mind In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them (that is, surmising what is happening in their mind). This includes the knowledge that others' mental states may be different fro ...
" (ToM) hypothesis. ToM (also known as " cognitive empathy") is the brain's partially innate mechanism for rapidly making sense of social behavior by effortlessly attributing mental states to others, enabling behavioral prediction and
social communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
skills. They confirmed this using the false belief test, showing that a typical four-year-old child can infer another person's belief that is different to their own, while autistic children on average are impaired in this ability. Baron-Cohen's 1995 book ''Mindblindness'' summarized his subsequent experiments in ToM and its impairment in autism. He went on to show that children with autism are blind to the mentalistic significance of the eyes and show deficits in advanced ToM, measured by the "reading the mind in the eyes test" (or "eyes test") that he designed. He conducted the first neuroimaging study of ToM in typical and autistic adults, and studied patients demonstrating lesions in the orbito- and medial-prefrontal cortex and amygdala can impair ToM. He also reported the first evidence of atypical
amygdala The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex verte ...
function in autism during ToM. In 2017, his team studied 80K genotyped individuals who took the eyes test. He found SNPs partly contribute to individual differences on this dimensional trait measure on which autistic people are impaired. This is evidence that cognitive empathy/ToM is partly heritable. This also illustrates Baron-Cohen's approach to autism genetics that relates autism to individual differences in traits such as empathy and systemizing in the general population. ''Mindblindness'' is today recognized as one of the core cognitive domains of disability in autism and the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
recommended Baron-Cohen's eyes test as a core measure that should be used as part of the
Research Domain Criteria The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project is an initiative of personalized medicine in psychiatry developed by US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). In contrast to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) maintai ...
(RDOC) for assessing social cognition. Baron-Cohen developed the Mindreading software for special education, which was nominated for an award from the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
(BAFTA) interactive award in 2002. His lab developed '' The Transporters'', an animation series designed to teach children with autism to recognize and understand emotions. The series was also nominated for a BAFTA award.


Reception

Baron-Cohen has faced criticism by some for his "empathizing-systemizing theory", which states that humans may be classified on the basis of their scores along two dimensions (empathizing and systemizing); and that females tend to score higher on the empathizing dimension and males tend to score higher on the systemizing dimension. Feminist scientists, including
Cordelia Fine Cordelia Fine (born 1975) is a Canadian-born British philosopher of science, psychologist and writer. She is a full professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Fine has written three popular scienc ...
, neuroscientist
Gina Rippon Gina Rippon (born 1950) is a British neurobiologist and feminist. She is a professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Aston University, Birmingham. Rippon has also sat on the editorial board of the '' International ...
, and
Lise Eliot Lise Eliot is Professor of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She is best known for her book, on the gender differences between boys and girls, ''Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small ...
have opposed his
extreme male brain Extreme may refer to: Science and mathematics Mathematics * Extreme point, a point in a convex set which does not lie in any open line segment joining two points in the set * Maxima and minima, extremes on a mathematical function Science *Extrem ...
theory of autism, calling it "neurotrash" and
neurosexism Neurosexism is an alleged bias in the neuroscience of sex differences towards reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. The term was coined by feminist scholar Cordelia Fine in a 2008 article and popularised by her 2010 book ''Delusions of Gender''. ...
. Rippon also argues against using "male" and "female" for describing different types of brains, and that brain types do not correspond to genders. Baron-Cohen has defended the neuroscience of sex differences against charges of neurosexism, arguing that "Fine's neurosexism allegation is the mistaken blurring of science with politics.", adding that "You can be a scientist interested in the nature of sex differences while being a clear supporter of equal opportunities and a firm opponent of all forms of discrimination in society." A book review published in ''Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences'' characterized ''The Essential Difference'' as "very disappointing" with a "superficial notion of intelligence", concluding that Baron-Cohen's major claims about mind-blindness and systemizing–empathizing are "at best, dubious". According to ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine, his views on systemising traits had "earned him the ire of some parents of autistic children, who complain that he underestimates their families' suffering". ''Time'' said that while research from
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
did not support the
assortative mating Assortative mating (also referred to as positive assortative mating or homogamy) is a mating pattern and a form of sexual selection in which individuals with similar phenotypes or genotypes mate with one another more frequently than would be exp ...
theory, a survey finding that autism was twice as high in
Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022, ''Time'' magazine has also criticized the assortative mating theory proposed by Baron-Cohen, claiming that it is largely speculative and based on anecdotal evidence. The theory claims that autism rates are increasing because "systemizers", individuals with more autistic traits, are more likely to marry each other and are more likely to have autistic offspring due to relatively recent societal changes. James McGrath has criticized the autism-spectrum quotient, writing that the score increases if one indicates interest in mathematics, and decreases if one indicates interest in literature or art. He claims that this leads to the false notion that most autistic people are strong in math. The developers of the software Baron-Cohen used for a 2009 study which reported that autistic individuals possessed superior
visual acuity Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
said that his results were impossible based on the technology used in the study. Baron-Cohen's team responded to this criticism by re-running the study and retracting the claim. Discussed in Baron-Cohen's supposition that
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
and
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
displayed autistic traits has been met with scepticism by
UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...
psychiatrist Glenn Elliot, who writes that attempting to diagnose on the basis of biographical information as extremely unreliable, and that any behavior can have various causes. Critics also say that because his work has focused on higher-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders, it requires independent replication with broader samples and that his theories are based on subjective perceptions. In response to some of these criticisms, Baron-Cohen agrees that many of his results have not been replicated, and says that he remains "open minded about these hypotheses until there are sufficient data to evaluate them". Still, he says he does not see a problem with introducing theories before definitive evidence has been collected.


Organisations

Baron-Cohen is professor of
developmental psychopathology Developmental psychopathology is the study of the development of psychological disorders (e.g., psychopathy, autism, schizophrenia and depression) with a life course perspective. Researchers who work from this perspective emphasize how psychopatho ...
at the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
in the United Kingdom. He is the director of the university's
Autism Research Centre The Autism Research Centre (ARC) is a research institute that is a part of the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, England. ARC's research goal is to understand the biomedical causes of autism spectrum condit ...
and a Fellow of
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), the British Academy, the
Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...
, and the
Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in ...
. He is a BPS Chartered Psychologist and a Senior Investigator at the
National Institute for Health and Care Research The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "im ...
(NIHR). He serves as vice-president of the
National Autistic Society The National Autistic Society is the leading charity for autistic people and their families in the UK. Since 1962, the National Autistic Society has been providing support, guidance and advice, as well as campaigning for improved rights, serv ...
(UK), and was the 2012 chairman of the
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care in England that publishes guidelines in four areas: * the use of health technologies withi ...
(NICE) Guideline Development Group for adults with autism. He has served as vice-president and president of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR). He is co- editor in chief of the journal '' Molecular Autism''. He was the chair of the Psychology Section of the British Academy.


Recognition

Baron-Cohen was awarded the 1990
Spearman Medal The Spearman Medal is an early-career award of the British Psychological Society's Research Board, given in recognition of outstanding published work in psychology which represents a significant body of work in terms of theoretical contributions, o ...
from the BPS, the McAndless Award from the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
, the 1993 May Davidson Award for Clinical Psychology from the BPS, and the 2006 presidents' Award from the BPS. He was awarded the Kanner-Asperger Medal in 2013 by the ''Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft Autismus-Spektrum'' as a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to autism research. He was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to people with autism.


Personal life

He married Bridget Lindley, a family rights lawyer whom he had met at Oxford, in 1987. She died of breast cancer in 2016. They had three children. He is a
cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...
of
Sacha Baron Cohen Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral ...
.


Selected publications


Single-authored books

* * * * (published in the US as ''The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Human Cruelty'', ) * (published in the US as )


Other books

* * * * * * *


Selected journal articles

* *


See also

*
Childhood Autism Spectrum Test The Childhood Autism Spectrum Test, abbreviated as CAST and formerly titled the ''Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test'', is a tool to screen for autism spectrum disorder in children aged 4–11 years, in a non-clinical setting. It is also called the ...
* Sally–Anne test * * Spectrum 10K *
Eugenics Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...


References


External links


Profile
– Department of Psychology,
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

"They just can't help it"
Simon Baron-Cohen, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' (17 April 2003)
"The Male Condition"
Simon Baron-Cohen, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' Op-Ed Section (8 August 2005)
"The Assortative Mating Theory: A Talk with Simon Baron-Cohen"
Edge Foundation The Edge Foundation, Inc. is an association of science and technology intellectuals created in 1988 as an outgrowth of The Reality Club. Its main activities are reflected on the edge.org website, edited by publisher and businessman John Brock ...
discussion, 2005
"The Short Life of a Diagnosis"
Simon Baron-Cohen ''The New York Times'' Op-Ed Section (9 November 2009)

Clint Witchalls, ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' (5 April 2011)
''The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty''
Simon Baron-Cohen (The ''Montréal Review'', October 2011) {{DEFAULTSORT:Baron-Cohen, Simon 1958 births Living people English people of Belarusian-Jewish descent English people of German-Jewish descent Academic journal editors Alumni of King's College London Alumni of New College, Oxford Autism activists Autism researchers British cognitive scientists Human sex difference researchers Developmental psychologists English psychologists Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
Simon Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...
English Jewish writers Jewish activists Jewish scientists Knights Bachelor NIHR Senior Investigators