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J Autism Dev Disord (2007) 37:1396 DOI 10.1007/s10803-006-0257-0
LETTER
Questionable Aspects of Oliver Sacks (1985) Report
Makoto Yamaguchi
Published online: 25 October 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006
Dear Editor:
Oliver Sacks published an extremely inuential book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, in 1985. One of the most intriguing stories in it is concerned with savant syndrome, which refers to the exceptionally high abilities shown by otherwise handicapped individuals (e.g., autism). His story is cited in many journal articles as well as popular science books.
To reiterate, he discovered that autistic twins spontaneously generated 6-digit prime numbers like a game. Then he joined them, with a book of number table of up to 10-digit primes. He challenged them...