I concur, he's not worth taking seriously. However, when he and less-ranty people say the same things all the time and they're aimed at you, it hurts less if you point out (not in any of his spaces, obviously) that he's being irrational and ridiculous. You are correct that engaging with him directly would be a bad idea and writing a thoughtful critique of his ideas would probably be wasted effort. That's why you don't see me commenting on his blogs. I'm just needling here. It's also there for anyone else who's read his stuff and felt insulted, angry or heartsick to read and realize no one believes him. (My entire online not-allistic identity is designed to make autistic people feel better when they read it.) Best is also so easy to mock that I'm not fully convinced he's not a troll, but that's a lot of effort for a troll to go to over quite a long period of time.

Thank you for your advice, however.

Thank you, I've now had time to read your post a second time and parse your other questions. Here are my answers.

(What is counterparty risk, by the way?)

The CDC will be an adequate source for this. I don't know and can't figure out how to find out when they'll next release an estimate of how common ASDs are. If they do it before the DSM-V comes out or shortly after it comes out, then I would wait and take not the next but the one after. If they wait until the DSM-V has been in use for a while, and I'm not sure how long a while should be, then maybe just the next one.

I am not well-calibrated enough to give good probability estimates and I worry that I'd just be making something up if I tried to give a number. I also revised down slightly from six hours ago considering what you and Yvain have said. I still think having this out there, even imperfectly, is of social utility because until recently, the better diagnosis model and the epidemic model had both predicted increasing prevalence. I wouldn't bet on it because, among other reasons, this prediction isn't really about proving me right or wrong. It's about proving a model right or wrong. If that model is wrong, then I update. I change my beliefs and actions, but then I move on. I don't "change sides" or anything like that. However, the model stands or falls here (or at some future predetermined point farther on, if one in 86 is still not the correct prevalence) and if it's going to survive, I want to see it believed by everyone, partly because proving this model eliminates the vaccine injury model (among others). You, who have reasoned that accumulated mutations are a reasonable model, are really not my opponent here.

I also admit that I want this model to be true because even without the hard work of educating people, it would show that there's no epidemic to be scared of, which might make educating people easier. That could cloud my judgment, but an empirical test will not have clouded judgment.

Fair enough?

Then St. Elsewhere, rather than the comic, is problematic and wrong. Thank you; I wouldn't have known that had you not told me.

I'm still glad to have put that up on tumblr because I still don't want people thinking that's an accurate portrayal of autism.

I hereby claim that I am not-allistic on tumblr.

Thank you. Yes, this is possible, but the increase in those groups would end up exactly matching the decrease in adult rates from learning coping skills so well as to be undiagnosable and that seems unlikely to me. Why shouldn't one be vastly more or less?

Anyway, I'm going to make the article now. If you want to continue this, we can do it there.

I'm here to make one public prediction that I want to be as widely-read as possible. I'm here to predict publicly that the apparent increase in autism prevalence is over. It's important to predict it because it distinguishes between the position that autism is increasing unstoppably for no known reason (or because of vaccines) and the position that autism has not increased in prevalence, but diagnosis has increased in accuracy and a greater percentage of people with autism spectrum disorders are being diagnosed. It's important that this be as widely-read as possible as soon as possible because the next time prevalence estimates come out, I will be shown right or wrong. I want my theory and prediction out there now so that I can show that I predicted a surprising result before it happened. While many people are too irrational to be surprised when they see this result even though they have predicted the opposite, I hope that rationalists will come to believe my position when it is proven right. I hope that everyone disinterested will come to believe this. The reason why I hope this is because I want them to be more likely to listen to me when I make statements about human rights as they apply to people with autism spectrum disorders. It is important that society change its attitudes toward such individuals.

Please help me by upvoting me to two karma so I can post in the discussion section.