Christopher Badcock

Christopher R. BadcockOkay, get the giggles out of your system now, please. is a British sociologist who promotes pseudoscience about autism and makes other bad-faith arguments. Badcock is an Emeritus Reader in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science.Dr Christopher Badcock http://www.lse.ac.uk
==Autism and schizophrenia pseudoscience==
In 2016, Christopher Badcock published two Psychology Today articles claiming that autistic people were "undomesticated humans"Autistics as Undomesticated Humans - Psychology Today (using "evidence" like head size and ear shape and the debunkedAggression in children with autism spectrum disorders and a clinic-referred comparison group - AutismAutism Is Not Psychosis - The Atlantic. Though psychotic breaks don't usually cause violence.Toronto attack: Autism does not increase risk of violence - The Conversation claim that autistics are violent) and people with schizophrenia were "hyper-domesticated humans."Schizophrenics as Hyper-domesticated Humans - Psychology Today
Badcock has also published articles with other "fun" claims, like:
* Autistics lacking Hyper-mentalism in Children Reporting Psychotic Experiences (debunkedEmpirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of MindThe Right Incentive Can Erase an Autism Deficit - Scientific American. Maybe autistic kids just aren't that interested in answering strangers' weird questions.Debunking the Theory of Mind - Huffington PostClinically Significant Disturbance: On Theorists Who Theorize Theory of Mind - Disability Studies Quarterly)
* Wealth causing the "autism epidemic"Why Affluence Is the True Cause of the Real Autism Epidemic (which probably isn't a real thingThree Reasons Not to Believe in an Autism Epidemic - Current Directions in Psychological ScienceLarge Swedish study casts doubt on autism 'epidemic' - Spectrum NewsThe CDC just announced one in 59 children are autistic. Here's why that's not evidence of an epidemic.)
* Males being naturally more autistic and females naturally being more psychotic, and Western society being more autistic and thus having more "LGBT-ism"A Diametric Diagnosis of the New British Disease
* Failing to examine gendered biases in diagnosis, like thinking that "the overwhelmingly female incidence of hysteria in the 19th century" was a sign that women were mentally ill more oftenBeing Female: Protected From Autism But at Risk of Psychosis - Psychology Today (instead of being more likely to be diagnosed by men after they dared to protest against sexism).
In 2020, these articles surfaced on Twitter, where autistics expressed their disappointment. "Apparently we autistics are nothing more than undomesticated humans with aggressive behavior, facial anomalies and… weird ears," wrote autistic parent and artist Steve Asbell.Tweet by Steve Asbell Another autistic person said "Just curious, does the author think we’re irritable and agressive before or after showing us this article?"Tweet by @cinnamonremote
== Homophobic misinformation ==
In 2017, Dr. Badcock penned another atrocious article about promiscuity for Psychology Today, in which he claimed: "one study in San Francisco found that nearly 50% of gay men had more than 500 partners" without a citation.It's the mode men have more sex partners by Christopher Badcock, Phd (2017) on psychologytoday.com In reality, statistics he cites appear to have come from a 1978 survey of sex club attendees and prostitutes (Bell & Weinberg), which didn't rely on anything close to a representative sample. Despite the already ridiculous claim, Badcock actually inflated the original statistic to 50% from 43% which was published in the survey. The statistic is commonly recited by extremist anti-gay organizations, making you wonder what kind of material Badcock immerses himself in. Did he intentionally use it for dramatic effect or did he use it because he holds some bias against gay men and wants to perpetuate stereotypes? It wouldn't have been hard for Badcock to rely on any of the numerous long-term and robust representative sample studies, which show that gay men typically have between 10 and 20 sexual partners in their life (median). One has to wonder why Badcock was ever made an Emeritus Reader at a credible university in the first place. Perhaps Badcock was talking about himself when he said "autistics don't seem to have minds at all".
==Links to the far-right==
Badcock was interviewed on white nationalist Edward Dutton's The Jolly Heretic podcast.The Imprinted Brain | Christopher Badcock. jollyheretic.com.
==See also==
*Autism
*Schizophrenia
*Debunked: gay men have 500-1000 partners
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Authors
Category:British people
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Living people
Category:Homophobes
Category:Ableism
Category:Autism woo