[danielg6]

It’s just semantics. There are negative connotations associated with calling someone “normal” versus “abnormal”. I’m sure you’re polite enough to not describe people in wheel chairs as “abnormal”.

The non-controversial terms that people use related to issues like autism are “neurotypical” and “neurodivergent”.

[mrlala]

>It’s just semantics

No it's not... I was responding to someone who said there is no "normal". Yeah, there is. Most people behave in a way you would expect. Most people exhibit motor controls the way you would expect. A minority of people, and specifically people with autism, really do think in a "different" way and exhibit strange motor functions at times that most people do not.

I don't think we have to dance around politically correct terms here. I'm using normal in the statistical sense. Statistically, most people are very neurologically similar and then some people are (relatively) wildly different.

[danielg6]

> I’m using normal in the statistical sense

Which is semantics. You’re using a different meaning of the word to fit your point just like the person did in the grandfather comment. You even put the word normal in quotes yourself indicating that you understand how words can be interpreted differently. I wasn’t disagreeing with your interpretation of the term.

[navigatesol]

>Most people behave in a way you would expect.

This is absurd. How do you have any idea what "you would expect"?

>I'm using normal in the statistical sense. Statistically, most people are very neurologically similar and then some people are (relatively) wildly different.

First, define "very neurologically similar". Second, "most people are similar" in a normal distribution because that's the way the distribution is defined. It's not some biological coincidence.

[lazyasciiart]

Even without being able to consciously explain their expectations, humans are often consciously aware when their expectations have been violated. Experimentally, there are lots of responses that can be tracked. Unexpected stimuli causes slower reactions, longer focus times, and stronger memories. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tops.12292

[navigatesol]

I don't see the part of that paper that explains that people "expect" the same things; that there's some "normal expectations" in the population, which is what the OP is arguing.

There's a funny thing that happens every time an article on autism comes up on this site where a bunch of commenters state they have some degree of autism. This aligns perfect with the OP's argument: everyone is "normal", but I'm not. I'm special.

It's why "normies" is a thing. Everyone sees everyone else as "normal", but they're different. I wonder why that is?

[lazyasciiart]

Ah, when you said > how would you know what "you would expect" I thought you were challenging the idea that people know what they expect from others. It sounds like you were actually challenging the idea that people can know what others expect?

[roguecoder]

Blond hair is less common in the US than autism, but it would be considered very strange to call brown-haired people "normal" and blond-haired people "abnormal".

[dragonwriter]

> Blond hair is less common in the US than autism

The stats I can find quickly suggest blond hair in the US is around 3%, and autism in the US is around 1.7%.