Some people are smart in the sense that they are very logical. Others are great predictors of how people will behave, I would call those smart, too. I'm not in that group, but feels wrong to dismiss it as "not smart". Just different smart.
I don't think the first group is smart as all. Understanding human behaviour is pretty basic skill. Missing a basic understanding on how humans work is just stupidity. Being able to build great lego sets, but not being able to have a basic conversation with other human beings, is not smart, but autistic.
But then if you travel along the autism line until you reach turbo autism, doesn't it just loop back around to being smart again? Like Kim Peek or Scott Flansburg?
Interesting cases, thanks for sharing. I didn't know what real-life inspiration the movie "Rain Man" came from. However, the two people seem to be worlds apart socially. While Peek seems to be extremely "stunted" in his social development, Flansburg appears to be coping well with his position as a speaker, which I always thought to be rather unusual for people with autism spectrum disorder.
I was thinking the same thing, but I was watching his human calculator video [0] and there are moments where his mouth moves quicker than his brain and he has to catch himself a few times. My guess is he's given this talk and rehearsed the mannerisms so many times that he's on auto-pilot.
