Did Hawking really say that? It seems so … ungallant. I mean, many people have disabilities, not least many with what appear to be on the surface cognitive disabilities, but are not, like dyslexia or Asperger’s syndrome. He ought to know this. Many of them are quite intelligent. Indeed, would Hawking himself be a memorable physicist as Roger Penrose’s grad student if not for his disability? Who is to say who is dumb (I suppose he meant ‘dull’, not ‘unable to speak’). Are people as ungallant to him? I don’t think he is insane, and isn’t it ‘ableist’ to refer to someone as crazy when they have a milder or less mild affective disorder, sometimes quite under control? Even ‘dumb’ people know enough to not be so very judgemental. Or is that a sine qua non of not being ‘dumb’?
Did Hawking really say that? It seems so … ungallant. I mean, many people have disabilities, not least many with what appear to be on the surface cognitive disabilities, but are not, like dyslexia or Asperger’s syndrome. He ought to know this. Many of them are quite intelligent. Indeed, would Hawking himself be a memorable physicist as Roger Penrose’s grad student if not for his disability? Who is to say who is dumb (I suppose he meant ‘dull’, not ‘unable to speak’). Are people as ungallant to him? I don’t think he is insane, and isn’t it ‘ableist’ to refer to someone as crazy when they have a milder or less mild affective disorder, sometimes quite under control? Even ‘dumb’ people know enough to not be so very judgemental. Or is that a sine qua non of not being ‘dumb’?