[paul cotter (OP)]

The pseudonym "eternal student" is one I would have chosen IF I had sufficient imagination and it had not been already allocated to another poster. From about the age of 5 I looked around the world and thought to myself "wow, how does that work?", in respect of every thing I saw around me. Sixtyfive years later that hunger for knowledge remains unabated. All my life I have tried to "hoover up" as much knowledge as possible. If I had concentrated on one discipline I probably would be financially better off but I have no regrets about the path I have followed. I find novels virtually unreadable because my mind wanders off but the dense information in a maths book will hold my attention. In case anyone wonders what the motivation for this post is, insomnia has struck again.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

   Choosing a username is a fine art.   I'm happy to send people to sleep with some advice:

Consider the abbreviations
People often tend to shorten names online, which I leant by experience.   So if your username is  "Dickson" that will be shortened.    Initials are also used quite often,  so    "Brave Understated Man"   will be an unfortunate acronym.

First Appearances
    Next, online your username is one of the first things people see,  it's like your appearance in real life.   You can shift that through time and interaction, this is a forum for science and hopefully the average user cares more about what is said rather than who said it.   However, your name is what you start with and why make people start with an impression that is miles away from where you are?

Help don't hinder identification
    People can't remember most of the interactions or comments other people have made.   When I started using this forum I thought all "moderators" were the same person.  It wasn't until I looked more carefully that I saw they were not one person and sometimes they contradicted themselves.   Even when I noticed, it's not like I can stop being human at the flick of a switch.  I'm flawed and I can't easily remove my concept that the moderator is one person, it was a useful category to have.  You find yourself reasoning that "they" will all generally be speaking from much the same point of view.  I mean, after all they are the moderator...  they just uphold the law and speak from the general policies that the whole forum should follow.   You see what I'm saying?  It's just about being human and recognising that a forum is not like seeing people in 3-dimensional real life.   I even started a thread to find out what the moderators do or who they are etc.    @chiralSPO still hasn't described themselves so they will remain in the category  "Moderator", with a mental side-note "Physical Chemistry most likely".

Seriously help
   Since you can't see the person at all, there is very little human identification happening naturally.   You can safely assume that many scientists are borderline Autistic, so you've really got to go out of your way to call yourself something that rings in a message and has utility.     "My name" isn't going to work  but  "Bored Chemist" means something, we know who that is and what they are about.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve
    So how do you see yourself?   How does a human being read it?     
    The name "Struggles with English" should be warmly received while calling yourself "Professor King" says something completely different when the psychoanalysis is all done and finished.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

You can safely assume that many scientists are borderline Autistic

How safe is that assumption? I've never met a scientist who I would call remotely autisitic. Progress in science depends on absorbing ideas from others, communicating your own findings, engaging in discussion and review, and lots of teamwork. Don't confuse the ability to focus and analyse, and the possession of a healthy contempt for consensus and imprecision, with autism.

Apropos the question in hand, unless your  name is John Smith, I can see no reason to adopt a pseudonym. The handle your parents gave you should be enough to identify most people in a small forum.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

How safe is that assumption?

    It's safe in that it does no harm to assume.   It's helpful to choose a username that is helpful.

I can see no reason to adopt a pseudonym

     The single biggest reason is to achieve some minimal security.   Using a genuine name and being too precise about where you live is clearly dangerous in an online setting.    You're a moderator, you can't recommend people use their genuine names.
     Science forums have risks that are too numerous to mention:   People who can't stand to see the word of god challenged,  Animal rights activists,  Double Glazing Salesman,   Partners who might find out you aren't cleaning the house and doing the laundry  .... no end of risks.

Best Wishes.

[Halc]

Consider the abbreviations
People often tend to shorten names online, which I leant by experience.

That they do, which is why I pick a name short enough that it's not likely to happen. Besides, I often need to refer to myself in the 3rd person, and a long name just means a lot of typing.

However, your name is what you start with and why make people start with an impression that is miles away from where you are?

My name here is just a shortened word and not meant to leave an impression. I could have used 'Noax', which isn't meaningful on first impression, but that name does mean something, even if it isn't quite 'wearing your heart on your sleeve'.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

I had assumed it was HAL from the space odyssey books, but version c  - so not trying to kill everyone.
NOAX   would have been hard to work out.  No-one would have known it was Non-Oxide Adhesive eXperimental,  or a pop singer.   Best guess -    "No Axe to grind".

a long name just means a lot of typing.

   Presumably you do know that if you start with an  @ symbol  and just type something like @ET  a drop-down list replaces it with  @Eternal Student in no time at all?     There's a risk it also notifies the person but almost everyone has turned that feature off.

Best Wishes.

[evan_au]

I've never met a scientist who I would call remotely autistic.

Until around the 1980s (perhaps, until the release of Rainman, in 1988), autism was commonly seen as a development problem of infants, who were often locked up in institutions. Since virtually all scientists are adults, they could not be autistic, by definition.

Now it is recognised as:
- occurring in adults too (usually children who grew up outside an institution, and learned to adapt)
- occurring in a spectrum, from very mild to very severe
- more severe cases often being seen as children of parents with mildly autistic tendencies (ie a strong genetic contribution) - with Silicon Valley being a particularly intense hotspot

We can now look back and see scientists who were almost certainly autistic, eg
- Cavendish, who was brilliant, but could never talk directly to people, but used correspondence.
- Mendel, who spent years breeding peas
- Darwin, with his intense childhood focus on collecting bugs
- Even many of the early researchers into childhood autism! (in one case, because they had an autistic child themselves)
- It is that often-introverted focus on collecting information in some specific area, often with a numeric focus that means someone with autistic tendencies is more likely to become a scientist, engineer, musician or perhaps an artist (in contrast to movie star or a socialite, for example).
- A text-based forum like this one is likely to attract people with some of these characteristics...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum

You spend your whole life trying to find something you enjoy, and then everyone tells you to shut up about it.

[Halc]

I had assumed it was HAL from the space odyssey books, but version c  - so not trying to kill everyone.

So much for not trying to leave an impression. It's short for Halcyon.

NOAX   would have been hard to work out.  No-one would have known it was Non-Oxide Adhesive eXperimental,  or a pop singer.   Best guess -    "No Axe to grind".

Last one was closer.
If you remember my answer to one of your other threads about who we are, I put out an answer about identifying biases (a post which was copied by a spammer bot). To do that, one has to hold a minimum set of base assumptions, so it means no axioms.
So I'm way beyond 'cogito ergo sum' since that statement seems to beg at least two such biases.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

Since virtually all scientists are adults, they could not be autistic, by definition.

    It's a moving definition.   They weren't diagnosed as being on the spectrum but they might be now.   There's also no obligation for someone to be diagnosed, or any reason it would be useful to be so diagnosed.
    Presumably, you don't have a diagnosis that you're not on the spectrum and even if, for some reason you do, is it updated every four years?

The rest of your post is good.   Let's just be clear that this all about neurodiversity not disability.  All human beings are unique and it is very good thing.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

Cavendish, who was brilliant, but could never talk directly to people, but used correspondence.

Sensible fellow. Written correspondence cannot be misquoted, wrongly attributed, or simply plagiarised. Couldn't, or wouldn't? I never speak to government inspectors, and insist that all transactions are in writing. The crooked ones do not like it.
 

Darwin, with his intense childhood focus on collecting bugs

In Darwin's second year at the university, he joined the Plinian Society, a student natural-history group featuring lively debates in which radical democratic students with materialistic views challenged orthodox religious concepts of science.

Followed by years of collaboration and friendship with every major intellect of his era, and being invited to participate in years of exploration with the most accomplished seamen and navigators.....doesn't sound very autisitic to me.I doubnt that anyone with a hint of autism would cultivate the amount of publicity and controversy that Darwin (and indeed all major contributors to human understanding)  endured. If anything, he comes across as a very sociable person.

Contempt for intelligent men who think and behave like idiots is not autism.

[paul cotter (OP)]

People with mild autism often have sharp intellects but are socially awkward. Severe autism is debilitating condition and usually requires institutional care. Personally I am against the medicalization of human traits where every variation becomes a "syndrome". On the original topic, I couldn't think of a suitable pseudonym and I used my real name. At my age I couldn't give a f#@* who sees it. 

[Petrochemicals]

- more severe cases often being seen as children of parents with mildly autistic tendencies (ie a strong genetic contribution) - with Silicon Valley being a particularly intense hotspot

People with mild autism often have sharp intellects but are socially awkward. Severe autism is debilitating condition and usually requires institutional care. Personally I am against the medicalization of human traits where every variation becomes a "syndrome". On the original topic, I couldn't think of a suitable pseudonym and I used my real name. At my age I couldn't give a f#@* who sees it. 

I thought computer people have aspergers syndrome, rather than autistic, which has no slant on someone's interlect other than slowing development.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

   Minor note:   "Aspergers Syndrome" (AS) is a controversial title.
 
1.   It is no longer recognised as a diagnosis in some standard reference manuals for mental health and diagnosis.   
    It has become more common to include this diagnosis in the broader category of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).   

2.  Conversely, many advocate that AS just does not require a classification in a mental health manual at all.  Some researchers have argued that AS can be viewed as a different cognitive style, not a disorder, and that it should be removed from the standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, much as homosexuality was removed.   [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome#Society_and_culture ] 

3.   It has come to people's attention that Hans Asperger did a lot of his pioneering work using research methods that would only have been possible under the Nazi regime in Germany of that time.   His research on children seems to have been a most grievous violation of ethical standards.  Standards that he would have been well aware of and most probably directly pledged to uphold during his medical training.
    Historical research has now shown that he [Asperger] was...a well-adapted cog in the machine of a deadly regime..... The eponym "Asperger’s syndrome" ought to be used with awareness of its historical origin.

[Slagstad, Ketil (28 May 2019). "Asperger, the Nazis and the children – the history of the birth of a diagnosis"]

    To paraphrase this, there is good reason to avoid popularizing Asperger by continuing to name a disease or any discover after him.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

Drifting off topic as usual, but should we drive Porsches on autobahns? Or Volkswagens at all?

Should you eat any vegetable that owes its bulk to the Haber process?

Should all the decent, intelligent US presidents refund their Rhodes scholarships?

[Bored chemist]

It's an old question.
In the case of the data (for example on survival in cold water) obtained by the Nazis torturing and murdering in concentration camps, the decision was made that using the data will save lives and that, if it's not used then the victims died in vain.
But I never bothered to find out the names of the "individuals" who collected that data. They don't deserve to be remembered.