Autism Gene Is Found--Or Is It?

Headlines are often major sources of error. The Canadian Press just ran a story under the banner "Autism Gene Found." Trouble is, if you read the CP story, or the scientific study in Nature Genetics on which it was based, it's clear that no single gene--or even collection of genes--for autism has been found. Instead, researchers scanned genetic samples from 1,400 carefully selected families with autism and discovered suspicious patterns in their DNA that suggested where they might look for genes that could potentially predispose a person to autism.

In other words, if families with austistic members share similar DNA patterns, then it's possible those patterns might tell you something about a genetic predisposition for autism.

Notice all the caveats and hedges in these statements? Researchers use associations--like the ones found in this autism study--as ways of figuring out where to look for interesting results. That doesn't guarantee they will find anything.

Just as there's no guarantee that just because you found a few football players who wear red jackets that all football players wear red jackets.

Or, as the Canadian Press article by Sheryl Ubelacker (2/19/2007) puts it:

What’s important about the discovery, said [autism researcher Stephen] Scherer, is that it has given scientists in the field a new foundation for further research, which eventually could lead them to specific mutations on specific genes that cause — likely in combination — the spectrum of disorders that fall under the autism umbrella.