When The Reference List Has More Errors Than The Article: Autism Edition.

I like scientific papers. When a blog post or news article cites an actual research paper, I am pleased. Not only does that mean that it is using primary sources (and that they’re probably reliable), but also that I get to add to my collection. I’m especially chuffed when there’s an actual references or citations section. I am distinctly less impressed when that section contains significant factual errors. And I find even more errors on the next article of theirs I check. And the third. And the author is getting paid per pageview/impression through Medium. And the author is hawking their (multiple) books on the topic. Which are on autism and neurodivergence. By that point, I’m angry. I stumbled upon this by accident; I read an article by “verified published author” J.K. Hamilton titled “Scientists Just Found What Hundreds of Autism Genes Have in Common.” It seems pretty reasonably constructed, the argument was interesting, and there was a References list at the bottom for me to find…