I'm going throw in an idea, but a lot of people aren't going to like it. Being a "good" Engineer requires a considerable degree of neurodiversity, because otherwise everyone could do it (which they can't). My partner says that "I am not in her world, or the world" depending, but she is fanatically tidy and thinks this makes everything else unnecessary. I admit to appearing eccentric to some, and largely unbelievable to others, because I am sure my brain is differently wired to theirs, and I see through and understand many things that they do not. I don't understand Shakespeare, general poetry or stiff prose, but a good scientific paper, or a complex textbook is just fine. The inventiveness necessary in good Engineering is easy for me, but my colleagues have this noted as a curious trait, which they cannot achieve. Why any of this happens is a mystery to me, but I am quite content. I have discovered over many years that these things are not liked by everyone, they find it challenging when their plan is shown to be many times more complex than necessary, or to not work at all. I have been called all kinds of things, some of them even moderately polite, but Boffin is probably better than Nerd.

I'm going throw in an idea, but a lot of people aren't going to like it. Being a "good" Engineer requires a considerable degree of neurodiversity, because otherwise everyone could do it (which they can't). My partner says that "I am not in her world, or the world" depending, but she is fanatically tidy and thinks this makes everything else unnecessary. I admit to appearing eccentric to some, and largely unbelievable to others, because I am sure my brain is differently wired to theirs, and I see through and understand many things that they do not. I don't understand Shakespeare, general poetry or stiff prose, but a good scientific paper, or a complex textbook is just fine. The inventiveness necessary in good Engineering is easy for me, but my colleagues have this noted as a curious trait, which they cannot achieve. Why any of this happens is a mystery to me, but I am quite content. I have discovered over many years that these things are not liked by everyone, they find it challenging when their plan is shown to be many times more complex than necessary, or to not work at all. I have been called all kinds of things, some of them even moderately polite, but Boffin is probably better than Nerd.

"Neurodiverse" is one of those terms which seems to be increasingly widely interpreted, which is a shame. The original (mid-1990s) term was "neurotypical", which was used in a faintly pejorative way to describe the majority of the population.

Perhaps David is saying that we need plenty of Aspergic people in engineering, only you cannot say that any more 'cos Herr Asperger's associations with the Nazis have put him in the dog house.

Being highly systematic must be an advantage in engineering and who cares if an engineer is short on empathy - machines don't have feelings.

In fact, I don't like all these labels, but why should somebody who is dyspraxic be an engineer? Motor dyspraxia is hardly compatible with being a toolmaker, and ideational dyspraxia could be a severe problem for a professional engineer. I'd love to be good at high jump, but I am too short (and fat); or painting (though I got the top grade in my technical drawing O-level); I wouldn't know where to start with poetry; and I'd make a pretty poor living as a musician (though I can sing).

So let's take people as they are and accept that we are all good at some things and not so good at others and leave it at that. But that's me being old fashioned again.