Pure Pedantry : Science Gossip: Did you know Borat and Simon Baron Cohen are cousins?

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

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Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

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Science Gossip: Did you know Borat and Simon Baron Cohen are cousins?

Category: Autism • Gossip
Posted on: November 7, 2006 10:57 AM, by Jake Young

Did you know that Sacha Baron Cohen, star of the Borat movie, and Simon Baron Cohen, a prominent autism scientist, are related? I didn't. They are cousins.

Baron Cohen, 35, rarely gives interviews out of character. He guards his privacy so fiercely that, according to the U.K. press, his publicists denied not only that he attended a party for "Borat"'s recent London premiere, but also that a party even occurred. (It did.) When NEWSWEEK contacted his cousin Simon Baron Cohen, a psychologist and one of the world's chief experts on autism, Dr. Baron Cohen demurred via e-mail: "I must respect Sacha's wish for privacy."

Simon Baron Cohen is the proponent of the extreme male brain theory of autism. It is discussed in more detail here, but in short it is the theory that autism represents extreme forms of psychological traits that are more common in men than women. I do not personally agree with this characterization, if for no other reason than I do not believe women and men are that psychologically different. But still, it is a big theory floating around the field.

Who knew. Small world.

Hat-tip: Retrospectacle.

Comments

Wow, two people named Baron Cohen, and they're related? What are the odds of that?

Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | November 7, 2006 12:24 PM

I never knew that. Then again, I was confused at first by Sacha Baron Cohen, and Sasha Cohen, the cute-as-a-button American figure skater.

Posted by: Dave S. | November 7, 2006 12:55 PM

Well, I didn't know that! Coincidentally, I got an email from a Psychology Press publicist today about a new journal called Social Neuroscience. The co-editor of a forthcoming special issue about theory of mind is none other than Simon Baron-Cohen.

Posted by: The neurophilosopher | November 8, 2006 12:46 PM

I've been wondering about that! Now we just have to clear up whether or not their names are supposed to be hyphenated. . . usually the comedian is, but the scientist isn't.

Posted by: bioephemera | November 11, 2006 2:36 AM

ooo and another thing i think that jake young she stop saying shit about the poor girl and look at hes self hes the one always drinking all the time grow up and go to school orrrrr if you can finnsh school the way you are going........................

Posted by: holly | February 11, 2008 2:37 PM