The exception 'proves' the rule --- One of the reasons that I am a great believer in mixed gene pools has to do with the healthy counterbalance that exceptional behaviour can bring into the mix. Implicit communication can indeed be a sign of sophisticated interaction but a community that relies on it can end up narrowing the range of communicative resources that it uses and separating itself off from other communities. The presence of a 10% in each community who diverge from these norms help to question our neurotypical reliance on codes and forces us to find more diverse ways of communicating - and this is surely a good thing.

Source author: Biljana Scott biscott@diplomacy.edu