Stephen Louis Silberman (December 23, 1957 – August 29, 2024) was an American writer for Wired magazine and was an editor and contributor there for more than two decades. In 2010, Silberman was awarded the AAAS "Kavli Science Journalism Award for Magazine Writing." His featured article, known as "The Placebo Problem",[1] discussed the impact of placebos on the pharmaceutical industry.[2]
Silberman's 2015 book Neurotribes,[3] which discusses the autism rights and neurodiversity movements, was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize.[4][5] Additionally, Silberman's Wired article "The Geek Syndrome",[6] which focused on autism in Silicon Valley, has been referenced by many sources and has been described as a culturally significant article for the autism community.[7]
Silberman's Twitter account made Time magazine's list of the best Twitter feeds for the year 2011.[8]
Silberman was born on December 23, 1957 in Ithaca, New York, the son of Donald and Leslie (née Hantman) Silberman, both English professors at Jersey City State College.[11][12] He grew up in a Jewish family and described the Passover haggadah as being a "major influence" on his writing style.[13] Silberman said that his parents were communists.[13]
Silberman studied with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University in 1977. After Silberman interviewed Ginsberg for Whole Earth Review in 1987 the two became friends and Ginsberg invited Silberman to be his teaching assistant the next term at Naropa University.[17] The Beat Generation was a regular subject in Silberman's writings and he considered poet Philip Whalen to be a hero.[13] Silberman lived with his husband Keith Karraker,[11] a high-school science teacher, to whom he had been married since 2003.[18]
In 2019, Silberman started working on a new book, titled The Taste of Salt. According to Silberman the book was going to detail "the human stories behind one of the most impressive, but little-known, medical successes of our time: the transformation of cystic fibrosis from an inevitably fatal childhood disease to a chronic and manageable condition of adulthood."[19]
Silberman died on August 29, 2024 at his home in San Francisco, from a suspected heart attack.[11] He was 66.[20][21][22]
Silberman's 2015 book NeuroTribes documents the origins and history of autism from a neurodiversity viewpoint. The book has received mostly positive reviews from both scientific and popular media. In a review published in Science-Based Medicine, Harriet Hall describes Neurotribes as "the most complete history of autism I have seen" and recommends it as "a welcome ray of clarity, sanity, and optimism".[23] In The New York Times Book Review, Jennifer Senior wrote that the book was "beautifully told, humanizing, important";[24] the Boston Globe called it "as emotionally resonant as any [book] this year";[25] and in Science, the cognitive neuroscientist Francesca Happé wrote, "It is a beautifully written and thoughtfully crafted book, a historical tour of autism, richly populated with fascinating and engaging characters, and a rallying call to respect difference."[26] It was named one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times,[27]The Economist,[28]Financial Times,[29]The Guardian,[30] and many other outlets.[citation needed] Anil Ananthaswamy described Silberman's book in Literary Review as a "comprehensive, thoroughly researched and eminently readable" book about autism, which showcases Silberman's strengths as a journalist: "the writing is crisp, clear and engaging."[31]
Some other reviews were less positive, for example James Harris of Johns Hopkins University criticized NeuroTribes as a book that pushes an agenda, saying that Silberman misrepresented Leo Kanner as somebody who had a negative view towards autistics and their parents, rather than, as Harris argued, an advocate for individualized treatment for every child.[32] An autistic autism researcher named Sam Fellowes has also attacked the book on the basis of a prochronism.[33][34]
Silberman stated that a key point from the book is to recognize the need for accommodating autism as a significant disability in the same way that society accommodates wheelchair users.[35]
^Silberman, Steve (2015). Neurotribes, The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People who Think Differently. Crows Nest Australia: Allen & Unwin. ISBN978-1-76011-362-9.
^Silberman, Steve (December 2001). "The Geek Syndrome". Wired. Vol. 9, no. 12. Archived from the original on September 1, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
^Silberman, Steve. "The Song that Changed My Life: Steve Silberman". Rexly. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2015. I ended up buying all the music I could by Crosby and the rest of the band, particularly Crosby's luminous first solo album 'If I Could Only Remember My Name,' which featured musicians from the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Eventually, I would move to San Francisco in search of the elusive 'vibe' I got from that body of music; I still live there, 40 years later.
^"Happily Ever After"(PDF). Lion's Roar. Shambhala Sun Foundation: 23–24. May 2009. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 30, 2015. Retrieved July 23, 2015.
^Ananthaswamy, Anil (November 30, 2015). "Inner Worlds". Literary Review. Archived from the original on March 1, 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
^Harris, James C. (August 2016). "Book forum". Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 55 (8): 729–735. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2016.06.004.
