Explaining Humans: Winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2020

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In eleven brief but science-laden chapters, Pang presents convincing evidence that much of our world can be understood from the perspective of tiny molecules, particle waves, and the laws of thermodynamics. If you want to read some lightly entertaining neurodivergent anecdotes tenuously linked to unproven self-help advice via irrelevant pop-science chatter and metaphors tortured to the point of breaking and well beyond: this is the book for you. So it was a thank-you letter to my mum and also a love letter to science, to highlight how understanding and support can change someone’s life, by seeing what a person is, as opposed to what they should be. For example, the 16 different personality types defined in Myers-Briggs, which doesn’t have a great rep these days anyway, gets over-simplified by analogy to less than a handful of protein types. My mum is a biochemist and this maybe why I begin to switch off whenever someone starts to monologue about proteins.

Her career and studies have been heavily influenced by her diagnosis and she is driven by her passion for understanding humans, our behaviours and how we work. Only downside is that the book prize 2020 is not a sticker but actually printed on, the hardback is really pretty otherwise! Sometimes people choose those who are just like themselves, (covalent bonding), and sometimes they choose people who are opposite but complement them (ionic bonding).A wider audience could have been reached more effectively if Pang had focused primarily on her own subjective experience, rather than general prescriptions. They're hugely detailed and complex in places, and did little to enhance my understanding or my own coping mechanisms. Pang may have written this book as a manual to understand a world that sometimes feels alien to her, but it also allows neurotypicals to see the world from an entirely new perspective,” said Osbourn, praising how Pang “provides insights into different ways of thinking and the challenges of being neurodiverse in a ‘normal’ world”.

I had no idea ASD and ADHD go together so commonly and it was interesting to see the combination from a personal perspective. It's only helpful if you are a big science buff and are fascinated by long detailed explanations of scientific terms. Of course part of the subjective experience for many is a judgmental temperament; we can’t fault someone for a personality trait. Dr Camilla Pang (Millie) explores the intersection between scientific principles including proteins, machine learning, and molecular chemistry with human behaviour to provide an essential and enlightening guide to understanding the world around us.Topics include ‘how to (actually) think outside the box’, ‘how to embrace your weird’ and ‘how to find harmony’. Oft auch mit Humor und Witz erzählt Pang von den vielen Fettnäpfchen, in die sie als Autistin mit ADHS in ihrem Leben schon gestolpert ist. On thinking outside the box, Millie likens the process of decision-making to machine learning, where “algorithms excel by their ability to be unstructured, to thrive amid complexity and randomness and respond effectively to changes in circumstances.

I was excited to read this as someone with ASD and someone who is especially interested in human behaviour. Pang hopes the book “will give people that missing link so that they can feel complete enough to take the next step. I doubt she felt that secure when she was growing up though little time is spent in the book on the pain of not fitting in.Exactly what it promises, the instruction manual to human behaviour explained in a concept us science nerds can understand.