I was under the impression that the primary characteristic is social; that is, you need to have some sort of difficulty in social situations to qualify at all for "autism". I would not imagine that these tests would be the line between "autistic" and "socionormal" (probably not the right term) but between "autism" and some other diagnosis.

So perhaps the problem here is either a) I'm missing something with respect to autism diagnosis or b) they shouldn't be portraying this as crucial evidence in public discourse, which is what i think you've been arguing for. Is this a good understanding?

I might add i agree; I think certain fields attractive a different way of thinking that overlaps heavily with the autistic spectrum.