Asperger's: Beneficial Mutation?

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It was in X-men first class so it wasn't Patrick Stewart who said it.

Aspie domination would lead to procreation or the will and desire to procreate with one another and thus eliminate the NTs, how?? I am not seeing how this evolution theory is even feasible.

I remember reading in an article that AS in the past usually occurred during times of famine.
due to some aspies being anti-social, it would make sense that we would relocate ourselves to a more plentiful area then individuals would flock to this pioneer, probably hungry females (i guess the lucky bastard would provide food for sex) then the AS traits get passed on.

basically, we help spread civilization.

now i have a theory that AS is linked to the gaia theory. AS is affected by environment correct? well i believe earth helped produce AS so it reproduce by having us help it reproduce by having us develop the tech for terraforming and space travel.

since the percentage of people on the Autism spectrum are not increasing in a significant way in the general population, I would say being on the Autism Spectrum is NOT a reproductive advantage. If a mutation did impart a reproductive advantage its occurrence would increase in a fairly obvious manner in not that many generations.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg_principle

ruveyn

That's hopelessly optimistic. If the planet wants to get rid of us, it merely needs to wipe us out, not help us to leave willingly. And it would be very easy for an aware environment to do that - viral epidemic would be the obvious way.

Autism has been around for a long time though, centuries before it formally discovered by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. So, it's not really decreasing much either. However, I also do not believe that it's a reproductive advantage and in fact actually is a disadvantage compared the general population even though some people on the autism spectrum evidently do reproduce.

Natural selection doesn't really function these days except in the extreme cases of people with defects that completely prevent them from living or from reproducing (and with fertility treatments the latter is also not happening often). For this reason, my personal opinion is that people who have even potentially genetic health problems that would have killed, crippled or rendered them infertile barring modern medical technology should not naturally reproduce.

Anyway, mutations are probably now occurring nearly unchecked, and a lot of them are probably not beneficial. The good news is that they aren't happening quickly, and it's inconceivable that the skyrocketing autism rate can be attributed to genetic mutation.

I make good money with a talent that is probably largely due to my mild AS, but it causes problems in personal relationships. It's a tradeoff. I have no idea whether the latter problem would be less significant if I were surrounded by other aspies. They would probably have to be the more extroverted type of aspies.

Actually, now that I think of it, I was in a relationship for a while with a girl I now suspect of having had mild AS (probably in addition to other issues). I think the only problems we had were related to her issues other than AS.

Some threads just dont stay dead.

Autism and aspergers are indeed probably large genetic.

They are endemic to the human population.

We, the minority so afflicted, are niether becoming more common nor less common in the population.

We are NOT the next stage in evolution.
Were just gonna exist in the same minority numbers as always.

There is no reproductive advantage to AS that I can think of.

The only scenario I can think of would be if something like AIDS were to become even worse than AIDS. NT's and folks with ADHD tend to be more sexually active than aspies. So a sexually transmitted disease like AIDS might decimate the NT population but not aspies. And after many generations aspies would prevail. That is to say- lack of social skills would become an advantage, and having social skills would become deadly- so deadly that it would snuff you before you reproduced. So the dork fourty year old virgin types would prevail. And the popular socially skilled people would start dropping like flies.

well im 12 and im an aspie and im taking life science ill ask my teacher on monday he's nice and btw im gonna try to find a cure for asperger's and my daddy said tht he's gonna help me

and my mommy said one time at dairy queen that one day almost all people will be autistic and one time i dated an aspie he was sooo sweet i miss him he gave me his number but i lost it

ooh there's about 2 b something on the local news on asd!! im gonna go watch it when it comes on but it's commercials right now

I don't think it can be cured. It's a developmental thing - it affects the way your brain develops as you grow up. If you were to change that, you'd technically be changing the person.

But you might be able to find a way to prevent new cases.

Firstly I would like to see the evidence that AS folk have done more for humanity than any other neurological group, secondly natural selection does not hand out performance upgrades because a person has cool computer skills or is good at analyzing data, it works on the process of beneficial mutations giving the individual a better chance of survival AND relies on that individual being able to find a mate to pass the gene on, I see neither attributes in the AS community. Most of us are male and we tend to live the lives of loners without partners, as to the better chance of survival I read somewhere that we have a higher incidence of suicide, which is partly the reason that psychologists have invented the idea of "aspie superiority" or at least tried to get AS folk to see some of the potential benefits of AS.

It could be helpful to someone seeking a job or career in the computer business. But, as you point out there is no evidence that having AS is a reproductive advantage.

It is conceivable that Aspies are statistically over represented in fields based on mathematics or physical science where abstract reasoning is the dominant thought process as opposed to "feeling" or empathy.

I have seen estimates that around 20 percent of the people in the computer business (system designers, programmers and system testers) are Aspies. Which is a 20:1 over representation with regard to the general population.

ruveyn

It goes beyond genetics a bit when you have social creatures like humans. Simpler, independent lifeforms are only trying to pass on their genes - but social groups rewrite the rules. My aspie tendencies make me less likely to reproduce - but the traits I possess, if they are useful to my family, can still be passed on through them. They're dormant in most people but every so often they combine in such a way that an aspie child is born. Even though I don't reproduce, the genetic tendency for AS carries on. It's not an advantage for the individual but for the social group.

Note that, if the AS was a disadvantage, it would weed out over time.

This applies to other things as well - like homosexuality, which doesn't actively prevent reproduction but does highly limit it. Having 5-10% of your population gay seems to confer some advantage as it's been that way for as far back as we can tell, though sociologists can give you any number of theories as to why. Really, no-one knows.

Yes, I was going to say that your AS is not the biggest thing making reproduction unlikely for you