The possibility that autism is the human evolutionary past

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There def seem to be elements of apsergers that would suggest benefits in a hunter/gatherer society. For example, the fact many aspies can handle being alone for periods of time, or that they communicate very directly. Both assets if hunting. Same with the logical brain.

Where it seems to break down is the amount of people with AS who seem to have other conditions and are unable to cope with the world or find mates.

Wait, Aspies invented language? That doesn't sit right with me, given that Aspies are more likely to be non-verbal than NTs and struggle with the intricacies of language games.

To be honest, I don't think you really present any evidence for your hypothesis, and if anything you are overfitting evidence to your proposal.

I don't believe in this theory because in order for a beneficial gene to be spread, reproduction needs to take place. And what is the problem with autism? Exactly that. Many autis do not reproduce.

Well, good luck with it. It's as good as any other theory I guess.

I wish you luck in arguing that we're anything other than broken neurotypicals.

If we can get a majority to see us as something else, we will cease to be broken neurotypicals. I would like to cease being a broken neurotypical.

Good luck with it.

You are going to need it.

Thank you all for taking an interest in our proposed hypothesis. Let me try to address some concerns.

We appreciate you noticing spelling errors that we missed, however, we would also appreciate your support in pointing them out.

Hyperlexian, we do not understand your "intelligent design" comment. We are not arguing that an invisible hand selected for these traits, only the ancestral environment.

Ettina, in regards to chimpanzees and bonobos, in a later posting we will make the assertion that the behavioral differences between the two apes are a possible parallel for the differences between autism and what we call lupinism. The violent, political, male-domineering chimpanzees evolved in a harsher environment that the bonobos, who are mostly nonviolent, female-domineered through sex, and display high levels of anxiety (the bonobos at a zoo in Germany died of fright when it was bombed in WWII). Furthermore, chimpanzees approach water with great caution while bonobos love to play in it.

The walrus, yes we are hypothesizing that language evolved in autism to for the transmission of ecological problem solving information, and that it was later adapted to convey social information. If a link between the aquatic ape hypothesis and autism could be achieved, then that would also give us a method for humans being able to speak in the first place, that of conscious breath control, which chimpanzees lack. To be clear, in regards to the AAH, we are merely advancing research questions. We want to know why at least some autistic children have a different lung structure and if pressure cravings are in fact protections from hydrostatic pressure that would be incurred from diving.

We feel that our hypothesis is clear, that these problems which are not getting solved within their own fields, e.g. the evolution of human intelligence and language, the origin of modern human behavior, the lack of human genetic diversity, and the autistic spectrum condition, and we think these problems need to have an inter-field cross examination. It is clear to us that most people are not even aware that most of these are even problems, as you are not taught in school that there is less genetic diversity in all of humanity that there is in one group of chimpanzees. If any of you are not familiar with these problems then perhaps maybe we need to do some background posts on them. And yes, we are a research group. We are flattered that you think one person could have correlated all of this information from diverse fields.

And yes, yes, yes. We are proposing that autism is a species. This is the post that we want to put up today, but in brief: We have a condition that is found in every race, creed, nation, and social class on the planet. It begins in the womb and lasts for the person's entire life span. It is polygenic (as many as one thousand genes) and many of those genes affect how the brain is wired, the ENTIRE brain. It has discernible language and behavioral patterns. It has bodily manifestations, such as gastrointestinal issues, sensory issues, and possibly it's own lung structure and tolerance for pressure. Although frequently clumsy, they dexterously manipulate objects, of which the children begin to do so almost immediately and without any instruction.

Forget, for a minute, all that you have heard about "functioning," or "disabilities." We hypothesize that IN THE ANCESTRAL ENVIRONMENT, a human who was adept at making tools (object obsessiveness, dexterous manipulation of objects, the tendency to collect objects), who could systematize the environment (develop special interests, mainly in physical systems, as we do today, and notice details in those systems) and communicate ecological information (monologues on special interests) could have occupied a niche, which we call a systematizing niche. We feel that this is a hypothetical solution to how intelligence and language evolved, why social sophistication came relatively late in human evolution, and why that social sophistication became cemented after humans went through a population bottleneck, i.e., autism had prior dominance, a new human gained dominance, absorbing autism with it, and this new human has not had enough time to rebuild genetic diversity, occurring as it was about 70,000 years ago.

We feel we are being very clear. If we are not, please be exact in your skepticism.

Once again. Thank you all.

first of all, if autistic individuals are a different species from NTs, they could not have fertile offspring. the difference would also be apparent in our genetic code.

My guess is that if anything, autism is the human evolutionary future, a random genetic "experiment" of nature, although the effect of natural selection would never allow it to prevail since we do not go out and clobber the NTs into submission like all the alphas do.

hyperlexian, thank you for your points. We hope your interest continues. Also, we like you, if for nothing else than your "frank assistance" comment.

We would like to thank you for pointing out that we are being fast and loose with the terms species and subspecies. We mean species in that autism seems to have a different strategy for procuring food from the environment than NTs do. I'm sure you are aware that while in high school you are taught that if two organisms have fertile offspring they are the same species, the biological reality is actually more complicated, and biologists do not agree on any one definition of species.

While we feel we have an adequate grasp of evolution, we still do not understand your point about selected for vs. not disadvantageous enough to be selected against. Is it possible you are being semantic? We are making the point that autistic humans have repeatable, heritable traits, which are based on far too many genes not to have been created by selective pressures, as I'm sure you are aware of the modern synthesis between genetics and natural selection, and that if you cannot ask how these traits would have allowed for survival in the ancestral environment, which we know enough about, then the entire endeavor of evolutionary psychology is thrown into question. We should note, however, that you are not the first person to make that claim.

As to the points about autism humans breeding less. We disagree. Many studies have noticed autistic traits in parents of children who are diagnosed. If anything, perhaps autistic males are not as successful at breeding in their younger years, when aggressive NT males tend to regulate breeding, but more successful in later years, when what is important to females is security for the future, and the stable autistic male looks more appealing. We think this is why older fathers are skewed to have autistic children.

Autism does arise within isolated groups of NTs. But remember, we are claiming that it is the foundation of humanity, and that NTs have not developed enough of their own genetic diversity not to need autism. Furthermore, epigenetics could allow isolated occurrences of that nature provided the proper environmental triggers are present.

To address your other points. If you have found spelling errors, please take the two seconds to point them out.

We do not see how the genetic link between schizophrenia etc. means that autism is unlikely to have its own separate origins from NTs.

Thank you once again.