The possibility that autism is the human evolutionary past

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biologists are not that sketchy on the concept of species. they would not consider aspies to be a separate species if they did not have a definite population of their own that was differentiated from NTs, yet aspies are fully interspersed within the greater population. and ASDs have not been shown to be fully heritable as too many genes are involved. for aspies to be a separate species, any 2 aspies that mate would have to give rise to aspie offspring, and that is not necessarily the case.

my dispute with your understanding of natural selection is not semantics - it is just how natural selection works. random mutations arise within a population and if they are not disadvantageous (i.e. they didn't kill anyone or prevent anyone from procreating) then they may be passed on. many such mutations may in fact be disadvantageous and may kill the organism, as i said, or they may be neutral. a preponderance of such mutations can give rise to a visible condition like autism.

these mutations are not created or selected to be advantages, at best they are simply protective when other options turn out to be disadvantageous. please note, i am discussion evolutionary biology, not evolutionary psychology. i thought that was clear when i said "natural selection", but just in case.

aspies are shown in every survey to less chance of marrying or having children than NTs in their cohort. not much more to say about that. here is one such survey:

Regarding the genetics of Autism, my understanding is that recent research has shown that at least some of the genetic differences found in Autism appear to be due to mutations of genes that everyone has and that both the normal gene and the mutated gene occupy the same place the particular piece of DNA in which they were found.

Furthermore, at least some of these mutations might not necessarily result in Autism, but instead serve to raise the risk of Autism. I assume that the more of these mutant genes one has, the more likely they are Autistic, but I do not know if that has been shown to be true.

Of course, the genetic research in the issue is far from complete. I don't see how this can possibly square with the idea of Autism coming from a ancient people with a different human line, much less a different species -- the idea of it being a different species completely ignores the notion of what are species. In order for OP's idea to have a chance, you would have to assume that there were two different lines of humans, one with normal genes and one with the mutant genes in the same places and that the two lines of humans mixed together.

If what the geneticists seem to be finding is true, then no such explanation of two lines of humans intermingling is needed at all to account for Autism. Instead of a special source for these genes, the real explanation would be a far more plausible and simpler and consistent explanation of genetic mutations, the sort that are known to occur and to have occurred over a long period of time.

So my limited understanding of the current science and the current research is that it is moving forward in such a way as to push the idea of a separate line of Autistic people into the dustbin.

Hey, I didn't read OPs hypothesis in depth, but isn't this more or less the same thing:

http://www.radicalpsychologytv.org/autism.html

Another evolutionary bunch of theories:

"Evolutionary approaches to autism- an overview and integration"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3277413/

Okay my fellow autistic humans. Forgive my tone in advance, or don't, I really don't care.

Hyperlexian. The environment exerts pressure on organisms and traits which are advantageous to that pressure get selected for. It is also possible for neutral traits to be passed on as well, or as you say, disadvantageous traits that don't kill the organism. But, natural selection is all about selective pressures. My dear, go read Darwin's book.

Look. This post was started with the term "possibility." I claim to have a hypothesis, and when I don't, I advance research questions. If these terms are not clear to you, I can explain them.

I don't know whether all humans used to be autistic or not. But let me tell you, there are certainly some things that I want to know.

Archaeologists argue all of the time about why for about half our species' existence, we lacked social sophistication, we had an insistence on sameness, and we avoided conflict with each other and with dangerous animals. Now, autistic humans lack social sophistication, we insist on sameness and routine, and we generally avoid conflict. Does that mean pre-behaviorally modern humans were autistic? I don't know, but I also don't know that they weren't. And no one outside of archaeologists are looking at this problem, or even aware it exists. But if it can be answered, then I want to know.

What about the evolution of human intelligence? You often hear that social explanations, but the truth is that no one knows. The gulf between us and chimpanzees is so large that Darwin had no idea how to explain it, and his cofounder Alfred Russell Wallace, thought human intelligence was a gift from God. As it stands, we evolved intelligence to keep track of all of the gossip, and things like doing physics or chemistry are fortunate byproducts of that intelligence, not the drivers of cerebral evolution themselves. Well if you want to look at the NTs and say that's how we got so smart, then go right ahead. I see no other challenge to the social theory than autism. Do I know that we are responsible for evolving intelligence? No I don't, but I know that no one else has proposed it.

Does no one else care that a woman who studies lungs had 49 autistic kids come into her office and they all had a different lung structure? I don't know if that provides any link to the aquatic ape hypothesis, just like I don't know if the pressure relieving feeling I get by going swimming is related to it either, but I think it is a question worth asking.

I want to know why my condition began in my mother's womb. I want to know why my ENTIRE brain is wired differently than an NTs. I want to know why my entire family has autistic traits. I want to know why if up to one thousand genes go into making me who I am, then how in evolutionary history were those genes selected for, because chance mutations happen, but they do not with that many genes without pressures being exerted.

Get it through your heads that we are the only ones who are going to figure us out. "Science" has already decided that we are diseased, we are disordered. But you know what we really are to them? WE ARE A COMMODITY. As long as parents will pay for research to find a cure, oh and they will pay, then we will be classified as something that needs to be cured.

Someone has to challenge the paradigms. God knows it won't be established scientists, least of all in an era of budget cuts.

Or don't. Have fun waiting for your cure.