Aspie = Evolutionary Leap Forward? Two Questions!

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Aspies as an evolutionary leap forward? I would say not. Especially for male Aspies, to be able to contribute to furthering the human race, women have to be interested in us. But normally the only Aspies I see in that position, and in relationships, are a minority and tend to be the more masculine, football obsessed ones who just happen to have a diagnosis but are really more like NT's. You can't tell they are Aspies at all, and this doesn't suggest Aspies are able to make a disproportionate contribution to carrying on the human race.

As there are more female Aspies than many of you might think, that's a different dynamic. They'll be getting approached by men and a lot more female Aspies I know are in relationships than males. Aspies would be able to thread themselves through the gene pool that way.

Or maybe as you say, we're working out the kinks. Perhaps if Asperger's somehow came to be considered sexy - i.e. considered a kink - that would help us in evolution. Oo, kinky.

Mutations don't go right the first time round I guess. I certainly plan on reproducing. Considering my parents and girlfriends parents, my child probably won't end up NT.

Given a world where information and abstract reasoning dominate our society, we have some significant advantages. Yes, we are fragile and require more maintenance/security then NT's, but so do regular humans compared to other species. Consider how much of how we behave is shaped by society, rather then genes.

Assuming the spectrum (or any "developmental disorder") offers benefits over those who don't, that outweigh the detrimental effects in the long term, then it is the next step in evolution. Thankfully, we can fix things like bad eyesight or hearing so context (social structure en technology) determines this, not just how much food you can carry. Children of MIT graduates and those born near Eindhoven (Dutch "silicon valley") more often have asperger. This could indicate that it offers benefits that outweigh is downsides in those social or geographical areas.

I'll go for "yes, but" as my final awnser

How's about a world where Aspies and NT acknowledge each other's strengths and weaknesses and become stronger as a result?

I need my NT friends, they help me mitigate my weaknesses so that I can benefit from my strengths. Without them I would really struggle, without me they wouldn't have a rather quirky, slightly scary ride on my stream of concsiousness that they can extract creative ideas from.

Just a thought...

I suppose it could be possible, but it sure messes up communication skills. Becoming more evolved in some ways and not everywhere else isn't very pleasant. If a person could have the positive traits of AS mixed with the communication skills of NT people, then they would be a super human!

Evolution doesn't really move in leaps.

I think our skills (specifically our alternative mindsets and approaches to problems) are useful and could lead to developments if utilised correctly. I think the same would be true of NTs in a world that was Aspie-dominated.

It does if you're a dog.

We aren't a leap, we are an increment.

Saying "leap", makes me think of X-men.

I think people saying no, just try to be politically correct. I just state a fact, yes we are an increment forward. In that way i'm a supremacist i guess, i don't say however that we should put the NTs in death camps. I think the issue gets controversial, because of this other kind of supremacists.

My personal theory:

Up until recently, there were 99% illiteracy in the population, and books costed the salary of a whole year. Now we have the internet, and it will certainly get hugely better in the coming decades.

The difference is gigantic. Because of the lack of information, in prehistoric times, humans where more instinctive, and extrapolated more. Instructiveness, or emotionality, permits to some one to take a decision that is correct on average(according to natural selection), with out the need of outside information. Its basically a program.

In these circumstances, we are screwed, with out external source of information we are less able then NTs, because we have a weaker programming, and extrapolate less. On average, illiterate Aspies, do less well then illiterate NTs. Being illiterate, was the norm, in centuries past, there was no point in learning to read, since books costed more then the salary of a year.

With the information age, the tables turn around. Now NTs are distracted by there instinctive responses from millions of years ago. Trying to apply them to the modern world, when they where intended to be used in prehistoric circumstances. We tend to just read cold facts, and take decisions on them.

I'm saying all this, to show that i'm not the usual bread of supremacist. I'm just stating coldly, and bluntly a fact (in my mind any way).

Obviously it's not a true "leap" - it's not like we suddenly acquired the ability to breathe underwater, or give birth to octuplets. What now? We can do that? Hmmm... impressive. Moving along.... I guess to be considered a "leap," it would have to be an almost visible change. So to rephrase the initial question, "Do you think it could be that incremental step forward?" I should have been far more literal in my initial post.

And secondly, enough already about how badly everyone wants an understanding bond with the NT world! I do too! But the second part of my question was a "what if." It's not like if you answered the question that I was asking, you would've been signing up with the KKK! It just seems like a lot of people are predisposed to using questions like this as a sounding board for their heavy opinion of Just Being Accepted.

And that - Just Being Accepted - is another topic, one that I support. I want to get along great with the NT world and not be as confused all the time. There, are you done? I was never trying to rally Aspies for an attack against the NT world. Stop reacting to my questions as though I'd just started a wildfire that you quickly had to stomp out. So when I say "WHAT WOULD AN ALL-ASPIE WORLD BE LIKE?" I'm not really looking forward to yet another "I need my NT friends so much!" speech. Yes, I need my NT friends too. But that's not the question!

An aspie civilization. I guess it would look like the vulcan's or something. Aspie politics will be a bit weird.

We could imagine, that in some centuries. They will be a world federation(free movement of people). The internet would be considerably stronger then todays(almost like teleportation). Families would be aware of aspie genes in them for generations. I guess in these circumstances, we would spontaneously aggregate in certain places, in large numbers.

Aspie majorities could start appearing here and there in just some centuries, i think. It seams to be at the early beginning in silicon valley.

Unless you plan on having a lot of sex or killing all the NTs, I don't see how this would be an evolutionary leap.

There is no such thing as an 'evolutionary leap forward'. Evolution does not work that way. It's one of my biggest pet peeves with shows like X-Men and Heroes, the way they mislead people about evolution.

There are random mutations happening all the time. Some have effects on the phenotype, which may be good or bad depending on what effects they are and what the surrounding environment is like.

So, you have this population with a bunch of different alleles for different genes, and as a result, it has diversity. Evolution, if it takes place, won't involve something 'new' suddenly popping up all over the place. New mutations pop up all the time, but they are rare - there are many case reports in the medical literature of kids where only one child, or a few related children, have a particular presumably-genetic syndrome that has never been seen elsewhere. There are also some new (de novo) mutations that are fairly common, such as the one causing achondroplasia (it's a dominant condition, but 80% of affected people have a new mutation and are born to normal stature parents). But those mutations have always been common. The rate of specific de novo mutations doesn't change, barring something like an atomic bomb or a nuclear meltdown (and even then, all mutations increase while staying the same relative to each other).

Evolution usually happens very slowly. Humans diverged from other apes around 4 million years ago. Modern humans are thought to have evolved around 250,000 years ago (the number is not exact, because there's no clear dividing line between us and homo erectus, our closest ancestors). The transition between homo erectus and homo sapiens took place between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago, which means it took about 150,000 years. For comparison, the earliest recorded dynasty in China (the Xia dynasty) existed about 4,000 years ago. So from an evolutionary perspective, all of our recorded history is just a blink of an eye. Evolutions does happen more quickly in shorter-lived species, because it depends on how quickly generations pass.

You can have evolution occur more quickly, but that takes a horrible catastrophe. If 90% of the human population were wiped out, and surviving this apocalypse was influenced by genetic traits, almost immediately you'd have a certain shift in the population. (To a less extreme extent, this is happening with the AIDS-immune genotype in Africa.) Still, the resulting kids would all be ones that you could've had in the previous population, only with their frequency greatly increased.

So, for autism: the genes for autism have existed for a long time. There might even be analogues to autism in chimps - there's also some ways in which normal chimps are more like autistic humans than NT humans, suggesting that in some cases the autism genes may be the older ones. It's possible that people with autistic traits are more likely to reproduce now than they were in the 1600s. But that's peanuts to evolution. There's good evidence to suggest that autistic people have been around a long time, although we have no way of knowing if the frequency has changed. (Martin Luther, for example, described a 'changeling' who was almost certainly an autistic kid.) If the frequency of autism genes has changed as a result of our changing society, it would be an extremely slight change, because these things don't happen quickly. (If there actually is an autism epidemic, which I doubt, it couldn't possibly be explained by genetics.)

I totally agree. We are called "aliens", and I've always seen myself more vulcan than human.
Yeah it would just be called getting things done

At least if you think of the majority of Asperger's having huge issues with lying.

Someone wrote that an aspie controlled society would be a dead end. I sure hope not, because AS is prevailent as a genetic trait and will eventually outnumber the NT population, though it might take a looooong while... Of course it will require aspies to reproduce and that might be the overall issue in this debate. Another one said male aspies have a much harder time finding a GF and the person is completely right. Since men only think of sex any girl with AS will still be able to procreate even if she doesn't have the greatest of relationship skills. Women are far more picky ... thus male aspies will have issues on that front. Hence also the reason why I personaly think that the first occurance of the Asperger mutation must have occured in a women, because otherwise it would not have been passed on

On the subject of an Asperger/NT reverse ratio, a lot of variables apply. First up reading this board will from time to time relay the image that all people with aspergers are living hard lives (I'm sorry but this forum does seem to get bitchy at times). However that is by no means the case.

I know quite a few people whom I suspect have aspergers and some I know for a fact to have it (like my twin brother for example). While the general observation with all of these people are that they seem to have trouble attracting the opposite sex, with the exception of the females (explained above).

But the fact of the matter, is quite simply that out of all the people I know with Aspergers, all function well in their day to day lives. Here is the kicker, for every person with AS who fails to function per the NT standard in everyday life, there has to be a much greater number of aspies that actually do function in life. These people share the same traits which are common to aspergers like hyperfocus and out-of-the-box thinking. They are just not as bothered by other issues, like sensory overload.

Also one has to think about the "clinical evolution" of aspergers, it was first used as a diagnosis in '94. Since then the diagnosis has been added to kids who fit the criteria. But for all those people who were already older than 10 years (avg diagnosis age is 5 - 9 yr) have never been diagnosed and we will only be getting a diagnosis if we are bother enough by it, to actually seek out a diagnosis. Hence my point is that the majority of people over 30 with aspergers will remain undiagnosed.

So if the AS/NT ratio was reverse I truly think it would be a better place in some sense...
here's why. (I'm being 100% objective, if I come off as a supremacist in your eyes, you're the one with the problem, because I'm truly not).

• Aspies generally have a greater tolerance than NTs - As such I think it would be far easier for the NT in that world to find acceptance than it is for AS to do in the NT superior world. NTs fear what they don't understand and that's rarely something you see in aspies. Well generally we just fear everything, but as such we've learned to live with it without becoming hostile
• Aspies have a greater emphasis on the greater good. We (in general) care more about major issues, like the state of the planet. And while we don't seem to have that much empathy towards the person sitting next to us. We generally have the same amount of empathy towards a person sitting next to us as we have for the person we're not sitting in the same room with. I personally doubt than an aspie in a management position in an airline would ever consider it good business practice to let a plane crash, because the settlements are cheaper than the repairs to a fleet of planes. (true story)
• Our natural inventiveness - Somebody wrote that aspies don't generally "work" as well if they can't read. I beg to differ. Allow me to quite Temple Gredin (she might be an autist and not aspie - But the general thought still applies) "Who do you think invented the first stone tools?". Of course we cannot be sure it was in fact a person with an ASD, but I'm completely sure it was someone who wasn't completely NT. Because NTs are fairly happy just sitting around talking about their feelings... Which brings me to the next thing...
• NTs spent several hours a day communicating about things I find highly trivial. Like their feelings when they saw the family member in a new pair of shoes. Or why they just love that new lawnmower. Aspies rarely talk about their feelings and this should by simple math free up a whole lot of time. Which can then be spent on more constructive things. The ability to hyperfocus is also key in development. Don't believe me? take a trip to your nearest university and look at the professors, I'll bet you that more than 75% of them have aspergers. Aspies spent the majority of their time trying to learn how the world turns and how to improve on it. NTs spent the majority of their time trying to learn the emotions of others. Which I see as huge waste of time, but that's just my oppinion.
• Somebody said that if everybody was AS then it would be a breakdown in communication. I honestly think the reverse would be true. Because AS people generally tend to only speak when there is a specific need to. Think about how much time is wasted around the watercoolers

Would I want to live in such a world? I think such a world will have greater priotize like global warming and polution would be things that would be taken much more seriously. And like I started my post adressing AS politics, it would not be one lie after another just to stay in office. AS politics would in my oppinion be a serious discussion instead of an endless debate.

But I don't want to live in it ... NTs are an endless source of humour to me and they do some very puzzling things. In an AS world, I truly think I'd be bored out of my mind.

Evolution does not work in "leaps".

Aspies are not "the next stage in evolution".

And we are not an "evolutionary dead end".

Aspies are equivalent to obese people. They have always existed, and always will. Maybe (given changing environements in changing times) both aspies and obese people will fluctuate in their percentage of the population, but niether group is likely to either dissappear, or to take over.

Take the word "aspie" and substitue the word "obese people" and you will see how absurd each of those concepts are: "fat people are the next stage in evolution", "fat people are a leap in evolution", and even "fat people are going extinct".

So that part of you're asking is a joke.

About speculating about a world in which aspergers is the norm and nts would be the wierdos who have to adapt: I dunno.

The trouble is that people on the spectrum differ from each other perhaps as they differ from the norm. So an aspie dominated world might less monolithic than our nt dominated world.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 18 Jun 2012, 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So I rephrase the question. I say "NOT a leap... a step... what about THAT?" And I'm still getting more "There's no such thing as an evolutionary leap replies!" This is ridiculous. But I digress... a lot of people, myself included... aren't going to read every reply before they post.

But thanks to those of you who contributed to the actual topic though. You made it a worthwhile read.

The problem with guessing the future of evolution is the billions of unknown variables. Thankfully that's the sanest argument against eugenics. The human race would get rid of certain parts of its populace at its own peril. That group that is sterilised from breeding or wiped out by genocide might be the only group currently carrying a funny little genetic quirk that the species might need in 500 years or 5,000 years to survive some unforeseen cataclysm. Natural selection is still much much bigger and badder than human intellect so I think we should just keep our arms in the windows and enjoy or loathe the journey for what it is.

How about a leap sideways? I think a little to the left, but mostly right. in the middle.

There used to be many species of humans coexisting for millions of years before modern infant Homo Sapien popped up. Wars, disasters. ice ages and diseases had more to do with the death of Neanderthal than it being a more archaic, therefore automatically assumed, inferior species. Luck is also a player in evolution and sometimes the would-be winners lose anyway, like the race car driver who has led every lap by a huge margin and gets a blowout on the last turn and slides to a halt so the number two guy wins

So, basically the latent genes are making us more like them in personality, which means that if modern aspies are gifted, and talented, intelligent individuals capable of creating in every art form and becoming great and successful people, then so must have been the Neanderthals.