Argument for Autism being a breakthrough in evolution

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What is "reproductive success"?

Look at the population graph.

There is evidence of DEvolution and moreover many believe as I do that our evolved survival instincts are failing us.

Far too much self hate here.

The the OP. Do you mean Autism or Aspergers?

+1

Quite the opposite, in fact, if the Love and Dating forum is any indication.

Since there is no reproductive advantage to being Autistic, having Autism is not an evolutionary gain.

Autistics are not the next step forward in human evolution ... maybe a step back ... and a little to the side ... but certainly not forward.

I think it's important to remember that this is highly dependent on culture.

Granted social skills can often benefit a person, but because someone has them does not mean they will automatically use them for their own benefit. Many nt's get obsessed with chasing their owns egos. So much so that they never settle down and have kids. I'm pretty sure a common trend among many aspies is the value they place on family and children.

Also the more important factor is ones financial means. Which isn't strictly a factor of social skills.

I'm sure if you were around during the dot com boom, one would prefer to be an aspie.

I think people need be clear Autism or Aspergers.

I am one of the lucky ones, I kept inventory so well I got my own corner. And in that position I redid the lights of the warehouse, even the regulars liked the change. Jokers still slipped in occasionally, such is life.
I am also retired.

But to the topic.
I always felt the opposite of the OP.
My form of autism seems to predate language, eidetic memory and pattern recognition are really helpful in the woods. I learned better from my uncle, who did not speak until he was 4 and still didn't talk much.

So my opinion is we are more of a throwback with skills not as necessary as they once were.

Ahhhh, blocks of text of people's thoughts and opinions, my worst nightmare, in other words tl;dr.

Reproductive success is having viable offspring who are themselves able to reproduce.



There is no evidence of either de-evolution or failed survival instincts because there are 7 billion people on the planet. Whether or not you approve of the ways in which they survive and reproduce is not relevent. Evolutionarily, anything that leads to more viable offspring is an evolutionary success.



Self hate versus self love is not relevent to a discussion of evolution.

There is evidence of that. Ive read it hence I said my comment. Where do you base your belief there is "no evidence" do you assume you are fully aware?

I wonder why you will still believe breeding like rats is evolutionary success?

David Attenborough does not. The world is finite size. More is not the measure - deal with it

Your refutation is woeful and I wont be investing time correcting your ignorance.

While it is certainly true that there are nt's who never have kids because they are chasing something or other for their ego, this is balanced out by the ones who use kids as an ego boost. I think it is emotionally dysfunctional to use having kids for an ego boost, but it is not evolutionarily dysfunctional. There are also many aspies who place a high value on family and children but there is no statistical evidence that they are out-reproducing nt's (proportionally). On this board, the trend is for child-valuing aspies to have 1, 2 or at most 3 children. Many nt's have the same low reproductive rate. However, there are also a fair number of nt's (globally) who have 3+ children, putting them at a reproductive advantage. They don't necessarily have to value or even care about those children for it to be a reproductive success. The children merely need to survive and have children of their own.



Globally, no. In fact, financial means seems to push down reproduction, giving the evolutionary advantage to poor people.

Indeed, that would give a high quality of life. But would you out-reproduce the miserable people who missed that boat and worked in sweatshops or worse? Evolutionary success isn't about quality of life, it's about how many viable offspring you have who in turn have their own viable offspring. (I say offspring to include non-humans.)

The evidence is in numbers. There are 7 billion humans, a considerable increase from what there used to be. Whatever genetics these people are carrying is succesful- more so than the long-gone genetics of those who died off without reproducing.

Yes, reproducing like rats is evolutionary success. Rats are an excellent example. They have evolved immune systems which are able to cope with the gargantuan toxic and infectious load of our waste products. This has enabled them to spread to every populated area on earth via living in our trash.



More is better until a tipping point is reached where we exceed the carrying capacity of the earth. Those who survive and reproduce after that tipping point will be the evolutionary succesful ones. I suspect that this will have more to do with their livers and/or ability to extract nutrients out of improbable substances than it will have to do with neurology.

My personal belief is that viewing autism (or any atypical neurology including schizophrenia, bipolar etc.) as a step forward or back is the wrong way to look at things. There is no ladder, no staircase, no steps. You don't move up, down or sideways. Instead, there are 7 billion people who have similar and related but still diverse neurology. I think the atypical neurologies (of which autism is just one) are not steps in any direction (no directionality!) but rather are conserved traits that ensure that in any given population, situations that arise will be met with a large variety of possible responses, making us as a species very adaptable to many locations and enviroments. From the perspective of autism/aspergers it may look like there is the autistic pov and the nt pov but I think there is far more diversity than that. The conserved traits (including schizophrenia, which may have informed the development of religions) allow humans to adapt to various enviroments, just as being omnivorous allows that.

I don't think we will split into different neurological camps that are similar to racial splits. Assortative mating might make it look like we are but I don't think it's all that powerful a force. Far more powerful a force is globalization which ensures that people will be churning up wildly different mixes of genetics, even if many are choosing mates based on compatability. Choosing based on compatibility is not at all a global standard and even in the places where it is, not everybody chooses a mate with matching neurology (assortative mating). When it comes to reproducing, "opposites attract" is just as much a truism as "birds of a feather flock together". People of very different neurology may divorce because they are ultimately incompatible, but if they had kids prior to the divorce, the kids are what is evolutionarily relevent, not their happiness.

Last edited by Janissy on 28 Jan 2013, 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Any cites for David Attenborough's belief?

Are you familiar with "natural selection"? David Attenborough was clearly familiar with natural selection and supported it.

Meh

I cant be bothered to argue.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... failing-us

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ce-evolvin

some reading for you. You dont seem totally wrong but "success" will cause chaos and not many fancy eating moss, insects or that paste they have in the matrix

He is a big proponent of the "stop at 2" campaign.

According to some scientists, we're already over that limit.

But honestly, I'll agree that Aspergers/Autism is an Evolution - but the concept of evolution itself is far too complex to ascertain whether or not a specific trait is good or bad. it most likely depends on the environment.

Thank you for the links. The tipping point when we go past carrying capacity will definately bring chaos. Evolutionary success will go to those who survive by eating what they have to, even if they don't fancy it, and feeding it to their kids.