Is Asperger's Evolution in Process?

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No.

A gifted NT individual has many advantages over a gifted ASD counterpart in terms of evolution. They do not suffer from crippling sensory issues nor executive dysfunction (including incredible resistance to change). The NT is also more likely to reproduce, and that's quite literally the only thing evolution cares about. I've heard claims that a gifted NT has 'autistic genes', though from my point of view it's absurd to suggest that. Why would they be autistic genes and not just genes that are in the human gene pool? It's only a very small proportion of the autistic population that have 'mild symptoms' anyway.

Being that the OP was referring to intellectual ability when discussing the topic, consider the following:

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ASD Brain =/= Gifted
NT Brain =/= Gifted

Gifted = Gifted

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I've seen a great many posts on this forum from intelligent individuals with an ASD, assuming their intellect to be purely as a result of their autism with the implication that if they were NT, they would not be as clever. This is obviously a flawed idea, as there are tremendous amounts of genius NTs. I'm aware that with an ASD, an individual may be blessed with amazing skills such as vivid visual thinking, though they do nothing in terms of evolution, hence why I don't bother to state the positive sides of autism in this case. Such traits that 'come with autism' may have allowed for relatively superior intellectual abilities, though if you agree with that, you could not possibly conclude the opposite for NTs; there must also exist traits that 'come with being NT' that allowed for any NT individual in question to develop relatively superior intellectual abilities.

Furthermore, nature does not 'accommodate' us. It does not catch us up. Evolution only happens as a result of survival, organisms are not 'given' the tools they need to survive, the tools are mutations in the DNA of organisms that successfully reproduced over hundreds of thousands of years minimum. This is a biological fact, so it's logically implausible for Asperger's to be the 'next step in evolution'.

I agree with Norny. Without autism there are still going to be gifted NTs, and very intelligent NTs. So there is no reason to think that autism has contributed to the progress of civilization in anyway. I don't think my intelligence would change if I became NT, and I also think that being NT I would have done so much better in education. Coped so much better, and probably wouldn't be the mess I am today, and always have been.

I think you did great and if you think about it, you kind of lived up to your nickname of Robin Hood. Except you didn't have to steal from the rich, you just did the nice part - giving to the poor and embracing the "poor of heart."

This has a lot to do with what I've been thinking about lately. I don't go for any of this Asperger's is superior stuff, but I do believe that Asperger's can be beneficial in many ways.

So many of the major problems like social cue reading, or sensory problems, they could be helped greatly without much effort if society just started thinking of us as "different" rather than abnormal or busted. So somebody is over sensitive to stimuli, you give them a little space away from the noise and smell. Someone doesn't speak, they use a device. None of this stuff is earth shattering or a horrendous burden on society, yet they would be earth shattering for the breakthrough of Aspies into more successful lives.

We'll still have problems and we'll still be different, but non-Aspies are different from each other too. And I believe a small amount of accommodation, helping with communication problems, etc, could be the difference between MANY Aspies being in the work force as opposed to being declared disabled.

Btw, I always say Aspie but I mean all Autistic people.

I just think that we suffered so long because of backwards ideas such as that someone who is mute has nothing to contribute, or because we don't express emotion the way others do that we have none (like the kid in the Curious Case of the Dog in the Night).

So no, I don't think Autism is the next step in evolution, but I think Autistics (as well as people with Down's Syndrome and other disorders) might help society evolve into something more wise than they are now - to come to the understanding that different isn't bad and people shouldn't be thrown away because they are different (like Opi who was able to see the person worth saving underneath the guy a lot of other people would have thrown away).

This way more people become useful and functioning in the world, contributing in a bigger scale, and since those people won't be necessarily thinking in a mainstream fashion, who knows what might happen?! !

I wouldn't go as far as saying evolution is sentient but I do believe in some sort of self-regulating capability of nature.
Also that things usually get worse before they get better.
Evolution and mutations are maybe like wine and needs maturing.
I mean, our physical evolving has come to an end.
We lost our tails and all the emotions we could express through it were locked inside forever.
The nervous system must have adapted too with it.
So it would only make sense for me to expect the evolution to continue on a different level
In the brain.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution our brains have had to adapt at a rate never seen before with regards to input of the senses.
Artificial light has interfered with the circadian rhytms in a way we can't even begin to comprehend.
Evolutionary it would make sense to me that nature has found a way to make people less likely to produce even more offspring.
Nature is cruel measured by our standards.

everything evolves. evolution is always in progress.
whatever is a manifestation of evolution will evolve until it no longer exists in it's native sense.

The word "evolution" just means "change over time"- as opposed to sudden creationism, or as opposed to: sudden revolutionary change in a short time period.

But if by "evolution" you mean the one particular theory of "evolution": classic evolution through natural selection- as postulated by Charles Darwin- then it is not obvious how autism/aspergers could be "evolution in progress".

First- there is no obvious trend. Autism is not obviously getting more common over time ( or if it is the fact is not obvious).

Second- there is no reproductive advantage to autism. The way evolution is supposed to work is that a new trait is supposed to lead to a "reproductive advantage" over not having the trait. If autistic people had more children and/or more of their children survived into adulthood to have kids of their own-then do NTs -then that would be Darwin's theory in action because the result would be an increasingly high proportion of autistic people with each generation. Trouble is autism tends to stop you from reproducing- not help you reproduce. And there is no proven trend of more autistic people per capita in each generation.

So suggesting that autism is "evolution in action" would seem to be absurd.

However - lets just speculate that autism IS subtly trending upward ( despite the fact that no such trend is proven). Why might that be happening?

Even within the framework of Darwin such a trend might be explanable. Autism might be like Sickle Cell Anemia. It might be a bad trait thats genetically linked to a good trait that IS being selected for by natural selection. In the case of sickle cell anemia - the good trait is resistence to Malarial infection. What that good trait that autism is linked to is- I dont know.

There has been a trend in the western world since the industrial revolution 300 years ago that has effected the way genes are assorted. That trend is in how folks get spouses. In the middle ages you married people in the immediate area of your rural village. But starting with the growth of cities, and then the rise of railroads, the invention of cars and of airtravel, the westward movement, more people going to college.- folks started to pair off with people from hundreds of miles away. This MIGHT result in more folks reproducing with people of their own IQ level ( getting double doses of cerebral genes). This might cause more geniuses to be born, but it might also cause more autistics to be born. Just a guess. Folks were more inbred in some ways in the past, but they are more inbred in other ways now. Maybe. A geeky blue eyed white guy might marry and have kids with an equally geeky Asian, or African woman. So they have genetically diverse kids- but kids who get a double dose of geekiness. The kids will be tough mongrels who resist disease and parsiticism better than their peers. But they might also be uber geeks. Just a guess.

Another speculation: The very fact that autism impedes reproduction maybe the point. Nature maybe somehow causing autism to become more common in the population- as a way to put a break on population growth (though this 'self regulating mechanism'- as someone above called it- would be through some unknown mechansim that doesnt seem to have anything to do with classic Darwin style evolution). But again: I dont see any obvious evidence that autism is getting more common than it ever was.

I'm taking out of my backside though but I suppose we all are.

Last edited by guzzle on 24 May 2014, 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh s**t.... aspie superiority complex all over again.

Probably more my narcissistic tendencies actually. Beyond 'attachment issues' I have no diagnosis

I can't tell if this is a lame attempt at being serious, or a lame attempt at being funny. I will assume that its supposed to be serious.

You can have the best gonads in the world- semen first class. Or grade A eggs. But it wont mean a thing if you cant find a mate. And if you dont have the social skills to compete and find a mate then you wont have progeny. Autistics have lousey social skills and dont attract mates. Therefore they are hobbled in the reproductive game. A straight male homosexual is more likely to get married and have children (and pass on the gene -if there is one-for homosexuality) than a straight male with autism will get a spouse and sire progeny ( and pass on the gene for autism- if there is one).

The rest of what you're saying I cant even figure out.

I'm being serious actually. I would like to see hard evidence that ASD'ers are more likely to be childless by the time they are 50 than an NT'er.
There are plenty of ASD parents here on the forum alone ... many of those never had a clue they had ASD till much later in life so they just plodded on and eventually found Mr. or Mrs Right for them and made babies.

Its called a 'disability' because it interfers with your ability to function in society- which means it interfers with getting a good job, and with getting a date on Saturday night (the two prerequisites for starting a family). So it impeads reproduction. Therefor it interfers with reproduction. Its not up to me to 'show figures' to back it up. Its up to you to show me figures for otherwise.

Your question is like asking "where are the figures that show that being a dog interfers with you being accepted into med school". What you're saying is so far out that its up to you to produce figures (the dogs get accepted into med school in the same proportion that humans do). Not me to show the figures that back up my assertion of the obvious.

Getting a good job and starting a family are not mutually exclusive.

As you are the one claiming ASD to interfere with reproduction as a fact it is on you to back up your statement. And if you could I would rest my case.
All I know is that there are plenty of NT's that can't find partners. As Yahoo reminds me every time I open my mail. Hell. they even advertise dating agencies for the well-educated (NT) on prime time television in Belgium!

I do not think Asperger's is evolution in progress. Not all people with Asperger's are gifted or super geniuses. I myself only have a IQ of 125. I have not contributed any cures for fatal illnesses or developed a revolutionary technology, or invented anything earth changing. People with Asperger's are just different then those in the mainstream population. There's really no reason, no more then someone being a extraordinary athlete. Which there are more of them then ever before. The population is growing and we are beginning to see more of different types of people because of this. We are all humans and it takes allot more then a few differences in our brains to be considered Evolution.

Last edited by Deb1970 on 26 May 2014, 10:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If it's evolution in action, then tomorrow I might wake up in a world that confers some kind of advantage to the socially inept.

(we might do better if evolutionary pressure took the form of a zombie apocalypse)

Personally I think that it is people who are different, for different reasons or conditions, including Autism (diagnosed or not), who have contributed the most to our evolution (technology, etc), in many ways, whether some of them might have been more neurotypical than autistic, or vice-versa, or had some other condition, they were still not "typical" people nonetheless.

Sure reproducing and socialising are part of life (by the way there is already over 7 billion of us humans, maybe we should slow down a bit on the reproduction thing?), but while the typical person was busy reproducing, socialising, and organising, the "different" ones were busy focusing on research and inventions (which doesn't mean they didn't "reproduce" or socialise too once in a while). Society needs both, people who are different, and people who are typical (i.e. the general population) because while we need creators and inventors, we also need people who can organise and who can build houses (etc). Its not that people who are different are inferior or superior, it is that they are an important part of society, eventho society often looks down on them.

Some of you believe that a neurotypical person could have invented the same things as the autistic (or thought to be autistic) inventors did, but I don't. Myself I think that neurotypical (or "typical") people could never have thought of these inventions, and never could have focused the way these inventors did, and I certainly do appreciate what they have done, the world wouldn't be what it is without them.

For example, Einstein was different, his brain was different, whether he was autistic or not can be argued, no one knows for sure, but he certainly did not have a typical brain, nor was a typical person.

And as a person who loves animals in general, I do appreciate very much Temple Grandin's contribution to the world, in addition to her inventions related to autism, she also made it easier for animals who have to go to their death to feed us humans (considering a lot of people still eat meat). A neurotypical person with a neurotypical brain could not have thought of, nor understand, what she did (none had until she did), it is her Autism (along with her intelligence) that has allowed her to see and understand things that a neurotypical person could not even see. In fact this is the case for many inventions, details to which a neurotypical brain wouldn't pay any attention, but an autistic brain (or a brain that is different in some way) would notice and understand.

Interesting list of people thought to have been autistic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historica ... d_autistic (p.s. I think Hitler had other conditions)

Some of you are giving too much credit to the neurotypical brain, and not enough to the brain that is not "typical", whether due to autism or other reasons.

As Einstein would say (and said): "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."