The Next Step In Evolution?

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There's been a number of these thread reincarnations lately.
We've had:
self diagnosis
was Hitler autistic
is AS the next step in evolution
What's next?

I go along with Temple. Thinking outside the box drives technology, and it only takes a few.

I would also disagree with "Progressive Development Disorder."

Development Differance is all that is proven. As people are known for ageing out of ASDs, it is not progressive.

Evolution is not the mass of a population changing, most has been due to an asteriod strike that killed most, and change came from the few survivors.

Species development is much quicker, and the human line has seen it's share.

In the recent work of the Max Planck Institute Neanderthal genes have survived, some Northern Europeans and the Han Chinese. Native Americans have Erectus traits, there is not a "Standard Human."

Genetic divergence is all around, a race that the runners go in different directions.

Evolution is not going anywhere, it is survival of the lucky.

Some ASD traits do help. A natural bent for tech is better than an education about how computers used to be. As the world moves toward technology, those who keep up become a sub species.

Computer development does seem to fit under Applied Autism.

Adapting to your world is a great survival trait, and the one in five who are unemployed seem to be waiting to be given another life.

The cute and highly social with a university degree are being ignored. They are unemployed, never employed at twice the rate of factory hands.

I never had much of a life, lost it all several times, but keep coming back with another model. I adapted to living on the edge, and edge has become more common.

As CockneyRebel says, 95% are out being social so they will be in line for the recovery. I think they will be homeless first. The mass keeps up the past, and ignores that the market has been flat for a decade, and money has not held up. Their ship is everything to them, but I am just a rat that leaves when it is sinking.

The last two waves of economy were computers followed by internet. The mass response was real estate and debt. It did not work out.

For all of what social people see as ASD flaws, they have survived. As for living in caves, I have considered it. I am also looking at some desert gold prospects. I could survive on the outside just as I always have, I do not think Barbie will be working the next cave or claim.

Inward looking and technological with an impaired social, fashion and status sense does seem to be a collection of traits that would survive, and that is the evolution ticket.

Recent studies have shown that computer use is causing more people to develop autistic type thinking, and become space cases. We have a head start on the future.

It may be an asteriod, solar storm, ice age, or like the fall of Rome, when millions were the power of the world, and all were gone in a generation. Whatever it is some will survive, and that will bring change.

Evolution is driven by mass dieoffs, so hang in there!

People who talk about "the next step in evolution" are usually implying that we are "more evolved" than NT's or whatever, which is a complete misunderstanding of what evolution is. It makes us better adapted for the environment, not "better" overall. Evolution is a branching tree, not a hierarchy... read "The Greatest Show on Earth" if you're interested.

Maybe you could argue that because the environment is becoming more technology based, with PC's, etc, we are better adapted for that?

Not really, if everyone was on the spectrum we'd be much less likely to get rejected.

As for the next step in evolution thing itself, I personally don't agree with it, though I do think we'll do better in the future because demand for people good with technology and computers is always going up, and there are already companies which specifically look to hire Aspies.

listen im not supporting this silly idea, Im simply asking the people who believe that aspergers is the next step in evolution why they believe it.

First, it is a dominant gene and second, because emotional behavior is archaic and nature has slowly been replacing it in humans with consciousness and logical decision making. Autism is clearly a next step in that direction.

My current belief is that the spectrum, or in this case maybe the equivalent, probably predates humanity. That is, at least some of our pre-human ancestors were probably overly absorbed in building on a speciallized aspect of affecting the physical environment around them, and a few were the ones, as is often still the case today, who allowed the rest of us to make leaps in our understanding and application of affecting the world around us... aspies are like humanity's R & D.

If it is a dominant gene, they why did my asperger's father and my BAP mother produce an asperger's daughter and a neurotypical daughter? Shouldn't my sister be at least BAP herself if the gene is dominant?

I thought it was because they believe that all NTs are neandertal poopy-heads and all people with AS are noble and evolved geniuses.

Seriously, though, I can understand the appeal of ideas about us being too great to be properly appreciated by all the clods of the world. It's hard to go through life always blundering socially and being treated as inferior by others. It's understandable that someone would develop a rich fantasy life in the face of feeling like an outcast and an alien all the time.

I used to wonder how my parents got me and who my real people were because it was so obvious that I didn't fit into the life I'd found myself in and didn't want to be there -- I wanted to go home, but not to my parents' home but rather to a home I somehow "knew" must exist even though I hadn't seen it and couldn't remember ever having been there. I still sometimes, in weaker moments, dream of what it will be like when I finally find my way home again.

I think the idea that we are the next step in evolution is a similar kind of dream but rather than a dream of a home we lost, it's a dream of a home that's coming soon, hopefully in our lifetime. It's understandable to want to be important and special -- even more so in a world where we are too often devalued because our main deficits lie in an area so highly valued by 95% (or more) of the world.

And while I can see the appeal of such a dream, I don't embrace it myself for a couple of reasons. The main one is that I don't believe it's even remotely accurate. The secondary reason is that I see it alienating us even further from genpop and I don't need that -- I'm trying to build a career and have more control over my life and comfortable things like my own house with a hot tub where I can de-stress from the horrors of daily life. I don't want to be seen as part of a radical separatist group, which is what many comments that come out of autistic community sound like. The cultural alienation some autistic people are building as an integral component of autistic community does not help me to get what I want and need from society at large. So of course I'm not going to embrace a philosophy I feel is scientifically untrue that only serves to separate me more from my life goals.

So . . . DiabloDave363 . . . I can't answer your actual question since I'm not one of those people who subscribes to the "leap of evolution" theory. But I can certainly tell you why I *don't* believe it, if that answer is worth anything to you.

What makes you say that?

Im asking the people who believe this crap why why they believe it. Im not trying to propose it or anything like that.

Sorry I think because they are overcompensating for all the equally negative impressions the general public has about Asperger's.