does AS= Not Human?

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With a fairly high heritability, if your claim is true, that'd mean our understanding of the genome is incomplete moreso than it having nothing to do with genes.

Or with common environmental factors with each succeeding generation ... or maybe both.

Without any definitive material evidence, the cause of AS is merely speculative, and any claim to advancement in the evolutionary process is likewise in question.

From wikipedia,



In summary, it appears that autism is transmitted from generation to generation (It's inheritable) but there may also be cases where it spontaneously arises due to genetic mutations during meiosis (Cell division shortly after fertilization of the ovum.). However, the genetics are far too complex to isolate single genes, and so your claim is true, but there are complex interactions between the genes and you definitely know they are there and are causing at least some of the autistic expressions, though they are difficult to trace down and identify.

Well genetic mutations are triggered by something environmental, that's what evolution is. Something we are subject to now is causing this to become increasingly common, even in smaller less obvious and debilitating ways. So environment causes mutation, mutation spreads genetically until the most debilitating aspects of it are lessened and the more awesome aspects strengthened, and it becomes a matter of a subtle gradual neurotype shift towards incorporation of aspie strengths and disincorporation of the weaknesses of neurotypicals. I feel this is evolutionarily reasonable, since neurotypical weaknesses in the modern age will ultimately lead to the collapse of modern civilization.

Why? Look at it's manifestations. Snap judgment, cliques, prejudice, herding, mob mentalities.... These things don't fare well in a world so full of information that it's become impossible to make an accurate snap judgment about anything. Analysis and advanced abstract association, combined with honesty, and a certain degree of fierce self-motivation and specialization, certainly appear to be necessary for the advancement of the species. The fact that genes that happen to hardwire the brain to perform in these ways may ultimately point to evolutionary advancement - when interbred with less unstable neurotypes with less comorbids - should be no surprise.

Auties and Aspies may be increasing, or may not (remember we've only been diagnosing Asperger's for about 15 years, and Autism for less than my adult lifetime, and _still_ aren't consistently diagnosing adult Asperger's, because few therapists feel competent to try. But if we are increasing, why _this_ particular mutation? Why not Hemophilia, which I gather is a fairly common gene to mutate, or babies with six fingers on each hand, or more spontaneous sickle-cell anemia (as if we didn't have enough of _that_ to worry about: we should just go find some technique to make the tsetse fly extinct, and then we wouldn't need it anywhere). Why just _this_ particular area of mutations?

If we baffle them with BS long enough, NT's will just curl up their toes and become extinct

See this guy has it figured out.

Which is more heritable, autism or NTism?

I don't believe those things have become an evolutionary disadvantage, just not as advantageous as it has historically. For example, if snap judgments confer an advantage more often than a disadvantage, then they still are advantageous, and snap judgments about people still provide the same type of advantage as they had historically and the world is still, fundamentally, about people.



I don't see how any of those traits are strictly associated with the severity of the traits present in aspergers/autism, but it does seem fairly reasonable that the current evolutionary ideal is somewhere between the neurotypical average and the autistic average, so I guess there may be a convergence to the broad autistic phenotype over the longterm. Over the longterm, though, the machines will be the ones increasing in numbers and they won't need humans anymore.

Last edited by swbluto on 19 Sep 2011, 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Good point. But it's not just this one area of mutation. In fact, according to some dubious but accurate-sounding information I skimmed through recently, different mutations in the same gene (SHANK3 they called it) cause autism AND schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Why mutations of these particular genes are on the rise, well, has anyone read about how it was shown that antidepressants administered during certain stages of pregnancy would up to quadruple the chances of aspergers? Antidepressants indicate lack of satisfaction, increase the use of these psychoactives, and increase the chance of psychological mutation. Right? Theoretically?

Also I wouldn't be surprised if a genetic contender for the future of humanity may be sociopathy, which I will have to look into whether it's on the rise as well or not. Though with the state of the world, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it is. And, besides, hemophilia and other dangerous mutations wouldn't spread due to them being dangerous distinctly unwanted. Aspergers, which comes across not as diseased or dangerously disturbed but, rather, eccentric and intelligent, well who's to say it isn't massively under diagnosed, simply because most people with it just think they're eccentric and smart? It's this kind of subtle gene preference that drives evolution - the process takes thousands of years, you know.

I'm pretty sure there isn't such a strict line between the two. All that matters is whether advantageous traits caused by the autistic mutation will be retained along with those of current NTs, as a new neurotypical model in the distant future.

Raoul Duke, doctor of journalism?

That's not how it works. Genetic mutations occur randomly. The way successful mutations are propagated throughout a population is through natural selection. Our genes don't "decide" to mutate to suit the environment.

No of course they don't decide or anything like that, but environment can and does have an effect on such things. Although.... you're right that I'm not sure of the extent of it, whether chemicals like antidepressants might cause the brain cells themselves to form in different ways, or if it effects actual DNA and the like. But they have, regardless, found genetic mutations implicated in autism.

Besides, I'm not sure that the idea of strictly random mutations holds water. What are birth defects, caused by drugs, radiation, agent orange, whatever - what are those if not induced genetic mutations? They didnt just happen randomly.

And natural selection, what's natural about the selection process in the modern world? In "developed" countries anyway, you have to be pretty debilitated not to survive, the system will likely support you. It only matters if you can get laid or not. It's a new mindset, not a debilitating disease (except when it is debilitating, of course). If the mindset ultimately allows one to see the world more clearly than others, who's to say that isn't a survival advantage in uncertain, brink-of-chaos times?

All I'm really saying is, it would be folly to assume that humanity is finished evolving. What other physical mutations would help? Probably few. The next evolution is of the mind, just as it was when humans passed from smart apes to highly self-aware conscious creatures with the capacity for incredible abstract thought and association skills. Thousands of years, but it happened. Same thing. What's the next level?

Now you're getting personal! (though of course you wouldn't have known it). But I'm 68 years old, diagnosed with Asperger's when I was 65. I was married to a Schizophrenic, partly because we were both eccentric and smart, and partly because neither of us had many friends, and of course, we "fell in love" (he was a good man, though: and his schizy thinking wasn't all that apparent in his twenties-- just an "interesting" tinge to his personality). I think our daughter is okay (I hope): she's definitely not an aspie, or autie, and definitely gifted in IQ, and having known her father during his intensely schizophrenic stage, she'd have determinedly suppressed any thinking that she detected as being like his. It's for sure that neither his mother nor mine consumed any antidepressants during pregnancy: we were conceived in the 1930s (him) and the 1940s (me), and those chemicals didn't exist until the 1970s.

I think Fnord nailed it on the literal.

On the more proverbial/interpretive notion that we aren't human - that's just the typical snobbery of people toward the middle of humanity's bellcurve declaring conformity as 'God' and then anyone they can't relate to or who functions differently is a hollow shell simply because they can't see in or don't want to. The argument there - they supposedly hold the cards and the numbers population-wise, therefor what they say goes.