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omicron
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10 Mar 2010, 8:41 pm

Janissy wrote:
Sympatric speciation is pretty rare. In order for it to happen, you'd need assortative mating to be absolute and continuous; in other words for autism spectrum people to only ever have children with other autism spectrum people. Some speculate that a bit of assortative mating is what's driving the rise in autism diagnoses. But if that is actually happening, it is light years away from the level of assortative mating that would be needed for sympatric speciation to happen.


If it does happen, its since extremely recently. It doesn't need to be absolute, thats at the end. Its an exponential, it starts with almost no genetic segregation, and ends up with near 100%( and some hybrids), the bulk of the split is at the end. Natural selection goes with small increments. The two groups drift gradually. Assortative mating is meaningless only if you compare it with population. For example, if you are 1% of the population, but mate among you at 50%(random number). Even if both parents are NTs or Aspies, you can still end up with the other child, because of recessive genes. In the previous example, the short fall of self reproduction, could be more then offsetted by aspies with two NT parents. As assortive mating increases, simply because you become more physically able to mate in group, recessive genes tend to be segregated. Resecive aspie genes in the NT population become rarer, and concentrate in phenotypical spies. Recessive genes, that are ok on there own, but not ok when they combine, tend to be eliminated. Dominant genes can start appearing, maybe replacing the recessive ones, do we even have these today? At the genetic level you can get extensive reorganizations. If they are two ecological niches, and both groups require specific genes, extra "anti-hybridization" genes will appear. The "hybrids" are at a disadvantage against both groups, thats purely speculative, i don't have an argument here. Maybe simply that "hybrids" are more general, while the groups are specialized and live symbiotically. Mating doesn't need to be absolute and continuous, fertility can drop gradually between the diverging groups and accumulate, setting off a retro-action loop. Some chromosomic alterations, will seal things for good. And we aren't stupid animals, at some point it will be clear whats going on, are we going to react in an accelerating manner?

If we assume some assortative mating, alredy increases real rates of autism. The mear fact they get more numerous, increases slightly there chances to breed in group, that will increase assortative mating further. And so on, on a very slow early exponential, until other mechanisms start to seriously kick in.

sympatric speciation, its not geographic-like speciation. Extra weird stuff happen. The culprit, is that its the mating ritual that mutated, its as good as an everest. Thats not a trivial change.

Granted, i assumed that the "hybrids" have a disadvantage. And other stuff. In 100k years, will now for sure.

At a more personal level, i do prefer aspie women to NT women. And you guys?
Aspie women prefer Aspie men in general?



pandd
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10 Mar 2010, 9:43 pm

psychohist wrote:
In that case, you have to explain why aspie traits exist in the first place. If neurotypicals are superior in the general case, aspie traits should never have reached their current frequency. In fact, that's an issue for any genetic explanation even in the absence of speciation.

Actually there is more than one viable explanation. The first is that Autism is recessive or requires multiple loading (a number of genetic loci are entailed and a number or particular combinations of "autistic loading" is necessary to trigger an occurrence of Autism). Even a mild benefit to the heterozygote (in the instance of simple recessive inheritance) or with sub-threshold loadings (in the more likely multi-loading instance) could potentially balance out any negative effects when Autism is actually expressed in the phenotype.

Alternatively Autism might simply result from a particularly common mutation/set of mutations.

Quote:
Of course, it's possible that aspie traits were advantageous until evolutionarily recently, and they're in the process of being wiped out. Certainly it seems like people who "meant what they said, and said what they meant" were at some point viewed as having good traits rather than bad ones.

Precisely when in history do you believe people liked and highly valued being offended?
omicron wrote:
Recessive genes, that are ok on there own, but not ok when they combine, tend to be eliminated. Dominant genes can start appearing, maybe replacing the recessive ones, do we even have these today?

I am not confident that this is plausible, although admittedly I am not entirely clear as to what you mean by it...



omicron
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10 Mar 2010, 10:11 pm

psychohist wrote:
omicron wrote:
If you assume NTs are superior, status quo will hold

In that case, you have to explain why aspie traits exist in the first place. If neurotypicals are superior in the general case, aspie traits should never have reached their current frequency. In fact, that's an issue for any genetic explanation even in the absence of speciation.

Of course, it's possible that aspie traits were advantageous until evolutionarily recently, and they're in the process of being wiped out. Certainly it seems like people who "meant what they said, and said what they meant" were at some point viewed as having good traits rather than bad ones.


Recessive genes can do that. They are recessive genes that are not good in pairs(what its name), but good on there own. Drepanocytosis (name more or less) is a classic example. With 2 genes, you die at young age, with 1 gene, you get an advantage against malaria. In certain ares of Africa with serious problem of malaria, drepanocytosis is very high, several tens of %.

I just throw it in, in an attempt to be complete. To state the position of, "autism is a disease" people, i'm not part of that crowed, ask them how they explain there theory.

Aspies where an advantage in the past? No, i don't think many really think that. Not even you.
My simplified position, if you are literate, autism brings your intelligence further down. If you are literate, it brings it further up. Only today we get 99% literacy rates. So clear disadvantage in the past. My aspie supremacy position, is more nuanced then that of most people here.

The speciation theory is a consequence of the , NTs and Aspies are equal theory.

We can combine both, speciation and supremacy. Even in my supremacy position, i say that its only a small increment. In evolution terms, beater is defined only in relation to the environment, so both can get superior (or equal) if they specialize and live simbioticaly. We can draw, an even more controversial theory about the future from this. Hint, evolutionary "beater", doesn't correspond with human "beater". No dramas please, at least the discussion will become more interesting. (hope i don't get banned or something :D)

I have to say i'm confused where i stand now.



psychohist
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10 Mar 2010, 10:41 pm

pandd wrote:
Actually there is more than one viable explanation. The first is that Autism is recessive or requires multiple loading (a number of genetic loci are entailed and a number or particular combinations of "autistic loading" is necessary to trigger an occurrence of Autism). Even a mild benefit to the heterozygote (in the instance of simple recessive inheritance) or with sub-threshold loadings (in the more likely multi-loading instance) could potentially balance out any negative effects when Autism is actually expressed in the phenotype.

I certainly agree that's one form the explanation could take. However, the explanation would have to go further and explain just what benefits heterozygotes or partially loaded individuals had, while still explaining why full aspies are disadvantaged. And such an explanation, which could explain a low constant level of Asperger's and autism, would still not be sufficient for a theory that aspies are on their way to dying out.

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Alternatively Autism might simply result from a particularly common mutation/set of mutations.

Modern science has a very good estimates on what mutation rates are, and Autism and Asperger's are far too frequent to be accounted for by original mutations.

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Quote:
Certainly it seems like people who "meant what they said, and said what they meant" were at some point viewed as having good traits rather than bad ones.

Precisely when in history do you believe people liked and highly valued being offended?

By this theory, before neurotypicals became common, no one would have been offended. In an aspie dominant society, no one would take offense because they'd realize others were simply providing honest statements.



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10 Mar 2010, 10:48 pm

omicron wrote:
At a more personal level, i do prefer aspie women to NT women. And you guys?
Aspie women prefer Aspie men in general?

I married the first aspie woman I knew well, and she married me, so I guess that's one data point arguing that assortative mating should be going on. Of the other likely aspies I know, two are unmarried males and one married a neurotypical woman.

The main problem is that it's hard to find the other aspies because there are so few of them.



omicron
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10 Mar 2010, 10:51 pm

pandd wrote:
psychohist wrote:
omicron wrote:
Recessive genes, that are ok on there own, but not ok when they combine, tend to be eliminated. Dominant genes can start appearing, maybe replacing the recessive ones, do we even have these today?

I am not confident that this is plausible, although admittedly I am not entirely clear as to what you mean by it...


1. Like drepanocytosis and malaria, per above. In a population of NTs, if some aspie genes combine in detrimenta way, thats thats not a big deal. In an Aspie population, detrimental combination of genes, of the type of drepanocytosis will happen much more frequently. So they will be eliminated.

2.Maybe towards the end. Recessive genes can always give you NT kids, but with lower fertility in the main NT population. You are beater off with dominant genes, you don't leak out NT descendants of lower fertility?



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10 Mar 2010, 10:57 pm

omicron wrote:
Aspies where an advantage in the past? No, i don't think many really think that. Not even you.

I don't have a strong opinion yet. I do kind of doubt that we're in evolutionary equilibrium, given that most of the problems aspies have come solely from having to interact with neurotypicals. I don't know whether we're on the way in, on the way out, or whether the situation is something more complex than that.

I have a weak opinion that neurotypicals are more r-selected and aspies are more K-selected. That would mean neurotypicals would have been favored during the rapid population growth of the last century, but might be disfavored after peak oil. On an evolutionary basis, though, humans have been undergoing rapid population growth for 10,000-60,000 years, albeit not as rapid as since the industrial revolution, and I wonder how that fits in.

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My simplified position, if you are literate, autism brings your intelligence further down. If you are literate, it brings it further up. Only today we get 99% literacy rates. So clear disadvantage in the past.

I think one of those "literate"s should be "illiterate"? I'd be interested in which, and also perhaps a bit more explanation on what your theory is here.



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11 Mar 2010, 2:01 am

pat2rome wrote:
A fish with lungs will never be the future of evolution, since lungs are useless in water.


Hmmm.

Strictly speaking whales are not fish, but they spend their entire life in water...so somewhere Nature thought that lungs in water is a good move :lol:

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11 Mar 2010, 2:39 am

You are forgetting this is not simply a matter of genetics. This is about learning a specific set of social skills. If a child is born into a AS- NT family the child will learn some of the social behaviors/attitudes of both the AS parent and the NT parent. If that child has some degree of inherent AS ie and is on the spectrum, then it will learn AS behavior and social strategy more
readily because it "makes more sense."

Perhaps this is actually better than an AS being born into a NT-NT family and being yelled at all the time . It is like being blind to a particular color and that child spending its developmental years being negatively appraised because the NT-NT parents , teachers, peer group can see what the AS can't but they can't see, or possibly conceive their child can't perceive it .

School and the wrong family + their peers can be hell. It is no wonder so many AS want to bring about some kind of evolutionary step forward. The problem is, if we worked cooperatively there is every chance we could do that. In fact you could argue NT behavior towards us in the most raw Darwinian sense, serves the function of of neutralizing our individual capacities and fragmenting our collective capability- ( and because we a have a similar theory of mind- you know exactly what I mean.)

However, and this is the really crucial bit: we may not actually want the outcomes of our
"evolution" once they become an irreversible reality at some future date, because that is what they will be. History and evolution do not have a restart button if the game gets screwed.
We would have to make sure we didn't end up living under a radioactive crust eating gloop , left by the outgoing sub-type as their goodbye note. They can be very vindictive when it comes to stuff like this.

For what it is worth I don't think we could do this without first assuming control of their information and economic networks. Furthermore I think we would need some kind of AI which can form a theory of minds, like ours, to assist, because we are severely outnumbered and "outgunned" and at best it would be MAD without that back-up.

Perhaps it is better to try to put up with them, hell, we could even try to love one or two of them in a lifetime.



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11 Mar 2010, 3:24 am

memesplice wrote:
School and the wrong family + their peers can be hell. It is no wonder so many AS want to bring about some kind of evolutionary step forward. The problem is, if we worked cooperatively there is every chance we could do that.
Not entirely sure what you are saying here, but I will go with what I read. I have spent years and years in various contexts and always belonged to the discriminated minority in some way or another (Jewish, Immigrant, Transgender, ADHD, Multi-talented, Dyscalculic etc,) I was bullied in School because of all those except being Jewish as I converted as an adult and I was abused at home for being a typical ADHD (btw is there a nick for people with ADHD?) child/teen. I am not sharing this to get pity, I am just stating the facts that are all to familiar to people who are different on some scale.

Transforming the Minority into the Majority to get rid of the Discrimination isn't going to fix the problem. That's just applying the Animal Farm on matters, and the cycle starts over.

While I might be 'superior' to some NTs and/or Aspies because of the unique set of skills/traits that my ADHD bring to humanity, I am 'inferior' to some NTs and Aspies because of the exact same skills/traits, which mean that in the end I am not inferior or superior in any real sense.

If you want someone who is really good at seeing the whole picture including the details or see where things might go, that others won't, I am your man. But if you want me to be able to get up at 6 AM, do the same job every day, go home a 5 PM and feel satisfied, for the rest of my life, then don't come calling, because that I can't do...

So even if it's a matter of Genetics (like being a lefty) the answer isn't to work on a genetic level to make society more AS/ADHD friendly, it's a matter of working on a functions level - such as adapting things so they fit also with AS/ADHD. My mother was born in the 40's, she was born a natural Lefty - back then they forced kids to use their Right hand, through the means of 'aversion therapy'. Today we accept that some people are Lefties, and things and have adapted f.i specific tools so they fit Lefties.

That is of course a matter of education, activism and, like it or not, NTs who are friendly to such a change.

psychohist wrote:
omicron wrote:
If you assume NTs are superior, status quo will hold

In that case, you have to explain why aspie traits exist in the first place. If neurotypicals are superior in the general case, aspie traits should never have reached their current frequency. In fact, that's an issue for any genetic explanation even in the absence of speciation.


What if it is simply a case of AS/ADHD always having been around in the same ratio, but not being recognized as anything but 'odd', 'disturbed', 'mentally deficient', etc? That labeling is horrible of course, but I don't think the number of AS/ADHD people has increased, I just think 'we' are now calling a spade a spade and slowly getting some tolerance for the NDs.

SoB


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Ketutar
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11 Mar 2010, 5:00 am

TheHaywire wrote:
My friend with AS was discussing that he thought AS was the next step of evolution and he was accused of bashing NT's. I don't think he was bashing NT's... just suggesting that AS could be the next step of evolution.


I agree with you.

If AS IS the next step of evolution, then NTs will become obsolete and die out. I'm sure no-one wants to hear that "people like I won't be around in some 100 years". They feel threatened and react by defending themselves by attacking and accusing people of attacking them.



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11 Mar 2010, 5:08 am

carzak wrote:
That a disorder is somehow more evolutionarily advanced is ludicrous.


Not really. Just remember that the people who define this as "disorder" are NTs... perhaps they are wrong :-) Perhaps this IS the next step of evolution :-D

Doesn't much bother me, either way.

I have to say, though, that most people don't have the slightest idea was a neurological disorder is - you get belittled for being "mentally disabled" and not being able to function the "normal" way, and you get bashed for not being able to function the "normal" way, and therefore doing "wrong" :-D
All bullied, discriminated and harassed people need some "supremacy" :-)



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11 Mar 2010, 6:56 am

memesplice wrote:
Perhaps this is actually better than an AS being born into a NT-NT family and being yelled at all the time . It is like being blind to a particular color and that child spending its developmental years being negatively appraised because the NT-NT parents , teachers, peer group can see what the AS can't but they can't see, or possibly conceive their child can't perceive it.


Theoretically, that seems to make perfect sense. The reality (in my experience) is horrible. You just get three way meltdowns set off in chains, instead of one kid going off, and the parents not getting it. The children also suffer from being at an even greater disadvantage from not being able to pick up on social cues, in that the first things they learn are the non standard cues from their aspie parents. It might be different for parents who are aware of themselves. It might be different in an all aspie society.

Your ideas for directing the species toward a singular aspie future are amusing. Sadly, I don't believe that aspies can really collectivise effectively. We are too much into doing our own thing. Other people annoy and confuse us, and that seems to apply to other aspies as well as NTs. I was very disappointed to discover that aspies are just more people to feel disconnected from, and that I had already been living among them for most of my life. I had been hoping to find something in them that isn't there.

I feel only sadness at the idea of an all aspie future for the human race. I feel there is a profound void in my own life that I would not wish upon anyone else, that I don't think can be engineered away by making everyone else just like me.



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11 Mar 2010, 7:13 am

Quote:
pandd wrote:
[
Quote:
Of course, it's possible that aspie traits were advantageous until evolutionarily recently, and they're in the process of being wiped out. Certainly it seems like people who "meant what they said, and said what they meant" were at some point viewed as having good traits rather than bad ones.

Precisely when in history do you believe people liked and highly valued being offended?

...


Agreed. I don't think there was ever a time when that was a helpful trait. It would be as bad in a small tribe as it is in an office park. I do wonder if it's a different trait that has gotten preserved over time. A more plausible trait would be detail thinking coupled with extreme focus and special interests. I'm just winging it here but I think that special interests would actually have been more helpful to the fledgling human societies than they are now. Now, there is so much pop culture for AS people to get sidetracked into. But before pop culture existed, back in tribal times and fledgling society times, the things available to get interested in would be more useful to the group. An extreme interest in WEorld of Warcraft helps no one. But an extreme interest in the pattern of the stars or animal footprints would be helpful to the group as a whole and could lead to increased survival of all.



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11 Mar 2010, 7:31 am

Moog- we have a brand of humor at least we can share, though it may take a while to cross "the void." :)

Being able to form a theory of mind and knowing others can form a similar theory of mind, instantly reduces the void "distance" .

Most NT's like being teased about things like being out-evolved, technologically sideswiped and the violent strains being made extinct, if they didn't , they wouldn't tease us about the stuff they do, would they?



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11 Mar 2010, 7:51 am

Moog- you have to smile, the universe is a very funny place to be.

Web Page www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/quantum ... _tango.mp3