Interesting quote on Autism

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“Autism isn't something a person has, or a shell that a person is trapped inside. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion and encounter - every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person – and if it were possible, the person you'd have left would not be the same person you started with.”

~ Jim Sinclair
<Autism Advocate/Activist>

. . . Found this quote in an article on the possibility that Autism, as well as other genetic "disorders" could be the work of evolution.

News Extra -- Autism, Asperger's and Evolution
Dude, I'm An Aspie: Why Are We Here? Autism and Evolution

I answered "no that's just silly" but then I realised that I didn't understand the question your were asking and maybe you don't either.

Evolution is a process. We are all the product of evolution, as is the genetic code we carry.

Autistic traits are not beneficial for survival so they are unlikely to be selected positively for. However, genetics is complicated and it may be those same genetic "defects" are tied somehow to something that is beneficial in the general population. Research is ongoing but slow; I'm sure they'll get to the bottom of it eventually.

i read this text in its context initially on http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html it really is an awsome piece and it sums up how i feel about autism and how i think nts should respond to it. followers of autism speaks and their ideology would do well to heed his words.

I didn't actually claim to understand everything about evolution or genetics. . . I just find it an interesting concept that autism could be a favorable set of traits, that it's more than a "defect" & could actually serve some purpose.
Also, the poll wasn't meant to be strictly "scientific" or anything, it's kind of just a fun, general opinion kind of thing. If someone wants to split hairs about it, of course it's part of evolution, everyone is. . . The poll really was just about wether you think autism could be a positive step in the process or if you think it's unlikely that it benefits the human race at all. Sorry if it was in any way confusing.

Autism is a part of evolution, just like blonde hair is.

Hhhmmmm. . . Maybe that poll question needed a finer point on it. . . It was kind of a vague question but in my mind it had a completely different purpose. It wasn't meant to be 'does it have literally anything to do with evolution?' it was supposed to be more a question of 'could it possibly be a vital part of human evolution?' Perhaps that would have been a better way to put it. I thought the vagueness of it would kind of allow everyone to get 'the jist' of what I was trying to say but I really should have narrowed it down I gues. *Fail!* Lol. Oh well.

I answered "no that's just silliness" before I thought about it, but now that I've thought about it, it really is just silliness. Unless they prove that autism is solely caused by genetics, it's not safe to make the assumption that it is a selectable trait (or not solely a selectable trait... it could be trait + environment, like some cancers). Beyond that, to assume that it is a "positive" trait shows a lack of understanding of natural selection. The only "positive" traits are traits which are selected, which are traits that out-breed the competition. With the statistical evidence showing that we are less likely to have children and have less children when we do, and also the fact that many LFA people are incapable of living alone (let alone having children) and maintaining adult relationships, it would seem that if anything, autism is a trait that is "selected against" due to lack of reproduction. The fact that autism rates are rising only says that EITHER (or both) (1) Genetics is not the sole cause OR (2) That more people are being diagnosed as the criteria for diagnosis becomes better defined.

I definitely agree that it really is a silly speculation since there are so many questions still unanswered and we don't know for sure that it's completely caused by genetics.

I'm glad you brought this up. (bear in mind that what I'm about to say is just another silly speculation, not at all based on anything scientific and may be considered offensive to some people, but it's just my weird take on this.) The population is completely out of control on this planet. It's a huge problem that nobody wants to talk about, let alone try to control. The fact that autistics have less children could actually be considered a good thing for the fate of the Earth. That combined with their gifts and talents seems like a decent case for autism being a good thing for evolution. Even if I've drawn a completely silly conclusion with no real scientific argument, it makes sense to me and that's the way I like to look at it.

I don't think that this is silly speculation at all, in my opinion we don't really have a clear picture on how many autistic people have children. Especially given the fact that (in my opinion) women are very underdiagnosed and there may well be many undiagnosed women (and men also) who are autistic and have (or will have) children.

But what we do know is that the rates of autism among various populations do seem to be increasing. (Obviously a large part, but perhaps not all can be attributed to changes in diagnostic procedure.) And if you accept the view that autism is primarily genetic, then to deny that evolutionary change MIGHT be facillitating an increase in the number of people who are autistic is much more silly than asking a speculative question. Asking questions like these are how progress is made.

It might be true that many LFA people are unable to look after themselves independantly, but there are many NT people with severe learning difficulties who aren't autistic and fit into the same catagory.

One might be able to envisage situations where autistic traits might be an evolutionary advantage. For example the more solitary hunter-gatherer periods of pre-civilisation or a totally post-industrial technotronic era of the future where hyperfocus and technical skills become more important than comformity and social skills.

I don't find questions like this offensive, what I find offensive is the attitude that autism or aspergers confers no survival advantage at all in ANY circumstance. This is oversimplified and wrong.

I don't think so, but I don't think the idea is silly either. It's actually rather interesting.

I said yes. In my opinion we aspies do play a vital role in the evolution of man kind. So many of our great minds were believed to be on the autism spectrum and if you were to remove them from history we would be in a completely different world right now. If an ape learning to use a bone as a tool (lil 2001 reference for you) is vital to evolution then so would a man making a completely new tool like a computer. Autism could be on the rise because this is how the human body has decided to try to deal with what ever is going on around us. We have no way of knowing if this could be true yet or not, its just what I think may be going on. We are not necessarily superior to.NT's, just differently adapted than they are - much like all the different types of finches. None of them are the better finch, just better for what it does, were it lives, ect. If you really get down to it we can never really know if we are or not. If a super insect was born today and could take over the world in just a few years but it splattered on your car's windshield before anything could happen. . . Would that mean you or your car played a vital roll in our evolution if we never knew the bug existed. When every thing is part of evolution it becomes difficult to pick out what is a step forward when it is happening. It is only when we are able to look back and say that was important that we can tell. Ok I think I have rambled on long enough. Sorry if my sleep deprived mind is making this hard to read. there is a point in there somewhere LOL. Good night WP.

Last edited by fur_frog on 13 Sep 2011, 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Everything is a product of evolution.

I've heard this before. The hunter-gatherer age was more than 10,000 years ago which is something like 500 generations to weed out such traits even if they were beneficial, but I don't buy it since being solitary 10,000 years ago was an almost certain death sentence for what is a relatively weak species with no obvious strengths other than intelligence, strong social bonds and a larynx. Working together co-operatively is to our mutual advantage.



Possibly so but changes through natural selection don't care about the future but the forces acting on the species here and now. Even if autistic traits are potentially helpful in such a future society that doesn't guarantee the survival of genetic code by being passed on. One still needs to find a mate and there are plenty of intelligent non-autistic people to choose from who do not have our handicaps.



Continuing on from above - it is of no particular value surviving to a ripe old age if you don't have the opportunity to pass on your genes. Survivability in evolutionary terms is about passing on the genes; the individual is just a vehicle.

I couldn't vote on the poll, but it's still a good thread. Only problem is that I can't speak to it briefly, too many ways to go. I like the quote.

Do y'all remember how the genetics of Sickle Cell Anemia works? It's a recessive gene, which means that you have to get one copy from your mother (only one of her two) and one copy from your father (one of his two) to express it as a full-blown illness, and it _is_ an illness. In practical reproduction, if you take a couple, each of whom has only one "sick" gene in their pair, one-fourth of the children they have will (probably) have the full disease, two copies of the gene, and probably die too young to have children themselves, although modern medicine is helping them to live longer. One-fourth of the children they have will (probably) have a pair of healthy genes, and be as healthy as anyone else in the population. Half the children will have one healthy gene and one sick gene, and be just slightly sickly, or maybe entirely healthy. In the part of Africa where this mutation arose and was spread, there is a fatal disease endemic, Sleeping Sickness, spread by the bite of the tsetse fly. Just one gene for the anemia protects against that disease, so the half of the children who get just one will be the healthiest, and will reproduce in the same manner as their parents, losing a quarter of their children to Sleeping Sickness, and a quarter of their children to the Anemia. Here in America, carrying the gene is a handicap, since we don't have tsetse flies or the disease they carry. Thus, as a whole, it's a disadvantage. But its existence was a survival advantage for its possessors: that's why there are so many copies of it kicking around in America, where every child is precious, causing heartbreak to the parents who have children born with a double copy.

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/sci ... otozoa.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/6z54tgt

That's how evolution works. Any genetic carrier for Autism is going to be much more complicated than that. We can tell that already, and we've known the biology of Sickle Cell Anemia for many years. If a slight case of HFA or Asperger's is actually an advantage for the parents, in the extremely complex system of American society, and leads to the production of more children, we will one day be finding out, given the Cold Equations doing their work in the long term. (If something else doesn't happen to destroy modern culture first). Maybe even the geneticists will figure it out in a shorter term than a generation or two.

I "believe" in evolution, all right. I believe that it's a blind force invented by God. But it isn't aimed at a "better" human being: it's aimed at _surviving_ human beings, in the specific state where they are, as needing to compete with the tsetse fly for survival (or not, if the human population, or some of it, is moved away from where the flies live). And it can be very hard on the humans involved, watching half their children die, and on the children.

nemorosa wrote

I don't think that 10,000 years ago is that long given how long humans have been around. We will still posess many traits from back then. And the cro-magnons and neanderthals of this period were far more physically robust than what we are today. And although humans have always been a social species, they were much wilder and independant back then. large scale co-operation and socialization didn't really become beneficial until the birth of agriculture.

nemorosa wrote


It is true that evolution is unaffected by any hypothetical future, but I was only trying to make the point that autistic traits may be beneficial to an individual in some circumstances. I wasn't saying that autistic traits will help us get to this future.

nemorosa wrote


You have acknowlaged the fact that it is the survival of the genes that count, and not that of the individual. So what counts is the number of genes in the gene pool that help to create autistic people, not whether autistic people themselves have children. (Most autistic children are borne of NT parents.) And the ammount of these genes in the gene pool may be increasing, and this would still be evolutionary as far as I can see.

We might very well be the next stage in human evolution. It'll take several hundred years to see one way or the other.