Aspergers/Autism: The next Evolution?

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I don't know if this theory's been passed out lately or before here, but I had this interesting notion...

Right now, technology is making it such that there is beginning to be less and less actual face time within other people. As such, it makes me wonder if we're an adaptation for this, that eventually, humans will never make physical contact, and those who need it will be driven mad, and those who don't will survive.

Not to insult NTs or anything, but it makes you think that maybe there is a reason for the existence of Auties and Aspies...Anyone have similar thoughts?

I just read that autism, autistic spectrum disorders, and aperger's syndrome are the result of missing genes, not a mutation. So no, we are not the next step in evolution.

we're missing genes? :O

The whole idea of added, subtracted, etc... genes is RIDICULOUS!! !! !! What happens if you run Windows XP on the ZX-80? IT CRASHES!! ! It is worthless, just GARBAGE! What happens if you run a compatible UNIX on the latest hardware? IT SCREAMS! It goes faster than anyone 20 years ago would have imagined! What if human and donkey gametes are mixed? Probably NOTHING! HECK, even horse and donkey gametes aren't really viable in one generation.

The moral? The genes DON'T MATTER! The miticondria DOESN'T MATTER! It is the final expression, and its viability, that matters. Frankly, mix the people that have the interests, technical, and relative lack of autistic limitations with those with the phenomenal memory and math skills, and WOW! They may not be social with NTs, but otherwise, name ONE way in which they would be inferior to NTs? The NTs would be struggling just to try to compete.

And HEY, I did have a FAR better memory. I wouldn't have called it photographic, but it was DARN close. In some things, it is remarkably close to photographic NOW! Heck, I got a call a few days ago from a woman wondering where a check I sent her was. I knew her name, and where she was from, from her voice, the amount to the dollar, the street to the block(I had a mental map down to the office), knew about when it was sent, how it was sent, and that it was cashed. Not bad considering it was one call and I didn't bother to remember it, and it concerned an event that happened almost 3 weeks earlier. It turns out that it somehow got routed to the main office. Of course, I have also rambled off details about the histories of protocols, etc... that I learned like 30 years ago. I even listened to a german play yesterday, and was shocked to find that I knew every sentence word for word. The last time I listened to it was like a year ago.

And when I was younger I WAS a lot better in math. STILL, I couldn't hold a candle to some here, but I was good. After really thinking about it, I guess I am better than a lot of people now, even if I am probably in the lower 30% of people HERE.

But those are my weak areas.

One really has to wonder why they want to waste all this time trying to cure autism. Why don't they attack the REAL problem? It can be done for LESS money, so the idea that they don't have the money is ludicrous. The REAL problem? EDUCATION! Let the smart people excel, and prod the slow people to be BETTER! I doubt ANYONE ever came close to their potential. Even many MR people could probably be close to what is now considered normal. Most of the normal people could be gifted. And the others? Well, maybe they'll just have to come up with new tests.

Steve

I think it's more like natural selection. As society grew more and more technical, more of those with Aspie traits became successful and therefore better marriage material. Also, since many find mates in the work place, the more technical people there are with Aspie traits at work, the higher their odds of reproducing. Since their aptitude favored them, they were selected more and produced more children. It's a numbers game if it's anything. None of us will ever know for certain. It could just be that the tests are finding more and they aren't being misdiagnosed. That's just as likely.

People who follow the crowd exist to keep society moving along smoothly.
People who are "different" exist to make small changes and contributions to society.
If everyone followed the crowd, society would fall apart and we would not have any sort of technology, because there would be nobody to come up with new ideas.
If everyone was different, society would fall apart and we would not have any sort of technology, because there would be nobody to keep everyone in line.

Most people are not strong enough to go against the crowd deliberately, so evolution called for Aspies; people who are ignorant as to what the crowd is doing.