Pre History of Autism evolution theory in Newsweek

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HOW AUTISM INFLUENCED HUMAN EVOLUTION by Penny Spikins Senior Lecturer in the archeology of human origins at the University of York

Interesting article. Hopefully scientists continue to do more looking about the possible role of autism in human evolution. Too bad for the uneducated fools spouting anti-autistic nonsense in the comments.

Temple Grandin said something in a speech, that when we humans lived as hunter-gatherers which has been most of human history, we needed people interested in developing better spear points, better ways to make clothes, etc, etc, and not just highly social people yakking around the campfire.

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Newsweek used to be one of the major news magazines. I recall reading that much (some?) of its senior management are associated with one particular church. And many of the covers seem to have a real alarmist tone, and at times even conspiratorial.

Now, this particular article seems first-rate and is saying a lot of commonsensical things and a lot things which I've read before. But in general, I'm not sure how much we can use Newsweek as a really solid source.

There is definitely some merit to the autistic evolutionary theory, but the ad populum is not likely to acknowledge it until it is empirically ascertained, especially when you account for the "far left" guilt by association fallacious reasoning and ideological shoehorning (I'm not even left wing) from one of the comments. I see John Best is still pandering to his 1930's "Eli Lilly created autism" myth I see; by the way, he is well known by some in the neurodiversity movement & autistic rights groups for innumerable accounts of anti-autistic trolling for over 10 years from an ardent anti-vaccine/mercury militia perspective if anyone is aware.

Interesting read. Thank you for sharing.

Interesting. Nothing we haven't heard before, but-- interesting to see it actually make an appearance in mainstream media.

We've known, for a VERY long time, that diversity is necessary for the evolution of species. I don't understand how it can be so difficult to grasp that diversity in all forms was essential to human evolution (and is essential to continued human survival). Except, of course, that we are egocentric bastards, inclined to assume that all that which differs from "self" is "broken."

When I got to this statement,

Autism may be one of many malfunctions of a system existing inside humans. As homo sapien sapien have evolved their unique traits, especially the ones in our brain, in a span of only hundreds of thousands of years, I suspect there is a lot of room for malfunction. This is why dogs or dolphins don't get autism, schizophrenia, bipolar, or parkinsons.

Bipolar may be a malfunctioning of an adaptation of a survival mechanism of staying put when resources are scarce and getting up and going when it's time to hunt full of energy. Notice though that it isn't claimed that this instinct humans have/had is bipolar disorder itself. A person with a healthy level of certain traits is beneficial to survival of the clan, but I don't think someone with the brain damaging mood swings and negative symptoms of bipolar would last long.

In a similar vein, I don't think autism spectrum disorders themselves played a vital role in human survival, they were a part of evolution, I don't deny that, as in whatever mechanism that existed was beneficial but could screw up and bite a person in their tushy. Which is Autism DISORDER, or a disorder of (lower case) autistic traits found in many people that don't disable them at all.

A similar argument is that cushings disease could also be said to have played a role in human evolution since cortisol is a vital steroid hormone that regulates our activity in the same vein. But if you have too much cortisol, you had a disorder that would spurn any benefit of cortisol and the mechanisms it's a part of. Or more familiar, diabetes, insulin is a vital human substance, diabetes has been a part of our evolution, but you were dead in less than a year before we invented insulin needles. What use does diabetes have?

The person with a good level of insulin and kidney function is beneficial, but if that existing mechanism is disrupted then there is no benefit to be had.

I am not saying I disagree with the article...
But I do find it hard to believe that autistic individuals would have largely been accepted into the neurotypical tribes...
I am sure there would have been exceptions, but just look around you...