The Neanderthal theory of Autism

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http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm

The Neanderthal theory

In the past there have been numerous theories for the cause(s) of autism, Asperger's syndrome, ADHD and Tourette syndrome. Most of these theories can at best explain small parts of these diverse syndromes. Many of them extend their findings in spectacular ways to be able to claim to explain larger parts of the autism spectrum with little success.

This theory approaches the problem from a new radical viewpoint. Instead of approaching autism as a disorder, brain defect or the result of poor socialization or parenting, it claims that autistics are fully functional.

All the areas that are central to autism are related to species-typical adaptations that vary widely between species. These include nonverbal signals, social organization, sensory acuteness, motor skills, general preferences, sexuality, physical traits and biological adaptations. Some of this diversity in autistics is poorly understood and virtually unresearched and therefore is not published in peer-reviewed journals. Because of this lack of research, Aspie-quiz, an online questionnary, is heavily referenced for these traits.

Recent genetic research have demonstrated that the Out-of-Africa (OoA) model with no interbreeding fails to explain nuclear DNA diversity in Eurasia. Several models of interbreeding that do explain this diversity exists today. It therefore is quite likely that Neanderthals contributed to the Caucasian genome. Aspie-quiz have demonstrated in a large survey in the US population that Afroamericans have only 1/6 of the autism prevalence of Caucasians. The same survey also indicates that Asians and American Indians have about 1/2 of the autism prevalence of Caucasians.

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of Aspie-quiz yields axises that seems to be related to the first Eurasian Homo, the formation of modern humans in Africa or South Asia and the hybridization between modern humans and Neanderthals in Europe. These axises seems to be 1.8 million years, 150,000 years and 37,000 years, which fits pretty good with the archaeologic evidences available.

Before people reply to this I'd like to point out several criticisms (a quick preamble: I subscribe to the theory that Asperger's syndrome is a difference not a disease).

1) The linked to 'theory' does not satisfy the basic scientific requirements of a theory. It fails to be falsifiable, predictive or explanatory.

2) The linked to page is filled with errors based on a complete lack of understanding of the differences between correlation and causation.

3) Forgiving the grammatical/spelling errors of "These axises seems to be 1.8 million years, 150,000 years and 37,000 years, which fits pretty good with the archaeologic evidences available. " from the abstract, you are still left with the fact that this is not actually a valid conclusion.

4) Using the Aspie-quiz as a primary source, rather than actually diagnoses provides for biased results. For example, the 'large survey' referred to is likely to have been user initiated focusing the results on those that already believed themselves to have AS, and correlating the results with those that would seek out the testing.


I won't even get into the racial undertones within the 'theory' (including claiming that sub-Saharan Africans are not creative).

Please disregard this as it is filled with frighteningly bad 'pseudo-science'.

It's an interesting idea, that should be looked into further, if only to discredit it. I do think that such an idea could be explanatory, in the sense that it could help explain why such maladaptive traits were preserved. It's not currently falsifiable (or verifiable), but that doesn't mean that it isn't falsifiable. Also, it's a stretch, but it could be predictive by giving us better insight into the things autistics could be good at (in addition to modern day activities like programming computers).

I don't think racial undertones in and of themselves are bad. They are bad when you don't go to exhaustive lengths to rule out the effects of racism. But, to say that African American are more prone to sickle cell anemia, is not incorrect. Nor is it incorrect to look at the past of certain races to figure out what could have made a maladaptive trait like sickle cell an advantage in different situations (i.e. as a defense against blood borne illness).

Just because the proponents of an idea haven't shown sufficient evidence doesn't make it wrong. I agree that the website has a ton of holes, and is basically pseudoscience, but the idea itself is interesting, and in my opinion merits further exploration.

Well, I think Daubert and Kumho Tire federal judicial screening mechanisms are the final arbiter of whether or not something is psuedo-science, not some somewhat unimpressed bloggerati. I would like to hear more ...

While I can only imagine what it must have been like to engage in the sex act with a strong muscular Neanderthal (and the hip action must have been beyond the wildest high !), I do have some concerns that our Presidential leader has directed us to look forward rather than backward in time and space. And, so, in that spirit, inquiring minds want to know what planetary environment might have brought about such a Neanderthal boom in the past, and whether the currently rising CO2 and CH4 levels may be precipitating a return to the more enlightened times. We all know the hours of daylight can set nesting birds to singing, but what about the adaptive assortive mating habits of man ?

"Oh, we are not animals," goes forth the hue and cry. "There is no assortive mating," goes another. "We are all alike, and not created unequal," rings a third. But not so fast, I want to hear more ...

SO, JohnyTHM, you would have us throe out the baby with the bath water?

I hardly think that this theory is complete or fully developed but I would not discard it so quickly. Nor dismiss so out of hand as you have.

If you had bothered to read the link to the end, you would see where they offer a number ways to prove or refute the theory.
So... Fail.

If you think that this theory doesn't satisfy the basic scientific requirements, discuss how - otherwise your lame attempts to refute this thoroughly referenced theory are more pathetic than you are tying to make it out to be.


Really? And we are supposed to take your word on this? Why don't you back your assertion up with some quotes from the text. You Fail.


Spelling errors do no invalidate theories - bud. What exactly is your problem with the quote? It's not valid you say. How is that? Why is that? Where is your data that invalidates this? You fail again.


So the 'large survey' is invalid because you think it is likely? WTF? THe reasons you give don't invalidate anything. If anything the facts and corelations pointed out in this article merit further research. Apparently - if we were to leave it up to you this line of investigation would be squelched... more fail.


Ah!! ! Here we are. Here's the PC card being played. I think I am getting a real understanding regarding your real motivations regarding this... tsk tsk...
Regardless of how unflattering you make think this is for sub-Saharan Africans, that doesn't invalidate this as a theory. That is not scientific. You fail yet again. Try again.


Lets see - you make a bunch of unfounded assertions (I mean, where are your citations?), assumptions and finally name calling (you cry racism) - and this is supposed to refute the linked article? Please - give me a break. Your unfounded denials do not make this pseudo science. It make what you are saying pseudo logic.

EPIC FAIL!

If you want to disprove this theory you are gong to have to do the work. Don't come here and slander years of someone's work without a pile of well cited facts. Do that and I will read them and then maybe I will take you seriously. Until then you are just a PC naysayer with an ax to grind.

I don't believe it, but I love this theory. http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm
I've had this picture on my desktop for months. It's a feel-good theory. I'm not from this planet and have nothing in common with the vile creatures who infest it.

The problem with radical new ideas, even if correct, and they can be proven, is an enormous resistance by most of the population to accept them. So many suffer from such closed minds. It is amazing sometimes to think mankind ever made one single advance. Take Galileo and Copernicus, they were vigorously rejected. But for the savants whose theories they heard, researched, and accepted, no one else would listen or seriously consider. And, if the idea is unpalatable to some, it is even more vigorously rejected. I am sure most humans would be highly upset to contemplate in any manner and for even one moment that they might have interbred with Neanderthals. But, how interesting the child depicted looks like me -- almost like looking in a mirror.

I actually do have more to say on this subject, and it is one that fascinates me. But I don't like being the object of highly volatile anti-autism sentiments of the type I am sometimes subjected to when I talk freely about what I think.

Haha, thank you for replying to him with such a detailed reply, it saves me the hassle of having to do so myself.

Neanderthals have always interested me, why did they go extinct? how did they live? how similar to use were they? If research like this leads to the neaderthal genome being mapped out more fully, then that'll make me happy.

How does something show up later as a duplicative three-time post, when it initially showed up as an ordinary one-time post ? Aaaagggghhh.

First of all, it is highly unlikely they went extinct per se. More likely they were partially assimilated thru the interbreeding. Remaining holdouts were probably the ones driven to extinction. But as to the why, I would definitely start with carrying over the amygdala monkey lesion studies to humans and determine whether majorities of the neurotypical type are predisposed to attack and want to kill off the decendant autism/Apsie type predicated on viewing them as defective like the *normal* monkeys did to the lesioned monkeys in the monkey research. But that's just my opinion. Maybe this is how it happened to the Neanderthals.

As far as fully mapping the Neanderthal genome, I am all for it. I think it's agreat idea, and likely to provide an abundance of information and insights.

I don't think the CO2 & CH4 level thing should be trivialized, either. We should look at the enviromental mix to see if there is at least correlation with rainfall patterns and rising numbers of the roughly lumped together Neanderthal, autism/Aspie type. Species adapt to their environments. If the atmospheric makeup can signal in an adaptive evolutionary sense when the boom times are good for one type as opposed to the other, such as when the particular abilities of one type are more adaptive to survival than the abilities of the other type, why shouldn't we expect to see rising numbers of the adaptation that is better able to effect survival ? This happens all the time with non-human species.

Just a hypothetical, but if we were to say the Neanderthal-Autism/Aspie type is better at more primitive animal relational and visuo-spatial mapping abilities-reading symbiotic languages ("thinking in pictures"), and we were to accept that the currently rising CO2 & CH4 levels were certain to trigger the abrupt climate change that would plunge the Earth back to a more primitive and hostile environment, where the Neanderthal-Autism-Aspie type is better adapted to survive, why would we not theoretically postulate that the changing atmospheric makeup itself may be capable of triggering or biologically informing this adaptation boom occur in the Autism-Aspie type ? There are studies, for example, that suggest autism #s have risen more in areas of higher rainfall. What is falling to the Earth that at least seems to correlate (although not yet proven relevant to the cause) of the rising autism #s ?

Interestingly, the two different types seem to have really gotten to the ultimate fork in the road at around 35,000 years ago, about the time representational art figurines indicative of visual types began to show up, and social-linear language abilities in the other type were becoming mroe prevalent. This is not to say the divide wasn't, as the article tries to chronicle, beginning much, much earlier. Radical changes in survivability of the environment occur everytime the Earth has one of its warming up or cooling down cycles, whether just part of a natural cycle or a more abrupt change triggered by some vent (or mankind). It should not seem so far fetched to search for the potential adaptive evolutionary changes that may be required to track such changes to ensure human survival, and that may determine the boom times for one adaptive type or another.

On another note, I am fascinated by the discussion in the article about the ability of Neanderthals, and seen with Autism/Aspie types to relate to animals. I read on another blog of a neurotypical person's impression that a human cannot share a deep emotional connection as a shared experience with a horse, likening the living horse to inanimate objects -- the latter of which cannot by their composition, reciprocate, feel, or share. This, as most savant autistics can tell anyone, is not accurate about horses, however. A savant autie can, indeed, share a reciprocal two-way deep emotional connection with a horse, dog, bird, cat, and probably some other types of animals. I would have to leave lizards, snakes, alligators, and turtles, out of the potential for such abilities, because in my long experience with so many type of animals, I have never really seen this ability in the latter category series.

However, the former series can and do relate through body language, and sometimes the noises that they make, with certain types of humans, and can articulate, reason, and form deep emotional connections, as well as share experiences with (at least) savant autie-type humans. Each type -- horse, dog, bird, cat -- does not relate the same as the other, necessarily. One has to get the hang of their communication, emotional, sensory, and interaction-relational style. Cats, for example, can never be controlled or forced to do anything. To engage in a reciprocal relationship with a cat, one has to entice the cat to come to them, be nice to the cat and give the cat sensory pleasures, and then, and only then, will the cat decide to stay and initiate a reciprocal relationship with a person. But cats I am note certain cats can really articulate, or if they do somewhat, definitely not articulate nearly as well as dogs and horses and some types of birds. And even within horses, I find there are different levels of intelligence -- for example Thoroughbreds are far more intelligent and capable of reasoning and articulating than most other types; the higher intelligence tends to run with the hot-bloodedness of the horse and the speed traits tend to appear linked to the higher intelligence levels.

Dogs and horses are very capable at reading certain humans mimicry of the particular animal's non-verbal body language, and sometimes even the intonation or pitch of mimicked animal sounds (I can call the mini-baby pony in the field next door for example by mimicking perfectly its high-pitched broke-up whinny), and can be trained to follow body and hand signals, and even in the case of horses, recognize, differentiate, and follow voice-word commands -- horses do know the different meanings of the words "walk," "trot," canter," ho," "back," "stand," and also "hey." Both dogs and horses tend to operate on a domination-submission mode, often context-dependent to your positioning your body and eye-gaze level above or below that of the dog or horse, facing directly or turning your back to, the dog or horse. And most dogs -- even trained guard dogs -- respond to finding no fear in an autie human. In fact, I have actually walked up to an petted several guard dogs like puppies, without knowing they were attack-trained and should have taken off my leg on the approach, only later to have their owners ask me: "How did you do that ?" It's all in the body language and modulation of fear response the dog reads from the human. Probably the best evidence that Hitler was an autie was his ability to relate to his dog as he did --- only a savant autie is capable of the shared relationship you can see in the videos evident btw Hitler and his dog, and this observation in now way means I sympathize with what Hitler did. I know this, however, because I can do the same thing. Although alligators do not really articulate or reason (to my knowledge) like horses, dogs, and birds, they do respond to reading a human's body language, fear response, and sounds -- I have actually pied-pipered an alligator down by Sanibel Island, FL by walking along a bank playing my recorder (instrument) to the gator, and the gator followed along at a distance to hear the sounds.

It is hard to say whether horses or birds--especially some of the larger ones, are the more intelligent. Some horses not only can articulate and reason, they can develop judgment regarding their abilities to calculate the technological aspects of different types of jumps. Horses can articulate and rationalize the difference btw right and wrong, good and bad. And, if a savant autie plays long enough with many different horses in pastures and the turnouts, one begins to learn and become able to communicate in a two-way conversational sense with articulation and reason, through "horse" non-verbal body language, and the language of domination and submission, boundaries and space, and certain pitches and intonations of noises, with a horse -- we see this in stories like The Horse Whisperer, but really, the ability is just a non-verbal communication horse language ability some savant auties can learn by which they can share a relationship and deep emotional connection with a horse. And a horse does, indeed, participate in a reciprocal fashion in the shared experience, as one can see how some horses enjoy particular rides and places we go, and ask to be ridden and go to these particular places to see the sights the horse wants to see, not necessarily the ones that interest the human.

Birds, such as Molluccan cockatoos, can be quite a handful -- sometimes quite similar to the annals of Hellen Keller. A Molluccan is easily as intelligent as a 5 yr. old human child, and they think quite a lot alike. Birds are not necessarily as far down the domestication route as dogs or horses, and usually require handfeeding by a human in substitute for the avian biological parents to cause the bird to imprint (domesticate fully) to the human. It is a known problem among people who breed and raise birds, that even when the babies are handfed by humans, if the human relating is not kept up with continuity, the babies can be retaken and made wild again by their avian parents. This is very prevalent with Lovebirds, for instance, especially the Peachfaced.

Establishing a relationship with a wild-caught bird can be particularly difficult, and I did this with a Molluccan raised by his avian parents and (unwillingly from his perspective) imported to the U.S. back in the days it was allowed. Molluccans can exhibit anger and throw temper tantrums, flap their wings threateningly, and scream. They are also capable of deceiving and lulling a human into a false sense of comfort and safety. They can wait out (long-range planning ability), something they want to get into or get their hands-on, and sneak around to get it even behind your back. They also understand the relationship btw some words they learn to say and the object or action the word represents.

My wild-raised Molluccan did not like women, but only one particular man -- whose was the first owner of the bird and whose girlfriend made him give up the bird after he bit her. Little did I know when I made the purchase, that the Molluccan was deceiving me that he could like me -- a woman -- with a show of *good behavior.*

Within 24 hrs of coming home with me, the Molluccan decided he did not like me, because I was not his preferred and familiar human, and moreover, I was a woman. He deceivingly lulled me into letting him climb up onto my arm, then promptly began almost a year of viciously biting me with full frontal attacks of his massive beak to the flesh of my arm -- delighting and only encouraged by any humans who elicited a panicked scream from the pain (which happened to my roomate who ran screaming from him one day with him in hot pursuit, whereupon he overtook her and delivered a deep bite to her hand).

After apologizing profoundly to my roomate and begging her not to move out on me, I embarked on a mission not to give in to this Molluccan avian effort to control me, and once the bite had occurred, there really wasn't much one could do about it at that point, except repair the wound, so I took advantage of these events as opportunities to train the Molluccan -- an ordeal in itself since birds don't respond to being hit or restrained physically (which anyone who has dealt with birds can confirm).

I did this by firmly shouting in immediate response to the bite attacks, "No bites !" "That is a bite !" "That is a NO !" and walking with the bird to his cage, where I scraped him off my arm, beak hold and all, with the cage door, depositing him into the cage, whereupon I engaged in the most frustrating response conceivable to a Molluccan of turning my back on him and refusing to give him any attention whatsoever; refusing to feed an emotional reaction into his behavioral aggression.

And, for almost a year, the Molluccan, once re-caged with my back turned and utterly ignored, would erupt into ferocious tantrums, making headdress displays, and male shows of aggression, flapping his wings in dramatic displays and aggressive shows of anger, and scream and carry on.

But, over time, when he realized he got no rise out of me by this behavior, and worse, got the frustrations of the 'no attention routine' he most disliked, he started calling for me with little imitations mimicking some of my words, and making tongue-out kissy gestures with his beak, to lure me over to his cage for some attention. At these points, I discovered he had a craving for Jarlesburg cheese, and I would indulge his good behavior by giving him little cubes of the Jarlesburg with my fingers, but just the tip of the cheese out of reach for a bite to my fingers, while asking "cheese?" This, after awhile, resulted in the Molluccan initiating good behavior interactions with me, and sort of began eliminating the bad behavior he subjected me to for almost a year -- and he did learn to associate the "No bites" commands with the off-limits bad behavior.

One day, when I opened the cage door in response to a showing of some good behavior, after indulging some Jarlesburg, he jumped up on my arm and made a beeline for my shoulder next to my face and ears. That was a little intimidating, since I did not know if it was yet another one of his deceiving-ploys to get my guard down for an avian attack, but I decided to trust him -- and that was the first breakthough where he actually decided he liked me which I promptly rewarded by taking him on my shoulder over to the mirror for what became one of his activities, of making a narcissistic show of himself which he could watch in the mirror.

After that, he became pretty trustworthy and began asking for relationship interactions with me, but he still would strike out and protest if I did not give proper attentions to his Mulluccan neediness (a well know fact about Molluccans are they are very needy, and they will acquire all sorts of neurotic behaviors if the human they decide to bond with does not cater to their neediness episodes) -- for example, feather picking and/or insanely weaving back and forth in their cage.

Sometimes during these neediness drives, if I happened to have him out and free about the house, but I inadvertently became too absorbed in something other than the Molluccan, such as reading or my computer or a TV show, he would launch an attack strike, coming at me with threats of a bite -- which he never actually carried out, but that would produce my reaction of "No bites" commands and invocation of a giant flat blue shag-pilliow I had positioned as a shield btw him and me, whereupon I would immediately demand he: "Go to your cage," and he would throw a tantrum, carry-on, with a lot of protest, but would, in fact, obey the demand to go to his cage; climb up on the top or the door rim, scream and wing flap about, sometimes dramatically throwing all his seed out of his dishes onto the floor, and make some headdress displays of anger for my limiting his behavioral boundaries -- for awhile. Then he would ask: "cheese ?" to get my permission to come back down from his cage again.

And eventually, though these methods of dealing with his antics, I was able to estalish a great Mollucccan-human relationship with this wild-raised and caught bird.

But in any event, I digressed into one of my many savant autie-animal stories, of which there are many, but I did really want to say I enjoyed the article on the Neanderthals quite a bit.

I still like my, genetically engineered humans by the Nazi Regime to make super-scientists theory (it's no coincidence that Hans and Leo both went to school in Germany..., and both of their papers were released close to WW2); it failed, of course, as you'd get people who'd obsess over pieces of cloth just as mechanical engineering, and they couldn't predict or influence the pattern of obsession. It ran parallel to the super-soldier experiments, and that failed too, because they found out that blond hair didn't actually protect you any better from incendiary devices than darker hair, as was first thought, and that blue eyes didn't provide night vision.

Sounds far fetched but maybe they lied to us and Neanderthals didn't disappear.

Solinoure, if you can debate this theory with the close-minded people who do not understand it and do not want to believe it for some reason, I salute you. In my experience of life this theory is 100% true. I tried debating it in another thread but got tired after about 5 pages of super long posts, the debate was going nowhere after many hours of typing simply because the person was looking for a debate, not the truth.

Super enjoyable animal stories, btw MKDP.

I agree.

This has been debated often, some people do not want to consider it since they have an outdated understanding of what a Neanderthal was like. Is it a hypothesis or theory, it really does not matter a whole lot to most people, it just make for interesting thoughts.

For anyone who understands the genetics of evolution the assumption that the species genetics become extinct when a species who can interbreed becomes extinct is just laughable. The genetics become extinct when the gene(s) provide no positive effect on survival differentiation.

Inventiveness, Hyper-focus capabilities, heightened sensory capabilities, the ability for exceptional non-linear perception and manipulation and so forth all in many circumstance remain in some situation a positive survival traits so if they existed in prior evolutionary stages it is reasonable that they would have continued to this day. As the science of genetic mapping improves much of this debate with be settled.

bookwormde

absolutley facinating............