What is the evolutionary 'value' of an aspergers population?

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i would have to agree i think that neurodiversity means we can solve problems nts cant therefore there must be a certain number of us in society.

The short answer: we dont know.

The slightly longer answer: it's pretty much impossible to tell what that benefit may be. Looking at possible variations of ASD frequency across various cultures might help, but that would require very strict and objective definitions on how to classify various ASD aspects. Some work in this field is being done.

There may be no benefit at all. It's worth remembering that evolution is very much a statistical process, and one that has no aim ... evolution has no sense of direction. Even bad characteristics do occasionally grow to dominance, and evolutionally neutral characters are only subject to random drift.

It will probably be impossible to quantify the possible direct benefits of having ASD minds among us. In practice there are extremely few clearly beneficial characteristics seen in ASD people that don't occur among the NTs too. Personally I dont thing "we can solve problems nts cant", so quite aspie48, is a rather dubious claim. As for Kon's comment, "Less time for social stuff means more time to create, discover, invent stuff?" ... maybe so, but NTs have the benefit of numbers; collectively the NTs definitely have much more free time time than ASD people as a whole.

There's also the possibility that there is a benefit, but it is not at all reflected by the ASD characteristics. From the obvious inheritability of ASD, we know that it has a major genetic component. Now, as it happens, genes are in practice not completely isolated from each other; nor is a single gene necessarily responsible for a single characteristics. Maybe the ASD genes have another, still unrecognized (or perhaps obsolete) benefit. Or they may just sit next to a beneficial gene and piggybacks on the success of a particular stretch of DNA.

The sickle cell anemia case is a good example of a 'harmful' gene with an beneficial side effect. The Sickle cell anemia gene is recessive. If you have two copies of it, you suffer from sickle cell anemia and are likely to die before reaching maturity, thus producing no offspring. This is obviously bad from an evolutionary point of view. But having a single copy of this 'bad' gene has a significant benefit: it renders you all but immune to malaria, which is equally obviously a boon if you live in malaria-haunted areas. Thus a balance develops, where a certain proportion of the population carries this gene.

The sickle cell anemia example is of course a very basic one. ASD is definitely not as simple as that. I am just trying to highlight the various possibilities.

I can nary think of a brilliant scientist or artist or poet who was not at least a mildly f**ked up individual.

you see, it's the crazy ones on which all progress depends.

Hehe, true. But definitely don't need to be on the spectrum to the fooked up in many interesting ways

Sure, Einstein mighta been autistic, Nicola Tesla definitely had OCD (and he was hypersensitive like an autistic), Vincent van Goeg probably had Bi Polar

What would we do without mental illness? I mean, besides living average-ho-hum-nothing-to-see-here lives.

Prolly have an over developed group consciousness that does not allow for individualistic endeavour, but you get warm fuzzy's when you relate with others, then experience hate when you divorce. Then you wait 2 years to love again

Should keep you busy for a lifetime...........

Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?

This is something I've been thinking about for quite some time. What would the world be like if it were run by aspies? First of all, I would like to think that there would be much more justice, but I can't say that for sure. There would be a much greater emphasis on peace and privacy for the individual rather than a large community. Socialization would be seen as stupid, pointless, and a waste of time, although there would still be a need for necessary communication and close relationships. Technology would advance at 10x the rate it does here on earth, and life would revolve on logic rather than feelings (Vulcans). Also, everything would be structured and well planned out, none of this "we'll think about that later" crap. If humanity ever got in a war with a race of aspie aliens of the same evolutionary age, the aspies would undoubtedly win. I have my doubts that humanity would even be able to bind together against a common enemy, they've been at war with each other ever since the beginning of their pitiful existence.

Quite a nice summary of the evolutionary process.

Btw, if those "bad characteristics" grow to dominance and persist in the population over time, then it's not really "bad" in the evolutionary sense. For example, evolution doesn't really care if "bad hair" increases your reproductive fitness; if it did, then bad hair would become the norm (And presumably people would start liking the 'bad hair' and start calling it good hair because it would obviously be commonly desired, and then in the future, that'd be seen as a 'good characteristic'.)




Well, among the asperger population, there appears to be a higher mean in fluid intelligence as measured by the Raven's Progressive Matrices (But lower on the WAIS's nonverbal tests), and there also appears to be greater variation (According to http://www.freewebs.com/adiscussion/Sup ... sorder.pdf ). What this means: There's a significantly greater percentage of the aspergers population with a really high fluid intelligence score, or, more "really high" IQ scores. It is also speculated that intellectual genius is predicted by a large AQ quotient and large "Psychotic Score Quotient" according to one post at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... ake-genius (and, in technical and scientific fields, aided by high fluid intelligence.) . So, the percentage of the population that would pass for the current measure for "genius" in today's society would be predicted to substantially increase in Aspergia, and I'd imagine the rate of progress would probably skyrocket. Indeed, with the increase of aspergers in Silicon Valley, it would appear there's a local selection for "tech genes"/"aspergers genes" as influenced by an increasingly technologically complex world. However, maybe that's just a deleterious genetic consequence, much like the higher IQ ashkenazim Jew population has a high incidence of genetic disorders. Only the test of time will tell us how the incidence of "aspergers individuals" changes in the future - if it increases (As it appears), then presumably those genes are more "evolutionarily positive", in response to an increasingly technological environment.



In Aspergia, everyone has aspergers! Numerical superiority arguments don't work in this imagined society.

That kind of thinking is unproductive. Deficits? They are only considered deficits because they are traits and features that do not allow us to play as well as NTs in the NT ballgame. Conversely, NTs don't play as well as we do at our game.

We can update our conclusions and world views more quickly when additional data is available that invalidates our prior position. We handle abstract thought much better than they do. To us, the "thought experiments" of NTs are laughably childlike.

With our smaller working set we do not multitask as well as NTs, but we can focus better than they can because we are not as distracted by the other things as they can be. Our smaller emotional range (which might not really be smaller, but given less weight in our behavior and poorly articulated) also lends itself to less distraction and more rational decisions. Sure, an NT might say we are capable of cold and unfeeling decisions and that we lack empathy. Flip it around, though, and we can say we make more rational and considered decisions because we see the logic and rational outcome they cannot as they are blinded by emotion.

Call us naive and overly literal and humorless... Or less prejudiced and accepting of communication with others, with an implicit respect and trust. Might suck when dealing with NTs, but great at communication with other cultures and societies where an NTs emotional assumptions and training tailored to their own culture and society are a hinderance.

We are weak at being NTs. You can interpret that as we are unbalanced if you would like. I interpret it as we have different strengths, and some of the very things that make us poor NTs make us capable of doing some things better than NTs. You can pick an arbitrary point on the whole human spectrum and call that good, and further away from that point bad. That is naive and simplistic. There is a reason for variation and variety both in software (ideas and training) and hardware (physical capability).

I didn't think evolution went by "value".

You're so keen on the single quotes, aren't you?

Anyways, the closest pre-existing concept that comes close to what I'm thinking of is "reproductive fitness", although the "total reproductive fitness" of the entire species would be closer to what I'm thinking of. (That is, if a medical scientist saves 100 lives through the invention of some miracle medicine, then he increased the reproductive fitness of some percentage of those 100 saved lives, thus his reproductive fitness goes beyond his particular set of genes; If a food scientist increases food yields and prevents starvation for 100 people, then likewise; Also, some undoubtedly less direct pathways exist...).

Last edited by swbluto on 04 Apr 2011, 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not trying to stir "us vs. them" mentalities. If I were to do that, it'd then be me versus NTs and me versus ASPIES. Subsequently, it'd then be me versus the world and I don't think I like the odds of that!

Also, just in case you missed it, I *really* appreciate diversity. Neurodiversity, especially.

Geez, I'm guessing being PC isn't just an NT thing. I now must add "deficit" to my non-PC word list.

No worries, I care not for political correctness. My intent is not to raise us v. them, I try hard not to get them riled up and reaching for the pitchforks and torches too .

My concern is more for anyone who thinks because they are not good at something that they are somehow broken. We might suck at emulating NTs, but we certainly would not base the value of another, who say sucked at emulating a pop star while singing karaoke, on that bit of suckage. I certainly would not think we would consider them to have a deficit. Existence is hard enough without us beating ourselves up for not having a particular talent and forgetting about the talents we do have while we obsess over the ones we do not.

Ahhhhh, okay. Yeah, I completely agree with you. It's been a long-standing belief of mine that 'perfection' doesn't exist, and frustrating yourself over pursuing whatever unobtainable model or elements of 'perfection' is a foolish thing. Intrinsic differences in the population just naturally exist, and if one happens to be on the "low side" / disadvantaged in a few ways, then that's a person's natural roll of the dice. If someone also happens to be advantaged in a few ways, that's also a person's natural roll of the dice. Either way, it can be good to acknowledge that half the population is below average (in whatever ability / quality / skill-level), so no one is really alone in being less-than-advantaged in a few particular ways. (Stated assuming the reader is affected by "being with the group" rationality.)

Too many walls of text. So I'll just jump to say.
We would make very good logic-positions; like the position of "Spock" on the Star Trek ship!
No need for everyone to be that way, but still need at-least one.