Was autistic-ness a prehistoric advantage?

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I was playing against 3 other computer players on Age Of Empires II and they allied with each other and raped me; I had to pull out the cheat codes and summon some Shelby Cobras to save the day, lol. I'm thinking this whole "likes team up with likes" dynamic which predicts who's going to get their butt kicked, or not kicked, is one major reason why making 'friends' is so important to NTs.

But they drag you into their Machiavellian schemes and dark manipulations, eh?

Corrupted for the sake of networking? No thanks

I agree with the whole sensory thing. These days peoples senses are dumbed down by technology, except if you happen to be one of the lucky people with processing issues.

I heard that Aboriginals could see from very far away which helped them find prey and navigate through their rocky environment.

There was another interesting piece of information I came across when reading about the effects on the human brain from geomagnetic storms. It seems that the Earth's magnetic core was stronger in Neanderthal times and schizophrenia amongst people would have been the norm. I'm one of those people deeply affected by geomagnetism: fatigue, forgetfulness, rages, hallucinations, hyperactivity. I even check the NOAA satellite just to see what the solar activity is like on those days that they happen.

How's that for far fetched?

I really need to read that rdos article. Can someone read it to me?

To say something could not have been an evolutionary accident is really silly. Not meaning to disrespect, just evolutionary biology is one of my passions. There are many genes, the expression of which are somewhat detrimental, which will survive in a small frequency in a population, just by sheer chance. There are also genes which are beneficial in the presence of certain other genes, and detrimental in the presence of others. A simple example is sickle cell anemia. To inherit it from one parent endows a child with immunity to malaria, but to carry the gene inherited from both parents causes the disease sickle cell anemia.
'accidents' are the hallmark of evolution. There are countless features that could have been designed so much more efficiently were they intelligently designed. One that comes to mind is a particular blood vessel which takes a winding and doubling back path toward its ultimate destination, causing the heart to pump significantly harder than it aught need to, were this blood vessel to make a b-line to where it needs to go.

as for autism and evolution. I do personally have a theory that shaman are ideally autistic, and that it is autistic individuals who created the office of shaman. The shaman is a practically universal role in any human society. I would like to believe that the work of shaman has been a driving force toward the progression of our species, but to be scientifically minded about the proposition, which is mere speculation in itself, i must accept the possibility that Shaman are what they are, neither significantly helping or hindering any aspect of our evolution. And if Shaman are autists, their role may only exist because the autists forged the niche, not necessarily because it provides a crucial function. Autism may simply be an infrequent inevitable mutation due to the complexity of human brain structure.
Again i do personally think the occurrence of autism has had a positive effect on our past, and may have a positive effect on our future, but i will not assert on a scientific basis that this is the only way it could be

Are brains are simply wired a different way. I don't think it has anything to do with caveman instincts, albeit that would be pretty rad

fully rad dude

Traits of autism are seen in mice, Bonobos, and humans. The mouse genome is very similiar to the human genome. Morever, all including neanderthals, along with all other primate ancestors, have a common rodent like ancestor 75 million years ago.

And yes, some of the same gene variants associated with autism in humans have been found in mice:

ttp://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2011/two-new-autism-mouse-models-highlight-gene-dosage-effects



Note: these genes are only associated with about 1% of cases of autism in humans. So, please don't be alarmed by this information.

Who knows, analogues of these rare genetic variants may have been present in ancestors 75+ million years ago.

If the variants have lasted that long, one would think there might be some type of overall survival advantage for the species as a whole, among all the species that maintain the gene variants.

Maybe, or they don't have a sufficient impact on survivability to not be passed on.

There are basically two reasons traits remain in the gene pool: Positive pressure (they help with survival) and lack of negative pressure (they don't impact survival enough for the carriers to die before passing the traits on).

Also, thank you for confirming that the genes exist in other species. Given how many genes we do share with a huge number of other life forms, going all the way back to life's origins, this sort of thing seems like it should be fairly common. Depends on when the genes appeared, too, of course.

They were the ones making the tools while others talked about how cool it would be to have tools like that. After the making of said tool, a social butterfly grabbed it and took credit for it and became king of the clan. The Aspie shrugged and simply began making another tool. A more innovative tool.