Asperger's Syndrome and evolution

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It was in the paper that I cited.

"The gene microcephalin (MCPH1) regulates brain size during development and has experienced positive selection in the lineage leading to Homo sapiens. Within modern humans, a group of closely related haplotypes at this locus, known as haplogroup D, rose from a single copy {approx}37,000 years ago and swept to exceptionally high frequency ({approx}70% worldwide today) because of positive selection."

From "Evidence that the adaptive allele of the brain size gene microcephalin introgressed into Homo sapiens from an archaic Homo lineage" at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0606966103v1

And all of them defective? It seems to me that psychiatry's Defective Mutant Hypothesis of Autism is illogical and delusional.

Several genes in about one in 150 people (a high rate of prevalence) precludes the mainscream hypothesis.

Last edited by DemocraticSocialistHun on 05 May 2008, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

um..hu, brains get bigger, brains take longer to grow to 100%, NTs are stupid, blacks are stupid, apes are stupid, AS people are smart.........the smarter a creature is ,the longer it will take for it to grow to 100% [its brain, most notably], this is why girls are more mature at age 10 compared to boys, they are more stupid than boys.

ok, Im being to politicaly correct here...... hahahah

to much truth in this post, its scary.

I'm the opposite extreme. I'm 23 and can easily pass for 12. When I go to hotels with my parents, they always get me in on the 'kids stay free' deals. =/

My youngest brother is 11, and we nearly pass for twins.

I think the most significant facts relating to the benefit/harm ratio of ASD come from the incidence. Most recent studies have suggested that about 1 in 150 children qualify as belonging on the autism spectrum. This is a very high proportion for a genetic trait, especially compared to clearly harmful conditions. PKU, a well studied and totally harmful genetic trait, occurs in one in 15,000 individuals. Prior to modern medicine, these people never survived to adulthood. Huntington's disease and Marfans are less severe in that many affected people grow up and have children before dying. The rates of these conditions are 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 5,000.

Now look at ASD. One in 150! If this condition were something that conferred no advantage, ever, it would never have attained this rate over the years. I don't think anyone can be sure what exactly the advantages have been over the millennia (yes, I feel certain that ASD is NOT new and has been with us since there have been humans). The population dynamics of humanity are very complicated and figuring out precisely which interpersonal traits are helpful or harmful and when they are is way beyond what is currently possible.

I believe that ASD is sometimes an advantage and sometimes not, say like pale skin. I think it should be viewed as a variant that sometimes can clearly be a problem (like very very pale skin - albinism) and mostly is (to borrow a phrase) just different, not deficient.

I've never heard that thing about ASD folks looking young! I'm 60 and look to some folks at least like I'm in my late 40's. It has never been particularly advantageous though.

AS won't lead to new species of humans because there's no real advantage for being AS unless if there's some extra environmental change

Natural selection doesn't favor AS because communication and social skills are becoming more and more important in human's society, so natural selection would still favor.

Sexual selection doesn't favor AS for sure, look at the Aspies adult guys here...most of them are single and many of them never had a Gf. As for Female Aspies, most of them have Bfs here but they find difficulties in maintaining a relationship so long.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 06 May 2008, 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Isn't evolution picking us for our unique problem solving skills? Indications are that the whole world's populations are going to experience more complex challenges in the future.

***autisnob detected.***

No,it's not evolution....since AS is not favored sexually that means their genes are more likely to die than NTs'

The weird thing that AS numbers growing so this is probably caused by 1 of these 3 possibilities:

-AS might be just a personality disorder and has no genetic-basis
-AS is being OVER OVER-misdiagnosed
-An external factor is causing it (ie.vaccins)

I'm not convinced that natural selection will favour AS genes. They don't do much for a person's capacity to reproduce (ie find and keep a sexual partner), and they may not do much for an inclination to reproduce (I for one don't have much inclination to have kids - too much noise, not enough alone time). What could happen is speciation, in which aspies tend to get it together with other aspies and concentrate aspie genes to the point at which we actually become a different species from the rest of humanity, but I'm not remotely convinced that this is likely to happen. If you start concentrating autism spectrum genes you are likely to end up with a large number of kids being born further into the autism spectrum as well, and there would be substantial selective pressures against having a large number of lower-functioning autistic offspring. (Which is not to say that autistic people are less valuable as human beings, just that evolution is just not going to favour traits which make it difficult to survive without a lot of outside support, or have a family of one's own.)

It may well be that AS is beneficial to society, in providing a certain kind of mindset which is good at certain tasks. However, evolution does not look at what is beneficial to society. It's not about what is useful to the species, it's about which genes are going to scramble through to next time. Unless those genetic differences translate into having more offspring which survive and reproduce in their turn, they are of no use from an evolutionary point of view.

[quote="ShadesOfMe"]I think you are completely off. Of course we are able to "breed" as you so crudely put it. Yes, it is inheritable. No, we aren't going to form some other class of human.[/quote]

Yes and no. If AS types ever became socially or physically isolated from the rest of our species they could very well be the nucleus of a new subspecies. As long as AS type live in the company of NTs and breed with them, most likely this will not lead to emergence of a new species of human.

AS types tend to be very well adapted to computers. If computers remake our society radically, then the AS characteristics may produce a breeding advantage. I think AS is potentially the Next Big Thing in human evolution.

Baal Chatzaf

Assuming that it's true that we're better with computers, and that our skills benefit society, how do you see this actually translating into increased reproductive success? There seems to be a jump in the logic there.

First just to get the terminology right the aseprgers/spectrum genes are a variant not a mutation. There are some thoughts that the NT species is the offshoot of a previous gene set (possible the highly inventive Neanderthal set) which became the selectively preferred set because of the survival benefits of a more complex social structure. Not sure I buy this but it is certainly a possibility. Up until the past few decades there ware definite societal conditions that impacted the comparative reproductive potential for spectrum people (not that they are all gone) For those who are more classic autistic (and for others with maladaptive co morbidities) there was segregation from society. If you were a philosopher/thinker in the middle ages you were probably a monk. As a part of the characteristics we are not socially as driven to have children at young age and make our choices on a more “logical” basis (amazing how society is finally starting to catch up with us).

With these NT societal restrictions being reduced it is not surprising that our gene set is becoming more effectively dominant.

It is my sense that in the future we may be classified as a separate sub species due to the fact that some of are core trait give us much higher adaptive (survival) skills than NTs, such as the lack of need for continual social interface (space travel, and computer work) inventiveness (ability to adapt to an ever increasing rate of environmental changes), Direct computer interface (since we can provide our non-linear processing “guidance to computers linier processes).

I have of course coined a name, HomoAspean


bookwormde

Liopleurodon

In the short term our best “survival skill” is that we are less likely to do “stupid” and dangerous things, and that we by nature do not have the need to be “violent” to defend our social position.

Currently the bigger factor is the removal if pervious impediments

bookwormde

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

so aspergers is the new evolutionary human being?



I think you are right haha.....................................................


humans becoming more machine like, more computer literate for the robot age.. haha
futurism eh..