The Neanderthal theory of Autism

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Not sure about this yet, but an enormous material on birth month in Aspie-quiz (close to 200,000 samples) shows differences in month of birth distribution between Aspies and NTs.



Not? What do you suggest?



Not at all. You are totally blinded by how our species handles resources. There are far more efficient methods that do not lead to regular crashes in resources as Hs creates everywhere they appear.



It is part of a consistent theory, remember?



Geists doesn't now anything about what happened to Hn. It is not his area of expertise.

Perhaps there was a time when honesty respect for others empathy and compassion were traits that helped then there was a change requiring an nt approach maybe we are the echo of a humanity that has lost our way.Dont hate people it only hurts you.

How do you know? Have you checked this or seen any study?

This probably has more to do with the models used to detect crossover than anything else. Initially, there where reports of SNP associations that later were retracted for unknown reasons (political correctness?).

This finding is not based on diagnostic rates. It is based on interest rates, and the fact that people that take Aspie-quiz are biased towards people with autistic traits. Too few people of African-American ancestry have shown interest, and this is also seen as low African American participation rates on forums like WP compared to their population count in the US. These rates are also consistent between versions.

It doesn't make any sense, I don't need to do any study to discredit an idea that is ridiculous. I am part Greek, does this mean I will be better at recognizing Greek faces than pure Northern Europeans are at recognizing Greek faces?



It would have been nice if this theory had used sources that reliably proved the prevalence of autism in different races, without errors due to cultural factors affecting diagnostic rates. For example, examining groups of randomly-selected white and black children and rating them on autistic traits.

Something like the Aspie Quiz could be useful in forming a hypothesis, but not in validating it.

That's the second time in like 3 days that I've heard someone on here pooh-pooh scientific anthropological findings using the outlandish conspiracy theory that they were straight up lying about their results for political reasons.

If you think this is how it works, you either have no direct experience in the field, or you want to believe something so badly that you are willing to twist the science in any way you see fit to arrive at your preferred conclusion.

Maybe the reports changed due to the fact that new information has led to the book on evolutionary recombination mechanisms in general being essentially rewritten in the last year

They are not saying it is impossible that these associations you seek do in fact exist. Like I said, they're still giving the genome a once-over; the project is a fairly new one. But thus far it's looking less and less plausible the more they get into it, and I'm pretty sure the reason why has nothing to do with "the man".

One big problem I have with this hypothesis is its rigidity in racial categories. The data for the hypothesis relies on the aspie quiz, which is in and of itself a questionable metric for this kind of research. Unlike census forms, which now allow people to check multiple boxes for their ethnicity, the test only allows you to select one region of "main recent heritage"--which is ridiculous when you consider how specific the test is. I know I've put down different things when I've taken the test all 20+ times--sometimes Romanian, sometimes Turkish, etc. Plus, people's knowledge of their own ancestry is often rather sketchy and incomplete. This hypothesis is extremely speculative, and it troubles me to see so many aspies embrace it when it is, quite simply, racist. Surely there are ways to highlight the positives of autism spectrum conditions without descending into such speculation.

If you cannot indicate how mere population replacement would be plausible in detail then you can hardly complain if people find that your description of group structure is highly unlikely to be sustainable in terms of population replacement.

Very active hunting?


I am not blind to such things at all. You appear to have major blind-spots though. Australia's ecology was highly stable for 10,000's of years under human occupation. You might choose to only look at evidence that supports your idea, and further denigrates the NT-associated Hs in comparison to the ASD-associated (within your idea) Hn, but in reality, human groups vary greatly in how they understand and interact with their environment and its resources. It is readily apparent that such differences are primarily under the influence of social/cultural factors.


So in other words it is speculation made in support of a theory, and therefore the theory must be true and since the theory must be true so must the speculation, thus proving both true? We call this circular reasoning, and not in compliment.


You cited Geist as being the person who published findings relevant to your theory, but now you claim he lacks expertise in this area. I'll tell you what Geist does know, and that is that research into Neanderthal DNA does not support your idea in any way shape or form.

We've had this debate before on WP. The consensus being it's highly improbable Neanderthals are the source of autism. We posted about this in depth but I forgot most of the details, lol. Something about tiny fragments of random Neanderthal genome not meshing well with that of Homosapien's causing a glitchy allele.
Is this how genes mutate?
Not from what we can tell.

Maybe I simply overlooked it, but I didn't see anything accounting for dyspraxia. What use could that possibly have?

Things that speak against the theory:

Autism can develop in a healthy child suffering a physical trauma at a young age. It is not necessarily inherited and this suggests brain damage rather than hidden DNA.

Japan has a high rate of autism, one of the highest in the world, but there is nothing even suggesting neanderthals existed in Japan or Korea.

Animals can also have autistic traits resulting from some kind of trauma/brain damage around the time of them being born. I seriously doubt these animals carry a hidden bloodline descended from the neanderthals.

Last edited by Zoonic on 24 May 2009, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

OP, thank you so very much for posting this!
This is an idea that I have been toying with for months, although I didn’t contribute it particularly to the Neanderthals. But we do know that very very likely interspecies humanoid sex took place resulting in offspring that may not all be sterile.

The common belief of the ”experts” that ASDs mean being disabled has never made any sense to me. I have never felt disabled, just different.
A person in a wheel chair or a blind person is disabled. Though they can make do fairly well, they only do so as a result of walking/seeing people adapt their surroundings to their needs. There would be no advantage to these if everyone were blind or in wheel chairs. We’d just see a society where people would have great difficulties getting around and would be vulnerable to predators and unable to develop technology.
Being autistic isn’t problematic, the problem is that the society is NT. In an autistic society we would do things different since we are different, and in such a society an NT would seem disabled as he/she would be so different. We are not disabled any more than an NT is.

I think a lot of what is said in this article are very interesting observations.
From the Neanderthal theory:
”Language acquisition is different in autism. Autistics lag behind in using the correct language syntax. Low-level "impairments" are suggested by psychiatry, but since language acquisition is largely innate, it's much more likely there are innate differences in language skills, and probably syntactic skills. Autistic children are forced to learn an alien set of language rules, and this causes them to lag behind peers. Some autistics also have trouble differentiating personal pronouns, which is indicative of adaptation to endogamous groups.”
But among the criteria of AS is no language delay, which is significant as half of the autistics are diagnosed with AS.

Another thought: Why are so many being diagnosed these days? Can it be more than increased awareness and new diagnoses, like AS and PDD-NOS? What if we are needed? NTs are generalists, which is little more than hunters and gatherers in contemporary environments. I have often heard NTs say that their job is boring them stiff but they endure it due to being surrounded by nice colleagues. To us the job itself has to be what attracts us. We enjoy specialising, we want to know everything about the subjects we like. In earlier times there was great need for generalists. Nowadays, many fields are in need of specialists. Could it be that more Aspies/HFAs are born as a result of that demand?

”It's crucial that females had some means of assuring that males stayed in the group. They solved this by not allowing males to participate in reproduction until they had shown their loyalty and abilities to the group. It is common for autistics to not like to socialize with stangers and to bond strongly with group-members. From this evolved special interests, that many autistics males have. These are also keys to success for many professionals and scientists. Special interests are often long-term, and this indicates that males had to impress on females during long periods of time.”
And so do many autistic females, too.

I also think that this sex as glue theory may be a bit of a long shot, as it seems that unusual sexual orientations are way more prevalent in autictics than in the NT population. According to CNN 1% of the population is asexual, while the number among autistics seem to be about 10%, which is peculiar if we are supposed to be inclined to use it as described in the article.
”Faceblindness and Neanderthal faces. A real possibility is to check if faceblind people with autistic traits can recognize Neanderthals faces better than modern human faces.”
But that doesn’t explain why we have no trouble recognising pets of the same species that look alike to everyone else.

I am very skeptical about this theory. For one thing, Neanderthals existed 24,000 years ago at the latest. That means if they bred with Cro-Magnon the last direct cross would have been 24,000 years back, no sooner. It's unlikely something that occured 24,000 years ago is going to be that signifcant in today's population.
Even if Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon did produce offspring the connection to autism existing today is remote.
It's not likely.
However, this theory does raise an interesting question about alleles and how they affect one another.
The likelihood exists that certain alleles in the human genome become dysfunctional when randomly paired together during fertilization which could be one cause of what appears to be spontaneous mutations.

” Probable autistic social preferences
1. Have you felt different from others for most of your life?”

We all feel different than the NT population, even at a young age, don’t we? And considering how many Aspie/autie children are being bullied, I would say that we were recognised as being profoundly different, too.
If we are indeed originally another species, it makes sense that there would be subtle yet unmistakable clues.

An extreme version is seen in the horror book ”Blood crazy” by Simon Clark, in which adults kill off their underage offspring. A theory in said book is that the massacre took place as a result of a mutation in the adults which made them see their offspring as divergent. In terms of evolution it made sense to the adults to kill their kids and have new kids of their own new species. Yes, I know this is just a work of fiction, but that doesn’t mean that part of can’t ring true IRL.

In earlier generations divergent children of all kinds were often explained as being changelings or punishment from the gods.
In the animal kingdom we clearly see the battle for survival. It starts in the nest. Some of the yearlings group together against one of their siblings, and prevent him/her from eating until he/she dies. This is a behaviour seen in lots of species from sharks via birds to pigs.

If children that appear weaker weren’t there, more resources can be used on the seemingly stronger/more fit kids. I think that is the underlying cause for bullying. Oh, bullies don’t think ”If he/she wasn’t here then I would receive more food/attention etc.” It’s more subtle than that. They see something they react to, probably on an unconscious level, and they commence their terror. Off on a power trip it also have the effect of increasing the bully’s self esteem while lowering that of the victim, which in term will be advantageous for the bully and harmful for the bullied.

In terms of evolution it makes sense to get rid of the descendants of the competitor species, which would be seen in the children displaying the most obvious traits of otherness. This could definitely explain why Aspies often go through hell in their childhood/youth. Most NT adults (although there are no lack of exceptions) are too polite to say something directly to you, but if asked they will admit that talking to an Aspie is a bit like talking to someone from another culture.
And of course, we mostly feel that we were born on the wrong planet. (Pun intended!)

This theory raises interesting questions, and I sincerely hope professionals will dare to touch on the subject. I think it would be a good idea to check autistics against a Neanderthal check list; traits, appearance, skills, genetics.
I for one would volunteer for that.

Are you saying that autism spectrum is more prevalent in whites and comes from the interbreeding of Neanderthal and Homosapiens? That's VERY interesting.
I "think" Autism spectrum has been around since the beginning of time too. I also think that Neanderthals were "throughout the world" but at an earlier time where their remains are hard to get too. Nowdays, Spectrum Disorder seems to be on the rise because its been labeled. There will be still more on the rise because of better communications (electronically). We nerds are getting together and procreating due to the inventions invented by our very nerds themselves. We're taking over.
We are the new people destined to survive in the world we are presently creating. If we don't take over, we'll at least be 50/50. With labels, we know who to look for as "our people". So there! Then we can label the pain-in-the-arse, yakkity-yak, neurotypicals. When a LOT of time passes we will no longer have the deficits and neuroses that the NT world imposes on us and gives to us. It's "their" world that causes us to have to go on medications and the like because it is created "by" them and "suits" them. But it will be eons before the complete takeover...if the world doesn't end. Remember, nerds have the knowledge to make Atomic bombs but it's the NT generals that want them made in order to use them. NOW! That doesn't imply that we are BETTER than NT's! Just different! The same way a cat is different than a dog. Is a dog better than a cat? Is a cat better than a dog? It's a personal preference as to who and what you are comfortable with. Life keeps on going and makes due with certain circumstances. It adapts. Just think...one can spread a lot of germs when they're hyper-social. One good reason not to sniff too many backsides...if you're a dog. Today Jersey City...tomorrow the world!!