The Neanderthal theory of Autism

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They didn't?

Because I can find reference to a number of studies that suggest that they used more or less the exact same hunting strategies as Homo sapiens.

For example:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060118210756.htm


http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200903/1238432709.html

I cannot see why the new study says anything that is contrary to Geist's publication in the 70s. They are talking about which species they targeted (only furry species are mentioned) and their healthiness. The articles say absolutely nothing about how they hunted. In essence, nothing new. The only new thing might be that they cannot see poorer performance of Hn compared to Hs, but this is already a given. There is no reason to believe Hs outcompeted Hn by competence. That would only be silly.

A hybrid would be unfit in either contributing parent's environment, even if technically reproductively viable. It is highly unlikely that such a creature would reach adulthood and attract a mate.


I was precocious in picking up these allegedly alien rules.


No. DNA mutations do not happen because they are "needed", they happen by chance.


This of course is a really silly argument on rdos's part. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose that such a need was singular to Neanderthals. Why would we expect this shared need to necessarily result in divergent solutions?

It does not make sense if the children are one's own off-spring.

This is somewhat unlikely given that we have uncovered physical evidence of life-forms from before there were reptiles, much less mammals.


And no doubt, we should ignore Geist here too, since his claim (based as it is on analysis of anatomical structure rather than on the fact that some idea might be supported if a certain conclusion is posited) does not support your idea and Geist apparently is not an expert in this area......although this should assuredly not prevent us from believing any stray claim he might make that does appear to support your idea?

You must have accidentally over-looked Giest's article in which he asserts how he (Geist) believes Neanderthals probably hunted. Of course your easy acceptance of the two species having the same hunting methods only results in yet more problems for your idea, since divergent hunting methods is heavily relied on in your essay extolling your idea.

So which is it? Different hunting styles as suggested by Geist (hunting methods that would not benefit from motor-clumsiness in the least), or the same methods (which also would not benefit from motor-clumsiness), thereby undermining your arguments based on hunting differences? Let me guess, both and neither depending on which would in a particular context support your idea rather than undermine it?


No one has suggested that Hs outcompeted Hn by competence, just that the survival of Hs in face of Hn's demise is not good evidence to suggest that Hn was necessarily better at anything, along with a query asking what evidence there is that Hn was superior in this respect (balancing their environmental resources). I note that although you have made a positive assertion of this, when challenged to do so, you have failed to back your claim up and instead are relying on knocking down a strawman. I guess that answers my question as to whether there is any basis to your claim beyond your enthusiasm for your idea.

I do not know what you mean by competence in this context, but the only "competence" that matters to evolution is adaptivity, and the evidence for who was most adaptive is pretty clear. One species survived, one is extinct, it should not be difficult to draw your own conclusion from there.

You can blame vanity diagnosis seekers for that. Parents want the diagnosis because they believe it will make their child percieved as smarter by others. Their child is gifted he or she therefore must be AS.

If one doctor refuses to diagnos they will just keep going until they find one who will and without a doubt they will find one eventually, much like you can always find a doctor who will supply you with oxycodone.

IMO it should be harder to diagnos such developmental disorders in the US. The effects are severe and can limit and there are plenty of kids out there who suffer tremendously from these effects, just as many as there are gifted who do not fit the first part of the DSM-IV criteria and get diagnosed anyway.

What we need is a good dose of ethics.

We need to focus on those who are really suffering and need help so they can make the most of their lives, not confuse people with the influx of AS cases who were diagnosed not because they actually fit the criteria, but because the parents were persistent and sought until they found and bought what they were after. My fear is this will hinder kids who really need services from getting them by confusing people about what AS actually does.

So are you saying that neanderthals hunted bison, rhinoceros, bears, etc. WITHOUT the use of "group hunting" techniques?

If anyone could provide evidence for that I'd have my position solidified in a second as to why they probably went extinct

[quote="pandd"]
A hybrid would be unfit in either contributing parent's environment, even if technically reproductively viable. It is highly unlikely that such a creature would reach adulthood and attract a mate.
[quote]

Why so ? It is not necessarily the case in Macaws or some horse-related species. Is it an unfitness problem, or more likely a defect on the part of the pure ones similar to the monkey lesioned amygdala studies ?

Yes, basically. Ever heard of traps and ambush?

It takes a lot more whits to create traps and plan ambush than running around scaring animals to deaf as Hs did. That's why Hn were much smarter than Hs.

I know you will now wonder why Hn went "extinct" while Hs didn't? The answer is that evolution doesn't create more smartness than is needed. With large social networks, articificial clothing and primitive hunting methods, and no sense for the overhunting and the fragile ecosystem, Hs was able to distrurb Hn's environment to an extent that Hn couldn't survive as a true species.

Perfect! Discount all scientific evidence to date that contradicts your hypothesis on the grounds of it being incomplete and inaccurate, then make a claim that, in order to demonstrate validity of your hypothesis through science, it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do so. That's how modern science should be done.

Obviously I'm not going to convince you to the contrary, since you have so deluded yourself to the verity of your theory. All I can do is point out how, over the successive number of posts you have made on this thread, how ridiculous your position actually is when held up to the light of both science and Occam's Razor.

First, you don't understand "motor clumsiness". Aspie-quiz clearly have demonstrated that the key trait in "motor clumsiness" is poor abilitiy to judge speed, distance and acceleration and to predict motion. These traits are needed for successful distance hunting (for instance in shouting arrows, throwing spears and handling balls). They have no utility for close-combat hunting that Hn were involved in.

Second, Geist is an animal behavior expert, not an expert on human evolution or genetic models. Therefore, what he thinks about human evolution is not very interesting.

It is a fact that DRD4 7R is a CNV, and also that it is related to "novelity seeking". I was just pointing out that much of the genetic research is geared towards finding mutations, translocations, insertions and deletions and not CNVs. It is also a fact that the search for the "autistic gene" has more or less failed. Just as it is a fact that assessing CNVs in the Neanderthal genome will be hard to do.

You could always try to disprove the above facts instead of babbling about science or Occam's Razor.

I think you're going to have to clarify your definition of "group hunting" for me. Because no matter how sneaky you are, "ambushing" a rhinoceros with less than a medium-sized group of neanderthals is a recipe for failure and multiple fatalities.

I consider "group hunting" to be hunting, with a group of individuals, as opposed to one or two. Whether they choose to set wild traps, do guerrilla ambushes, or frighten them to death is their business and has no bearing on my personal definition, which is based on numbers alone.

And for the record, I did a couple quick searches just to be sure I wasn't missing something, in case there is some widely-accepted definition of "group hunting" that goes beyond my own, and I could find no such thing.

Because there were morphological differences and they existed for reasons effecting fitness within the context of each species' particular life-way; a hybrid that diluted and failed to adhere to both parental morphologies would simply be relatively disadvantaged in the context of either life-way.

If this barrier was surmounted so that the individual survived until reproductive maturity, and even if it were biologically reproductively compatible with the accessible reproductive members of the opposing sex, then there would very probably be issues related to mate-selection.


I live with this issue day-in and day-out and have done so for the entirety of my life, so I think that in fact I understand it very well indeed.
It hardly matters what the "key traits" are described as being in some categorical schemata. As someone who lives with the effects, they present challenges in both gross and fine motor co-ordination. Everything from moving around the environment without bumping into things or tripping over my own feet, through to hand-writing and fine craft-work and whatever lies in between is effected.
This is of course absolutely preposterous. Ask boxers if they need an ability to judge the speed and momentum of moving objects.
How on earth you conclude that the abilities to judge the speed, momentum and direction of a thrashing and rather large and dangerous beast when you are at close quarters to it and trying to kill it without being killed, have no utility is beyond me. It's ridiculous beyond words.

The irony of such a statement. Of course what would be the results of applying such an obvious ad hominem evaluation criteria to your idea? I strongly suspect if we evaluate your idea according to the same criteria, it would necessarily be judged less interesting than anything Geist has to say about related issues. His lack of "expertise" in human evolution evidently did not prevent him publishing a successful book called "Life Strategies, Human Evolution, Environmental Design"...

Of course it is a moot point either way, since Geist's work was not being discussed for anything to with genetic models, but rather in regards to ecological issues, including hunting models and the subsistence patterns/life-ways of animals, and you ought to realize this since you introduced his name/work into the discussion in the first place.

The same neural networks involved in face recognition are thought to be involved in the recognition of other types of objects, such as cars or birds. This would seem to suggest autistics would be inferior at recognizing other types of objects in addition to human faces, such as Neanderthal faces.

Human and Neanderthal faces are more similar than different, so I would propose that autistics have a general impairment in facial recognition, which would cause them to be inferior at recognizing Neanderthal faces.

It's worth finding out.

A problem I have with this theory is that it seems to use autistic traits which the author theorizes to be due to Neanderthal admixture to calculate an Hn axis, which is used to calculate Hn-loading in Aspies. Well, of course Aspies are going to have more autistic traits.

There are many already that are filling that role. As this debate continues, your position is only looking more far fetched.

So, what exactly are you hoping to achieve by putting forth this "hybrid species" theory? That the reason that so-called Aspies and NTs can't get along is because they're different species?

Seems like this is going in circles again.

Perhaps people could do this:
1. Explain how various disabilities (dyspraxia, prosopagnosia, communication) could be retained by evolution
2. Explain why said traits could also be related to personality traits
3. Provide an evolutionary model of autism.

It is easy to criticize others, but far harder to provide anything substantial yourself. Lets see the published theories that can explain the WHOLE autism spectrum.

Not necesarily, as a general impairment has no evolutionary function at all, and therefore couldn't exist at high prevalence.



That's not the way it was done. The Hn / Hs axis appears already in the first version, which only contained collected traits from other tests, mostly. And these axises exists in every version, regardless of question composition, and even survives the test being mixed up with 120 questions from the Big Five personality test.