Truth, reality, and facts.

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Reality is, that even if we understand the cause of autistic spectrum conditions, NT's aren't any more likely to make accommodations for us to integrate with their society. It would be incredibly naive to assume they would.

Fact is, integration into NT culture seems to be a desire and driving force for many aspies. From what I can tell we emulate denial, which I surmise is mostly an NT evolutionary trait to not question leadership of the herd, in order to convince ourselves we can be "normal". Which is a shame because given the right conditions we can find success in our own way.

Truth is, we should be working toward better ways to cultivate our inborn abilities and not expect NT's to do it for us nor should we suppress our nature in order to appease them.

Of course, this is easier said than done. However, if spectrum conditions are a result of microevolution and we are a genotype of human, friction from NT interaction is part of the process. Just because a mutation yields a trait that becomes useful is no guarantee a genotype will flourish. The new genotype must overcome the challenges of displacing the dominant one. Keep in mind though, evolution isn't by design or purpose. It's like trying to shoot a grain of sand with a shotgun. You're gonna waste a lot of shells but if you keep shooting then eventually a shot pellet, by random chance and sheer stubborn determination, should hit that grain. Analogically, the grain being the goal of preventing NT's from destroying themselves, us, and the world, and the shot being those of us on the spectrum. Eventually, someone is going to hit that "grain". Why? Because evolutionary principal dictates a species doesn't aspire to kill itself the way NT's are doing. Thus, we evolved from them and are naturally at odds socially to persevere and overcome as the dominant genotype. We just may be the first organism on the planet to experience it subjectively.

Please be mindful this is all still theory, for now.

We are not a new species since we would still be able to mate with other humans. Species means that individuals can mate and reproduce with each other, like dogs breed dogs, cats breed cats, humans breed humans.

At first glance, we are a deviation from the norm. But then, one can't deny that we are in many ways more suited to today's living conditions, particularly in terms of specialization and information processing. Since evolution means survival of the most adaptable and therefore a continuous adaption to a constantly changing environment.

Many, if not most traits typical for NTs and their society are no longer useful but have turned into a blatant hazard, for instance their thoughtless propagation. If one looks at a slum in India, they can't help but realize that even ordinary rats have higher standards than those bipeds.

As for the desire of many aspies to integrate into the prevailing social order, i think this is largely a result of the media brainwashing.

Correction again, I'm thinking genotype would be the correct term? Not well researched in genetics, sorry.

a genotype is the genome of a certain individual, a phenotype is the characteristics of that individual ie the genes being actually expressed. the genotype does not neccessarily match the phenotype (in a very simplified and therefor slightly inaccurate but illustrative example: you can have a gene for green eyecolor although you happen to have black eyes, but as a result your kid might possibly be greeneyed). although the genotype is subjected to both natural and sexual selection as well, only the phenotype is relevant for it. therefor variation within a species irregardless of whether its homo sapiens or drosophila melanogaster does not neccessarily imply an evolutionary benefit of every trait there is, if that were the case homosexuality wouldnt exist. variation within a species however increases the overall fitness of the species itself and deviations of the "norm" (which is only the average really) have been around for aeons.

so much for the biological part. im not getting what you're getting at though. personality is not a genotype and dividing mankind into "aspies" and "neurotypicals" seems as pointless to me as diving it into "blackeyed people" and "greeneyed people". blaming the fraction of mankind that is "neurotypical" for the destruction of our environment doubly so (ironically, if there never were people being interested in nothing but science and technology we would probably still hang out in trees, no, pardon, the savannah). and as far as i know every organism on the planet that is able to experience anything experiences it subjectively. maybe i just did not understand what you meant, but neither do i wish to be like anyone else nor do i wish anyone else should be like me. "neurotypical" is not "a dominant genotype" and the idea that it needs to be "overcome" would have a remarkable similarity to eugenics.

i hope mankind evolves in a way that increases the percentage of humans to whom evolutionary strategies have become irrelevant.

i disapprove of the cast system, but i think poverty and grave injustice are not at all specific to indian culture. in addition to that, a similar grading becomes obvious in terms such as "third world country".

I have published evolutionary genetic research in peer reviewed journals and have read the current research on autism genetics along with being autistic myself.

Scientists really do not yet know enough about autism genetics to understand its mode of heritability. One very big question that remains unanswered is what, if any, environmental factors are a cause. We constantly see research that suggests conditions in the womb are at least partially responsible for autism. (This is used to justify ideas and opinions that autism is a mistake and a disorder.) I do not find this research compelling,

Leaving environmental causes aside. the research suggests to me there is more than one genetic cause for autistic behaviors. One of the heritability modes for autism is as a single nucleotide substitution. Think of these as simple point mutations occurring once every one hundred thousand DNA replications. I tend to believe these point mutations explain only a small number of autistics. This is the way many lab rat populations are produced to show autistic-like behaviors.

Another possibility is that "autistic" genes are "linked" to other genes that confer evolutionary success; high intelligence could be an example of such a trait. Being linked in genetic terms means two genes are so close to each other on a chromosome that if you inherit one of the genes there is an extremely high probability of inheriting the "linked" gene too.

Also genes that produce autism could have beneficial effects in addition to deleterious effects. The autism genes might have physiological effects that cause some of the undesirable autism traits as well as traits that confer high evolutionary fitness on the individual whose genome has the autistic genes. A genetic example of this kind of action would be the gene for sickle cell anemia which when present as a heterozygote confers resistance to malaria but in the homozygous condition results in sickle cell anemia.

I believe one of the more reasonable explanations for autistic phenotypes is if autism is a polygenic trait much like tallness. A polygenic explanation is consistent with autism being a spectrum: the more "autistic" genes you inherit the further along the spectrum you fall. Science has identified some of these genes but there is a long way to go.

It is also possible, and in my mind highly probable, that there is a genetic regulatory cause for autism. This means there is some genetic control mechanism that coordinates the action of a group of genes that activate during development of the fetus ultimately producing an autistic phenotype. Moreover there is likely some evolutionary advantage to autism. We seem to be about 1% of the population. This is pretty high for a genetic condition with no evolutionary advantage. If autism is genetic and is a disorder causing profound disabilities it should be selected against by evolution. But this has not happened! Autism genes are present and persist in the human population in high numbers. We autistics are passing our genes onto a large number of human progeny. (Anecdotaly, I have an autistic son.) This is curious since many of us are not very reproductively successful. For a population of "misfits with profound disabilities" we are doing an excellent job of making sure our autistic DNA continues to be expressed in the human gene pool.

I prefer to think there is some "super" advantage our autistic genes possess that make us highly successful at propagating our DNA. I like to think there exists yet unidentified highly desirable genetic autistic stuff that will someday be identified and justify our contention that we are just as valuable as the NT, just different neurologically.

The problem is, as far as ASDs go, it seems its not JUST genetics. Its also enviromental exposures, etc. Autism is actually the way we adjust to our neural/genetic differences & defecits. Its not the disorder in itself, its the behaviors/traits that result from the disorder.
And despite some being quite intelligent/intellectual, all too often our defecits result in limitations on our progress, so most of us to NOT live up to our actual potential.
I am sure I am not making any friends in the "Aspie Pride" group, but its best to remain grounded & realize my challenges. So I can over come them, that is..

Sincerely,
Matthew

@Pompei

i read your post with great interest and found it to be very informative. thank you very much for sharing. a polygenic hypothesis would make sense to me and im not surprised autistic traits dont seem to be a disadvantage in evolutionary terms because i never really perceived them as a disability. sensory issues can cause severe problems in daily life and autistics surely face many obstacles in social interaction, but there are definately also associated traits and neurological strategies of information processing that often make up for those difficulties.


@vanhalenkurtz (and OlivG)

i did not write the statement you quoted, as i understand OlivG is the author of it. apart from the nonexistence of a "middle ground" (i believe autism is a spectrum with a varied severity of varied symptoms and quite a large grayscale towards the socalled norm) i agree with it though.