Aspies, Neanderthals, and Agency

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I'm saying that the "Aspie" identity, to the extent it exists, does not include a sense of agency.

Being "Aspie", "Neanderthal", or "Neurodiverse" is not arbitrary. It either has a "positive" identification process, in that we're what we are, or a "negative" one, we are "not NT".



The Original Post, nor the Original Poster, which would be me, did not say that. I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth. Particularly those words.



If we're separating between "us" and "NT", we have an identity, a negative "not NT" identity. Every thing else is a question of what's included in our identity, and the name that we and others use for it.



There's more to an identity than just a name, it's the people and the culture as well. How many people select their friends, who they hire, who they fire, their social events, all of that by who they say or believe they are?

AgentPalpatine

You should read the book, The Devil is Dead, by RA Lafferty. He refers to the other, the primordial. It is why I used to claim to be a Neanderthal.

I wonder how some of you are associating autism with Neanderthal DNA. Autism occurs in all races, and I haven't seen any evidence that black people of Sub-Saharan African descent have lower rates of it than other races. It's unlikely to be linked to Neanderthals.

^ Yes Saxgeek, I agree.

Do your thing, don't let people tell you you're bad at math. When you get deep enough into any field you feel dumb. It's how you know you've either reached your current max (which means then you know where to grow next), or you've reached the edge of human understanding (which means then you know where to build next).


Haha! Nice one.

The 2011 article I cited used sampling methods striving to secure modern "pure" native population samples. 0% occurrence of Neanderthal DNA in modern populations of sub-Saharan Africa suggests little to no admixture, at least in terms of Neanderthal genes (which just make up a tiny part of the genome). I do think we share TONS of genes with people in Sub Saharan Africa, and I do think some of these genes are probably related to autism, but this suggests that the genes are not Neanderthal genes.

The study also showed a large gradient across other native populations of the world in terms of what frequency of Neanderthal genes occur on a population level. If Neanderthal genes were any kind of major factor in Autism, there would be a racial signal there. The fact of the matter is that there is not. All studies investigating race and autism have found that race itself (not income, not culture, but race) does not change your chances of autism.



If someone found your skeleton or contents of your desk thousands of years from now, do you think they would be able to tell if you were NT versus an aspie? I don't think I'm unreasonable in suggesting that it would be difficult, if not imposisble. We do not know first-hand what Neanderthal behavior was like, and no one has ever presented a correlation between neanderthal genes and the traits of interest in living humans. What I am citing is the only data we do have. These data resoundingly say that autism occurs in the same frequencies among people of different races, given the same medical access. Every singe "What is autism" info sheet says this. Every single population study says this. Socioeconomic or cultural factors affect diagnosis rates, but not race. You can argue this point if you want, but there are plenty of studies to show it.


This is because Autism is a "syndrome" which means it is defined by a collection of symptoms and not by a central cause. Consensus is that there are many causes of autism, and that we don't know them all.


That's actually one of the diagnostic criteria though. It's also one of the symptoms that is more often associated with some of the few autism causes that we do know about: fragile x. I mean, it's kind of interesting, right? Fragile X syndrome accounts for only 10% of ASD cases, but population studies were able to detect the correlation. I should mention that Fragile X syndrome also occurs uniformly across all races, not biased toward the modern "Neanderthal diaspora"


Do you walk more on your toes? If so, that's another common trait of ASD. I never though about if it makes us more quiet. Interesting observation!

but do you know if there's any objective indication that "adhd-like brains" were the norm at first, and that adhd today is a remnant of pre-agricultural times? i've seen the idea being thrown around, but i've never seen it being seriously discussed (and i have no idea if it has been seriously discussed in any significant way). it's something i'm curious about

The "syndrome" part is a problem if someone bases their identity on what's in the DSM-5, which appears to be a popular stance on this site. We are far more than a collection of diagnostic criteria.

It's even more problematic when we look at the perspective of how other people interact with us. Identifying ourselves, or being identified, by reference to some medical textbook isn't going to help us in achieving our individual interests. In a large socially driven world, we are not only what we are, but what people think we are. People do not rally under definitions in the DSM-5. I'd rather have a "positive" identity behind us than "checkboxes in the DSM-5".

If someone called me a neanderthal I'd probably slap 'em.

You mean you would be offended to be compared with the people who had brains larger than Homo sapiens, thrived in conditions that would kill most moderns people and created some of the most complex tools and art work of their time?

I write a blog ( http://aspergerhuman.wordpress.com ) and have applied the category "wild Humans" to Asperger people. This is in line with my hypothesis that the Asperger brain is most similar to pre-domesticated (juvenalized; neotenous) modern social humans, who have been selected for tameness, lower intelligence, social conformity, magical thinking... simply because of extreme concentrations of humans in towns and cities. Prior to agriculture / urbanization, "wild humans" were the original Homo sapiens. Visual thinkers (perception and processing) Flat world (everyone counts) versus social hierarchies (predators at the top; prey at the bottom) Individual expression; tolerant; real world (concrete) basis of thinking. Embedded in Nature, not in human social "illusions"
There is no "normal" human being. There are average and exceptional human beings and everything in between.

What to call us? For now I'm sticking to "wild types" but "new names" should include changing neurotypical to something that contrasts accurately to wild human. Modern social, urban humans...domestic humans....?

Cities were a net population sink until at least the 1800s, probably the 1900s.

Posters who get upset over the use of Neanderthal should then come up with a different term. It conveys agency, in that we are what we are, it does not rely on some medical text or some bureaucrat to tell what we are, and there is already a community.

I for one do not need a cookie from the APA.

if you don't need a cookie from the apa, then why would you need a cookie from those people?


if i decide that the word "bicycle" means a motorcycle, it still means something else, even though motorcycles have two wheels

So maybe you can provide a reference for autism being just as common in Africa as in the rest of the world? Because if you are going to do research, the first thing you need to know is to reference things you are claiming.

I am one of the few in this thread posting references, and definitely the only one posting articles that have been through a peer-review process. The fact that you didn't know that means that you don't even know how to research a forum. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you'd be unwilling to google scholar something yourself.
...but since you did such a nice job of mansplaining my job to me, I will entertain you:

It's true that autism in sub-Saharan Africa is less well studied than in higher-income regions of the world, largely because limited funds for public health have forced prioritizing studies and treatment of communicable diseases such as malaria and HIV (Abubakar et al 2016). Back in the 60s and 70s, when folks were still debating over whether Autism was a real diagnosable disorder, or whether it was a culturally-biased phenomenon, a psychiatrist looked for autism in sub-Saharan Africa, ...and he found cases (Lotter 1978). But what frequencies does autism have in these areas? It can be hard to discern when diagnostics are not available to the whole population. However, a study of immigrants from Somalia to Stockholm found, that rates of autism among these genetically sub-Saharan people were actually MORE than they were in people of European descent (Barnevik-Olsson et al 2010). It is suspected that these regions may actually be at more risk of autism, not due to fixed genetics, but due to increased incidence of low birth weight, long labor time, etc. which are all risk factors that increase the likelihood of people who may have a genetic predisposition towards autism to develop the disorder, or to develop more severe symptoms that otherwise (Lotter 1978). In summation, to say that there is less autism in sub-Saharan Africa is simply baseless. There is evidence that it is either the same rate or more frequent... yes, that's right, in a region with no Neanderthal DNA (Yotova et al 2010).

Abubakar A, Ssewanyana D, de Vries PJ, Newton CR (2016) Autism spectrum disorders in sub-Saharan Africa. Lancet Psychiatry. 3(9):800-802

Barnevik-Olsson M, Gillberg C, Fernell E (2010) Prevalence of autism in children of Somali origin living in Stockholm: brief report of an at‐risk population. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 52(12), 1167-1168.

Lotter V (1978) Childhood autism in Africa. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 19:231-244

Yotova V, Lefebvre JF, Moreau C, Gbeha E, Hovhannesyan K, Bourgeois S
, Be´darida S, Azevedo L, Amorim A, Sarkisian T,Hodonou Avogbe P, Chabi N, Hama Dicko M, Amouzou ES, Sanni A, Roberts-Thomson J, Boettcher B, Scott RJ, Labuda D (2010) An X-Linked Haplotype of Neandertal Origin Is Present Among All Non-African Populations. Molecular Biology & Evolution11: 1957-1962

Peace out, I have some real papers to write

Great.



A combination of very old references and an inaccurate reference to simulants in Stockholm that wanted to stay in Sweden. Is that all you have for your case? No prevalence studies?

Evidence that the neurodiversity phenotype is 6 times less frequent in people of African descent (among other things):

Ekblad L. (2013) Autism, Personality, and Human Diversity: Defining Neurodiversity in an iterative process using Aspie Quiz. SAGE Open 3(3): 2158244013497722.

Besides, I have no idea why you think Africans have no Neanderthal-DNA. That's been disproved. Don't have a reference handy, but I'm sure you can find the study anyway.

You could call autistics "alligators".

1) As with Neanderthals autistics dont resemble alligators.

2) As with Neanderthals autitistics arent not descended from alligators.

3)And autistics are not in any way connected to alligators (just like we are not in any way connected to Neanderthals).

4) And as with calling ourselves "neanderthals" calling our selves "alligators" is a totally fatuous, and inane, idea that serves no purpose.

So howbout "alligators"? Makes exactly the same lack of sense.

Or better yet..."gazeebos"! Its a fun word. And its just as dumb a label for us as "Neanderthal", or "alligator"! So lets all call ourselves "gazeebos".

^
You almost convinced me with the alligators, but I still like the CIA flippers better

For some reason I'm not comfortable with the gazebos though