The evolutionary advantage of shyness? NEED LOGICAL ANSWERS

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Ok this is the most logical explanation there is, good work my son. Woman tend not to like man who other woman don’t like and they tend to like man who other woman like look at pop stars and actors. In a small tribe this would be more apparent.

The other answer simply don’t explain why so many aspies would allow evolutionary death by being too shy. And if this kind of evolutionary death is more of a problem then anything that can happen by being to brave.

Yes Mordy answer does sound good. I saw the other day on some site I think digg how if you want to look better in a photo (a man) have a women in that photo smiling at you.

I think the other ingredient of that is also just realizing your naturally out of sink - that your wired differently and when people scrape a little past the surface you get some really weird and not-so-friendly reactions from em at times. That in and of itself makes the search seem almost impossibly impractical and especially when a woman will almost never let you know her well enough and whether or not you click with her well enough like that to make the kind of informed decision which you feel you'd need not to be playing a game of emotional and social Russian roulette.

But it's not an explanation of how selective forces would cause that situation to occur in the first place, is it? The men that were rejected would need to put the females at a real diasadvantage as far as raising offspring were concerned; looking at it as a purely cultural phenomenon is not satisfactory (though I'm not suggesting that's what Mordy intended, though some might infer that).

I'll explain: if the description you've given occurs, but the males that are selected against would in reality (given the chance) actually provide the females with a better chance of raising offspring to adulthood, then the females that did select them (and there'd always be some) would be producing successfully, on average, more than those who selected the more culturally acceptable, but less favourable for reproductive purposes, males. Over many generations the situation would right itself in that the genes that selected for the previously culturally unacceptable behaviour would become more prevalent. I suppose that depends on how strong the cultural phenomenon is. But if it was that strong and prevalent across the population it's likely to have a basis in some selective type way.

So, assuming Mordy's description is correct then the explanation I proposed earlier could account for it:



However, it would have been best to have perhaps used the word "reserved" rather than shy. Shy is an extreme.

As for the AS link, I'll reiterate that I don't believe most people with AS are shy in the commonly accepted sense. If you want to consider why AS occurs, yet many with the condition don't reproduce, I'd offer the explanation that there are degrees of AS, and that the diagnostic criteria just place an arbitrary cut-off point on a continuum of abilities. There are plenty of people with abilities around that cut-off point, and many with AS traits that aren't considered sufficient for a diagnosis. Many of these reproduce. In fact, you could argue my explanation above favours those with a less severe manifestation of the condition successfully reproducing when compared to more promiscuous types — they may have a harder time finding a partner, but in pre-historic times that may have confered an advantage as far as successful reproduction was concerned once a partner was found.

Btw, I'm not saying that anything I've said is fact, or that I necessarily believe it. I'm just outlining what seems to me to be a plausible argument.

I think it's also important to note that a cro magnon did not likely find a neanderthal attractive. So his odds of mating were slim, hell the FEMALE's odds of mating were slimmer then, amoung the numerically dominant breed, as they didn't even look like the same animals. But over time a few have beaten the odds, and it was much like a snowball rolling down a hill through genetics. People will generally fear what they don't understand, this is what might likely complicate the proccess of evolution.
I will not say one way or the other, as it isn't scientifically prooven yet, but I do believe there is a possibility that autism might be the beginning of the next phase in human evolution... I often tend to jump from saying yes to no on that one, but I've platued at it remaining a possibility that needs to be further studied.

I think we'd need to see AS actually stabilize into something that didn't get worse and where if anything the functional deficits tended to work themselves out - then we could have faith that its forward evolutionary movement. Other than that it's kind of a hard sell.

Yeah but alot of the problems that keep getting worse, only tend to get worse due to being made to feel inferior by society. Without being stuck in a NT dominated world many of these things may not arise within the individual aspie.

I have my doubts, when I really think of how much grit and neurological integrity it takes to make good police officers, soldiers, prison guards, firefighters, ambulance drivers, judges, managers, FBI/CIA agents, and other jobs or things that take a high degree of grit or multitasking I look at aspies in general and really have to wonder if we'd have what it takes. I think the sheer fact that NTs are as hard on themselves and each other as they are and that they're willing to do a lot more than a lot of us are kinda tells me that they're better built to handle the human environment and everything it takes to keep things running whether its governance, supply, supply chain, or aid. Its the fact that the way the human nervous system works and to actually be a good fit in this society you've gotta be either very neurologically healthy or you've gotta hammer the hell out of yourself to break out of your flaws, not just for dealing with people but I mean handling the tasks with professional precision.

It's a question that bothers me too, I wonder whether people like me would be able to set up a world, I doubt I would have made it without the help of NT's. When a young girl I was like a bird for a cat, yet very intelligent but utterly fragile and stuck in obsessional circle-thoughts.

It's true that if I look back maybe there was some tendence of certain people to try to dominate me a bit too obstinate (like stupid people who'd get mad of my endless analytical communication and my sensitivity and non-functioning in an extreme emotional environment), which made me unlucky to grow up in a difficult athmosphere. This can also be the reason for not focusing on important aspects of life in order to become an independant adult of course.
And now I'm doing much better, I've learned so many tricks, not even shy anymore...
Must admit there are a lot of qualities, but it's tough with so many NT's all around,
wonder if it would make a difference with more aspies grouped together, would it be a good functioning group ? Possible ...


Maybe shyness is also necessary to take your time to observe, suppose you would follow your fysical biological feelings (like our body is in fact constructed to reproduce itself and it will make you feel this on an energetical level rather spontaniously) without restrict everytime you saw a nice woman, I don't think this would increase your luck with women.

I also don't think life itself cares for the fact of reproduction, it's more like : life sends some signs, if it works, ok, if it doesn't , life will send more and new signs, but what with the new life, some will survive and some won't. I don't think there is a biological factor that goes beyond the fact that the offspring is cude enough to probably find someone to be fed and kept warm. So the quality of life and of being together is not inherent on life itself. If you are shy, it's maybe also because you want this quality and you suppose someone (or life) will provide this, you feel nervous because there is a lot at stake (happiness and all), unlike with other situations like unpolite passing people.
And because you are aware of the fact that if you do something wrong it may have consequences (although this is also a bit untrue, you can very often easily come back to your own actions and correct what you've done wrong, the older you get the more natural that is.)