Is the L&D section representative of natural selection?

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Everytime I go into the Love and Dating section, it seems to be comprised of about 95% ASD guys talking about how women are shallow and irrational and uninteresting and mean and blah blah blah, only to turn directly around and *complain* about how they can't get or keep one in their lives.

Ok, fine. Makes no sense to me that someone would *want* so desperately for something that they portray as such an anathema, but I'm also not so naive as to be ignorant of the VERY HIGH LIKELIHOOD that all the trash talk is "sour grapes" and hyperbole.

Whatever...it doesn't matter anyway.

What I wonder is whether anyone has ever taken into consideration the nature of this forum's membership as it relates to relationship problems and pushed that on out to how relationships generally relate to the continuation of a species?

What I mean is...we ASD guys are "different" from the norm, and different doesn't always do well at passing along its genetic code "in the wild," so to speak. I piebald whitetail deer, for example, is a truly beautiful and unique creature...but it doesn't blend in very well and certainly stands a higher chance of being removed from the gene pool by a predator.

We all know how that works, right?

So having said that, I can't help but wonder if the seemingly continual, widespread rejection of ASD guys by NT women is really just a reflection of an evolutionary attempt to remove/limit/refine ASD contributions to the gene pool?

Yes.

Unfortunately (for the future generations, not for the present's ladies), the female aspies are successfully passing on the genes.

PS: that in case AS is truly genetic.

If we're talking about ASD and evolution, I would think it's more along the lines of Reproductive Isolation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_isolation

Basically, this is what prevents members of one species from seeking mates in another species. And given how as/as relationships can function a bit more clearly than as/nt ones (not perfect, mind you, but much easier to work through as long as both parties are willing to do the work, much like an nt/nt relationship), it may represent that the autistic spectrum represents an evolutionary divergence from the human species that is unfolding before our very eyes. In this case, it's evolutionary adaptation to fill the niche roles in human society that are created by the need for highly specialized workers. Granted, there's still a lot of evolutionary kinks to be worked out (low-functioning autism would be a prime example of this), but over time, the environmental demand for specialists will produce a more specialized subspecies of humans. Right now, it's still a rough draft, and AS by no means represents the final filling of these niche roles. But it's a start. Maybe over time, these future aspies will evolve to fill that niche. Or maybe we'll be selected out of the system as per the OP's argument and a new subspecies will evolve independently down the line. But as long as our "natural" habitat has that demand, evolution will see to that demand being filled.

Unfortunately? One way of looking at it...

Luckily(?) the universe goes on whether we procreate or not.

Plenty of the AS guys I know are married. My husband is spectrum while I'm AS, my best friend (male) is AS and is married to a NT woman, both my sons are spectrum, and I know about at least four other guys who are spectrum who are married (some to NT women, some to AS/spectrum women).

Yes there are plenty of AS/Spectrum guys who don't get married, but the truth is that the more functional ones usually can manage. The disproportionate number of people bitching on the forums isn't indicative of the entire populous because AS/Spectrum guys who are in relationships/married aren't bitching about it on forums here.

I work with 7 women of varying degrees of normalness and when they forget that I'm a guy at the lunchroom table and they let fly I can assure you that the trash talk that men say about women isn't particulary different from the trashtalk that women say about men. Don't confuse trashtalk with serious opinions.

I realize that people with bad experiences tend to be louder than those with good experiences, and I realize this board is sorta THE place for spectrum guys to vent their frustration with love and relationships, so I didn't mean to imply that relationships are totally out of the question for spectrum people.

That's actually why I phrased it as "remove/limit/refine" instead of just "remove."

But with that in mind, think about what you just said..."the more functional ones"...at the end of the day, isn't function what natural selection's all about?

Yep, pretty much. I wasn't trying to refute your argument regarding the natural selection process, just mentioning that there are a good number of AS/Spectrum folks who have happily found a niche in society and who do reproduce.

Along the lines of evolutionary thought, many think that the ability to move outside the expected social contexts and advance things through an intense focus on one topic instead of the generalized Bachelor of Arts type experiential levels is the next step in an evolutionary process. I would disagree that it works overall simply because people who are good at many things have the advantage of surviving more adeptly in changing environments, but there is also always a place for those who have the passion and skills for intricate tasks that the masses simply cannot comprehend and/or tolerate.

I agree, totally.. That's why I noted that the badmouthing is almost certainly the result of a case of someone's sour grapes or good ol' fashioned hyperbole. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of guys who get on here and talk about how horrible women are and how they can't stand women, etc., ad naseum, wouldn't change their tune the moment they entered into a halfway-decent relationship with a woman.

Duly noted.



I can't say that I agree with either of those being the next step in evolution, because evolution requires a change in the environment....the habitat, if you will. It's interesting to think we could intentionally forward evolution by purposefully working toward it, but I don't think you can intentionally manipulate evolution and still call it evolution. What you call it then is eugenics, or selective breeding.

I mean, I can certainly see where the "jack of all trades" trait would be handy in a post-apocalyptic scenario, for instance, and I can see selective breeding programs creating people with superhuman abilities....but at the same time, neither being able to focus intensely on one topic nor being able to "skin a buck and run a trotline" are going to help much if humankind's faced with a supergerm that kills everyone except the __% of people who were -- for whatever reason -- born with a genetic mutation that afforded them immunity.

That's evolution.

Of course, if some type of habitat change occurs where non-ASD people begin surviving in lower numbers and spectrum people thrive, spectrum people would obviously be the next evolution of humankind.....but I can't see that it's happening right now.

It does make one wonder, though, if spectrum people could be analogous to the minority of Darwin's finches whose beaks were unnecessarily long before the food source changed?

The question is does the change of environment make the quirk within a species or do the quirky simply seek out other niches due to population increases, perhaps some of both? When a population starts reaching towards a critical mass, those who are quirky have an advantage of having the option of stepping outside the expected and surviving elsewhere.

For humans, this might mean that "functional" ASD folks with applicable special interests do better in a post-apocalyptic scenario because they know enough about one topic to be able to do something like engineer electricity out of available resources and don't have as much of an issue being isolated as NTs that might go bonkers without consistent human interaction. That being said, they would likely still need to have some kind of assistance (NT or ASD) since nobody is an expert at everything.

I agree with the person saying that men and women trash talk the opposite sex to each other.

The difference is, the men here trash talk women to both men and women here. It's not usually normal to do that because of the fights it will and does cause.

I don't "trash talk" like some of the statements i've seen in here by piggish AS men, but I have been noted to gossip with my mother or other women ranting about how men can't cope with women crying, and other crap which is common in married couples or relationships with the male gender.

I think it depends on the nature of the change in the environment and how that change affects breeding rates. If the change is small and has a slightly negative impact on the breeding rates of group A, and a slightly positive impact on the breeding rates of group B, there will be a slight divergence in favor of group B. One might consider that to be the quirk "finding a niche," so to speak, but it's not really a matter of anything finding anything...it's just the random instantiation of a new competitive advantage.

I also don't think it's necessarily dependent on population increases, per se. A population increase certainly could be an environmental change that generates a divergence, though.



Perhaps, though I have a funny feeling the "assistance" thing would go the other way. My gut tells me that a scenario in which ASDs would become highly valuable, they'd probably just be exploited by NTs...which is often the case today.

That's the gist of what I was trying to get at. Thanks for making a tl;dr version...

Genetic changes are happening all the time, it is changes in the environment that determines if a new trait or behavior is advantageous towards positive selection. Spectrum guys would be better off by changing the environment to their advantage or moving to an environment where being on the spectrum is desirable. We live in a land where being liked is more important than being smart and independent. My advice is to start up a band. You can be weird and erratic and still be cool to women

I'm not trying to be argumentative at all. But every time the subject of autism comes up in the context of evolution, I hear so much quacking hubris with nothing backing it up. Its akin to hearing conversations about new age beliefs and the coming "grand awakening" of 2012 when all the crystal children will lead mankind into a new golden age of enlightenment. All stuff and nonsense. So please consider this a friendly reality check.

I think in this case you are "not seeing the forest for the trees." I'd like to point out that Human "habitat" has been (purposefully) altered more in the past 100 years than it was in the thousands of years previous. Whether you call it "progress" or "wanton decimation" is subjective, but the results will be the same nevertheless.

Whether the effects of those alterations in the environment are considered "evolution" or considered "eugenics" is moot, simply because the effects cannot be predicted. When the consequences become clear, WE here today will not be around to appreciate or regret it.

The Human condition is well-intentioned cause stupidly leading us (ALL of us, AS and NT alike) blindly down the road of consequence. We do not know what road we are on, and *nobody is bothering to navigate*. The only hope the Human race has of improving itself before its own inevitable extinction, lie in education and discipline. Learning to become something, teaching others to become something, as opposed to simply sitting back and being made to become anything. All individuals can take part in shaping the end result, and no one individual begins life with a greater capacity to affect change than any other individual. Each have different gifts... Who here hasn't been at some point praised for an ability that came along with your autism? And who here hasn't at some point wished that you could do something *paralyzingly difficult* that NT's do seemingly effortlessly?

Also, if a supergerm was to wipe out all but a small portion of arbitrarily immune humans, the ability to skin deer and run trotlines will be exactly what sets survivors apart from victims. Because, my dears, nobody will be left alive to sell you boxes of Lucky Charms. And the ability to focus intently for long periods of time, and being highly sensitive to your surroundings, is *exactly* what makes a good deer hunter.

edit to add: P.S. I have AS and have never had a problem getting willing reproductive partners. If I wanted, I could have an entire brood of my own little spectrumites by now. But I don't, because the only motivation I have to reproduce is a sort of vindictive urge to replicate myself and curse further generations to suffer me.

Also I hate kids.