Why do people think everyone is autistic to some degree?

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I've gotten this a few times from people as an excuse for dismissing my diagnosis. They usually say, "why do you think you're autistic?" Then, when I give them symptoms, they argue against them. "Lots of people hate talking to strangers" or "Blinking lights bother me, too, and I'm not autistic."
I think part of it is denial, part of it is misunderstanding and miseducation, and part is the fact that some of the ways that ASD can present can be observed in NTs to lower and less obstructive degrees.

Asides from the volume being 3 times as loud as it should be, I'm lucky cinemas don't seem to affect me.

The worst for me are busy places. In cinemas at least everyone is being quiet. But restaurants or trains are the worst for me. I'd imagine concerts and sports games would top that but thankfully I have not had to endure that.

I don't know why, but people talking and laughing is the worst. I don't seem as bothered by, say, air conditioning at the same volume.

This common and increasingly fashionable error is due to the fact that society is now more aware of autism, but still actually knows very little about the condition and how it presents. Which is not surprising, since the autism spectrum is extremely complex to say the least; many psychologists are baffled by it. As it stands, there appear to be three main categories:

1. People who are clinically diagnosed with ASD (including what was previously classed as Asperger's syndrome/HFA).
2. Those who have a defined number of less severe traits associated with ASD, and who are classified as subclinical and thus on the Broader Autism Spectrum. As its name suggests, this is fairly broad and difficult to assess.
3. Neurotypicals. This includes the vast majority of the population, who show no signs of autism.

Given the nebulous character of autism, I think the current BAP category is an accurate way of classifying people who are part of the wider autism family. This is why psychologists sometimes refer to them as 'cousins'.

Personally I like the idea of autism being a family.

Personally, I think the phrase is technically accurate. My personal view of the spectrum is that we're essentially the outliers on the full range of normal human neurological diversity (more detailed explanation here). This seems to account for borderline cases such as the Broad Autism Phenotype and "Autistic Cousins" better than the more binary view some people seem to see the Autism/NT divide. That being said, that is just conjecture. I'm not aware of any scientific studies that indicate that one view is more accurate than the other.

Also, I think the way people tend to use the phrase "everyone is a little autistic" is typically dismissive and/or insulting. Usually it's said by someone who identifies as NT to someone who identifies as autistic, and is said in a way to suggest that their experience is similar to the autistic person's, often at a time when the autistic person is specifically trying to get them to understand how different their experiences really are. In the context that it's used it, it tends to betray a lack of understanding of what autism really is.

Well there is a bit of truth to that - Asperger's is milder than a lot of people with Autistic Disorder. Asperger's is only high functioning but autism goes from high functioning to low.

I don't really know but I don't believe 'autism' is really something that exists. What is autism? Having some certain traits? If that's it then everyone has many common traits with other humans, nothing is really specified