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Joe90
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23 Sep 2021, 10:29 am

Neurotypical parents can have autistic children.


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kraftiekortie
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24 Sep 2021, 8:10 am

Yep. And autistic parents can have neurotypical children.



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24 Sep 2021, 8:21 am

Fnord wrote:
The evolutionary claim does not work: Mutations do not have a purpose; natural selection works on individuals and not whole species.  Unlike the evolutionary "leaps" cited by anthropologists, autism involves many genes, and would take even more generations to spread if it were advantageous.  Most significant is the sex issue -- it is only an evolutionary advancement if it makes you have more kids, so a literal human connection is essential.

Which people with autism, by definition, lack.


I came here to mention this :) You beat me to it.

Evolution typically results in an increase in fitness (reproductive success/proliferation, chance at survival, etc) and occurs over multiple generations as a result of environmental pressures. I'm not seeing how autistic individuals are better suited for reproducing or surviving in the current world we live in. If anything, we may be at a disadvantage.


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Fnord
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24 Sep 2021, 8:36 am

Flown wrote:
Fnord wrote:
The evolutionary claim does not work: Mutations do not have a purpose; natural selection works on individuals and not whole species.  Unlike the evolutionary "leaps" cited by anthropologists, autism involves many genes, and would take even more generations to spread if it were advantageous.  Most significant is the sex issue -- it is only an evolutionary advancement if it makes you have more kids, so a literal human connection is essential.  Which people with autism, by definition, lack.
I came here to mention this. You beat me to it. Evolution typically results in an increase in fitness (reproductive success/proliferation, chance at survival, etc) and occurs over multiple generations as a result of environmental pressures. I'm not seeing how autistic individuals are better suited for reproducing or surviving in the current world we live in. If anything, we may be at a disadvantage.
People who claim that autism represents the next advancement in human evolution either do not understand autism or they do not understand evolution -- maybe both.


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QuantumChemist
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24 Sep 2021, 9:30 am

If somehow autism is a stage of evolution as the OP claims, it would be a broken branch offshoot of the main tree. Kinda like a discolored fish born into a sea of regular fish. Predators see us (the discolored fish) before the NTs (other regular fish) can become their prey. This happens all the time with bullying in schools (and in workplaces later on). Our chances of succeeding to the next generation are not good, much lower than our NT competitors. By having the differences that we do, we are not at an advantage in life overall. Some that are higher function can learn to hide those differences by masking, but even that has a cost.



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24 Sep 2021, 10:41 am

No autism is not evolution neither is any other disability.

Natural selection favours breeding traits.

Young heterosexual women go for certain types of masculine traits, strength, self confidence and intellectual ability via communication skills and a sense of humor.

Probably the opposite of most autistic men with poor communication skills.

Unsurprisingly most autistic men below hf aspies die virgins.

Unsurprisingly most young heterosexual men however tend to be attracted to visual looks over most other traits.

Many autistic females can mask well as NT and if they look pretty men will form relationships with them.

So if there is an “autistic gene” being passed down through generations it’s probably via the female side, which is ironic since autism was originally suspected of only effecting males.


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24 Sep 2021, 11:03 am

Autism is evidence of evolution going on, but is not the goal. Ma Nature is always experimenting and seeing what helps a species. Apparently, we need a few inventors, but they are like yeast for bread - essential but never a main ingredient.

Everyone knows inventors are crazy.
Inventors know everyone is crazy.



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24 Sep 2021, 11:30 am

Maybe evolution is not so dynamic.? when you have billions of years to develop things ( nature).
Perhaps the shotgun approach is applied? You send out a bunch of different variations of a creature
and as things go, The successful ones spread and multiply , Into more variations . And so on....
as natural selection implys . Aspies that have developed talents or have a supportive environment .
Might just multiply .As gene variations go on, in human species . Imagine that NTs are suffering.
More of a lack of variation . And maybe less susceptable to growth in certain areas . Whereas Aspies are the growth areas?
. Both NT and aspies have potentials to offspring failures . But the ones that survive may bring extra skills to the evolutionary mix.Huge leaps forward in technology and awareness of nature exist occassionally on account of these . Have read of autopsies of Aspie nervous systems especially in the brains, including imaging studies ,of the density of neural fibers .
Is noted to be of a higher density in Aspie brains . this does not make a organism better than the next.

In fact the density of fibers could be a drawback and lead to overstimulation of a neural system and result random misfiring . But if the right conbinations of nerves are there and the right environmental
circumstances exist , You might get another Einstein type creature.
So which creature has better future possible outcomes? Then it is good to consider the differences in the general number of NTs versus Aspies in the population.


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24 Sep 2021, 11:48 am

Again, evolution has no "intent"; it is no more than a randomized process that affects survivability of a species.

Genetic deviations and mutations simply happen.  Those that cause harm to the individual are not likely to get passed on to the next generation.  Those that do not harm the individual are likely to get passed on.

Those deviations and mutations that actually improve the individual's chances of survival are not only more likely to get passed on to the next generation, but are likely to benefit the entire species.

Harmful: Deformities, metabolic disorders, low resistance to disease, et cetera.

Harmless: Hair color, eye color, other cosmetic differences.

Beneficial: Improvements in strength, agility, intelligence, sensory perception, et cetera.


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24 Sep 2021, 12:11 pm

It's not really as simple as that.
Some species has developed harmful attributes that somehow is seen attractive and are thus passed on.
So in theory I could see that autism could be "hip" and found attractive. However it's not the case.

/Mats


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24 Sep 2021, 2:01 pm

mohsart wrote:
It's not really as simple as that.
Some species has developed harmful attributes that somehow is seen attractive and are thus passed on.
So in theory I could see that autism could be "hip" and found attractive. However it's not the case.

/Mats


In certain conservative cultures autism in females may be seen as a virtue. Females who were shy didn’t speak up much & did as they were told were probably classed as good partners & potential mothers.

An example is the Taliban where females are expected to be subservient to men and accept a traditional role & not be expected to achieve much academically or obtain a demanding job. Such traits in men would be considered weakness and the men would simply be used and abused and find it difficult to attract a partner & have child.

It’s probably partly the case that the reason autism has gone up in females in recent years in modern cultures is more is expected of them than in the past. These days girls are expected to achieve in school be social butterfly’s or take up a demanding career, many autistic girls just can’t cope with that & they get picked up despite passing face value for NT because of good masking skills.


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24 Sep 2021, 2:25 pm

Autism seems to be mostly genetic.

Therefore it IS part of the raw material of evolution. Part of the random genetic variation in the human species that natural selection can act upon.

But if you're suggesting that the human race as a whole will evolve into a new kind of human that acts like present day autistics then...I dont see either evidence for that, nor any reason why that would happen (ie why natural selection would favor autistic traits in coming generations).



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24 Sep 2021, 2:35 pm

I had thought some time ago that autism has the attributes for some members to be predisposed towards supremacist beliefs. It seems I was correct.

There's nothing wrong with being proud of your traits and accomplishments, but going down the path of supremacist beliefs is all kinds of unhealthy for everything involved. I mention this as someone who had been very proud of his intellectual accomplishments and felt the inklings of the sentiment of being distinctly better than others. And after washing myself of that icky feeling, I realized it was all just ignorance.

Also, thank you so much @Fnord for making that separation between evolution and intent. You have no idea how sick I am of hearing people talking about science with the same sentiments as Intelligent Design and all that bogus stuff, even from people within the fields of science. It's seriously killed my enthusiasm for nature/science documentaries. It's hard to take a presenter seriously when they can't get such a basic thing right. It feels more like they're just someone reading things off a textbook, or like they're just a groupie copying the people around them, rather than someone who actually thinks about things.


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24 Sep 2021, 2:45 pm

Saying that autism is evolution is like saying one eyelash is a face.

Sure, some people can perceive deformities and disabilities as attractive -- some may even treat them as sexual fetishes.  It is ye olde "Different strokes for different folks" concept in action.

In order for a genetic change to be beneficial (1) it must confer a dominant trait; (2) the trait must provide a greater survival advantage to someone with the trait than to someone without the trait; (3) the trait must be passed along to subsequent generations.

Consider a mutation that confers the dominant trait of total immunity to coronavirii: Those born with this trait will not be affected by any coronavirus whether or not they receive a vaccine.  This person has two offspring with the trait, each of them have two more offspring with the trait, and so forth.  How many generations must pass at this rate before global herd immunity is achieved?

(Note: there are about 3,800,000,000 people alive on Earth as of 2021-09-24.)


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Last edited by Fnord on 24 Sep 2021, 2:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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24 Sep 2021, 2:51 pm

CinderashAutomaton wrote:
... thank you so much @Fnord for making that separation between evolution and intent. You have no idea how sick I am of hearing people talking about science with the same sentiments as Intelligent Design and all that bogus stuff, even from people within the fields of science.  It's seriously killed my enthusiasm for nature/science documentaries.  It's hard to take a presenter seriously when they can't get such a basic thing right.  It feels more like they're just someone reading things off a textbook, or like they're just a groupie copying the people around them, rather than someone who actually thinks about things.
"The goal of evolution is...", "Science wants...", "Research tells us..." -- ARRGHHH!  Make it stop!

Personification of inanimate processes and events strongly hints at an uncritical mind.  Even the Navy tradition of referring to ships by feminine pronouns seems idiotic to me, and I am a Navy veteran!


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24 Sep 2021, 2:55 pm

Fnord wrote:

(Note: there are about 3,800,000,000 people alive on Earth as of 2021-09-24.)


That pandemic must be worse than I thought. Wikipedia says " the world population is the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated to have reached 7,800,000,000 people as of March 2020"