Where Did Our Genes Originate?

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Where does Aspie DNA come from? Was there a tribe somewhere in history that benefited from this trait and so accumulated enough of these genes together to pass on in the future when descendants spread out? Any evidence?

Your question implies there IS such a thing as "Aspie DNA", when in reality many disorders that can be observed as heritable have no genetic link. A few genotypal markers (I believe) have been found to be associated with Autism, but no clear genetic "cause" so to speak.

Also, you confuse any genes present within the population as being advantageous per se,
with the reality - every single one of them just hasn't yet been disadvantageous enough to lead to such significant problems in survival, mating, and childrearing that individuals with them die out.

Successful mutations just appear by chance out of nowhere. Or an alien bred successfully with an early humanoid

Mutations appear all the time, in all species. Just look at the history of breeding such as cats, dogs, pigs, sheep etc etc

Most mutations like 7 legs, have no value to the creature, and they are unable to breed and reproduce, the mutation is then not passed on due to a lack of applicability within the creatures environment

Early aspies gifted with reason, were shaman, blacksmiths, village designers, weapon designers/makers, healers and elders.

Logic and rationality have strong evolutionary value, even more so as we evolve further in time.

We got to hang out in the village with the ladies while the NT men went to war and hunted beasts.

Some cultures resented us (a bit like now) and ethnic cleansing happened. Just like with most other minority groups like gays and others who were different from the mean, the average, the orthodoxy.

A (bit fantastical, but nevertheless interesting) non-mainstream viewpoint on the subject:

"For all we know, the first tools on earth might have been developed by a loner sitting at the back of the cave, chipping at thousands of rocks to find the one that made the sharpest spear, while the neurotypicals chattered away in the firelight. Perhaps certain arcane systems of logic, mathematics, music, and stories - particularly remote and fantastic ones - have been passed down from phenotype to phenotype, in parallel with the DNA that helped shape minds which would know exactly what to do with these strange and elegant creations."

The Geek Syndrome

I don't believe in any of this BS.

I am a human being diagnosed a long time ago with an ASD, which mean I have a few difficulties and anxieties with a few things in daily life - where the f**k does that make me alien?

And why is it always AUTISM what is always being singled out, making me feel like we're not humans? Why not Soto's Syndrome, or Dyspraxia, or Down's Syndrome, or Fragile-X Syndrome, or Mental Retardation? Why is it always Autism, when Autism is just another brain condition?

I think some Aspies here just so desperately want to invent these things up here so that it can look like we're born different, when we're not. We're all people, we're not better or worse than NTs, and Autism does not change the way we were made.

No one called Autistic people "aliens".

Autism is being "singled out" because THIS IS A FORUM FOR AUTISTIC PEOPLE AND THEIR LOVED ONES AND FAMILIES.

I'm sorry to break this to you, but whether Autism is genetic or not, the scientific consensus is that WE ARE "born different".

No one said "we're better or worse than NT's".

No one said we were conceived through a means other than sexual reproduction.

This thread is about possible evolutionary explanations for Autism's origins.

Get it together.
Lay off the substance if that's the problem.

Last edited by ValentineWiggin on 19 Sep 2011, 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

So people with Down's Syndrome are NTs and are not different?

What.

On.


Earth.

Are you talking about?

Last edited by ValentineWiggin on 19 Sep 2011, 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ah, but that's exactly what it does do - change the way we're made. AS changes the way you think, which makes you extremely different from the neurotypical people around you.

You are viewing the world through a different lens than almost all of the people you will ever meet. Therefore, every experience you ever have, from the moment you're born until the day you pass off this planet, is processed through your brain differently than those same experiences are processed by others. You can't help but be radically different and if you think that people around you can't tell that you're different and aren't noticing that you're different all the time, you're living in denial.

You may speak the same language and share the same culture, but you do not behave like they do, even when you think you're acting just like one of them. You do not react to conversation the same way they do; when faced with problems, you do not come to the same conclusions that they do; your opinions frequently cause them to roll their eyes at each other when you aren't looking. You will, through the course of your life, often find yourself 'walled out' socially, when trying to forge a bond, or vie for a promotion or just generally fit in, because though they may not know about your AS, they will always sense that something about you is 'different' - slightly alien - not one of them.

No, we are not better or worse than the neurotypical crowd, but we are most certainly different, and because we are a minority, they treat us differently, without really ever knowing why they're doing it - and that's what makes AS a disability. You may feel that your brain is working perfectly fine, but in terms of 'fitting in' in the NT world, your brain is broken - not ruined completely, just wired a little weird at the factory, and always operating a little off, just enough to be quirky, unpredictable and annoying.

Different. Yes, we are. Personally, I'm proud to be different, to be unique in a world of clones. But I'm not so naive that I don't recognize that in clone culture, being different is a handicap. Not because I'm less valuable as a person, but because I'm a square peg in a world full of round holes.

Oh cheers, I really wanted to hear that just before starting a training course for a job I may have and meeting new people.

If I'm that completely different and the extreme reverse to all of my family and friends (who love me for who I am), then maybe I shouldn't be doing things what make up a normal life: get a job, have friends, spend money, get married, drive a car, move out, etc. I am too alien for that, and everyone will tut at me and hate me for everything I do and say, so I might aswell sit in a rocket and blast myself onto Mars and spend the rest of my life walking around studying planet Earth and all of it's strange creatures what I will never relate to in a million years.
That was sarcasm by the way.
Me and 2 of my NT friends have booked up to go on a holiday together in a few weeks. They've got loads of other friends too, but they chose me because they like me, and I used to do voluntary work with them (we haven't done for a year now but we still keep in touch). And I see other friends too, and I've been chatted up twice in one week before by 2 different men, but I said I wasn't interested because I didn't fancy them (they weren't my type). One of them gets on my bus and he still has a chat with me, but he's not trying to get at anything. He's just being friendly, and he wished me luck on my job the other day, and I said thanks. And then one of my other friends phone me up every night for a chat - and these are all NTs I'm talking about. Nobody on WP knows my life, I don't know your's. Some of us may feel like we're more different, some of us may feel more similar to others. We've all got different life circumstances and so do NTs - not everybody lives to the same extremes. I may find it quite easy to relate to NTs, there may be some types of people who I don't relate to as much because I may not be on their wavelength. But as I said before, we all lead different lives, AS is not a concrete thing - we're all different from eachother, I don't see why we have to jump down eachother's throats and start convincing eachother that we're not good enough for NTs and never will be and that we're so different that every NT in the world is going to think exactly the same thing about us and run off or something. It's not like that.
Yes, I know NTs can be closed-minded. Yes, I know I can sometimes behave odd. But that doesn't stop me from being able to have conversations and empathise and offer them advice and say the correct things and be able to relate to them. Yes, some NTs (especially young girls) may not want to know me, they may even giggle at me (which I've seen), but they grow out of that (well, most do), and they realise that not everybody's the same. And when you meet one NT, you haven't met them all. You've just met one.

Why do you think NTs gossip about eachother? If they were all the same, they wouldn't have anything to gossip about from one person to another.

Sorry to give a lecture but I've found what you wrote was rather harsh on somebody with as low self-esteem as it is.

What has that got to do with speculating on the origins of AS genes?

I've had lots of sex with NT's and fathered 7 children via being a sperm donor with enties. (the fertility clinic may have screwd up there!! ) So halfish of their genes are from me... So the genes go round...

PS NT's gossip to engage the bonding thru ostracising others thingy. Aint it an awful thing we do? Yes, we do the same as all group dynamics would show.....Sort of like a band of monkeys at odds with the neighbouring band of monkeys

I feel for your anxiety over fitting in with NT's. I'm nearly 50 and have resigned myself somewhat to avoiding NT culture. Sorry if that upsets you, but I have my truth too

Autism, and aspergers, probably are linked to genes.
Although there may not be a specific autistic gene.

I think that its just part of the ever present range of variety in genetically wired human behavior. I dont think it came from any ancestrial group.

However there is a theory(not sure I subscribe to it -just sayin its out there) that autistic and aspie genes came from the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals lived in europe as small bands of Ice Age hunters for a couple 100 thousand years. Then the modern type people migrated up from the Africa with their greater talents for social networking and their bigger population tribes with wider trade networks and alliances. The better connected anatomical moderns thus drove the do-it-yourself neanderthals to extinction. But not before mating with some neanderthals. The result being that people in norther latitudes have a smidgen of Neanderthal genes to this day. Those genes may code for the instincts of the Neanderthal lifestyle of living in small independant bands with less need for social networking- that is- they may cause autism/aspergers. Interesting idea. I think its probably wrong, but its wrong in an interesting way thats worth investingating.

IDK if this has any bearing, but my father was a janitor before I was conceived(cleaning chemicals?) and my grandfather on my mother's side was a GI in Nam(agent Orange?) There's no history of AS in my family prior to my generation, but I have it and so does my niece(as far as I know. I'm unsure if she's been formally diagnosed with AS yet though she has been identified on the spectrum). There's so many different causes behind this that I simply have no way at this time to determine what if any factors are behind my AS.

The origin of the multiple genes that manifest in autism is unknown but there are theories for why autism is perceived to be more prevalent in the modern era.

In the past autistic individuals (particularly males) would have not have been able to socialise and may have been lucky to survive. Those that survived were unlikely to have passed their genes to another generation.

In the modern era with early intervention, many so called "higher functioning" autistic people (including the Aspies) have been able to integrate better in society and get married and have more children. This (so the theory goes) has increased the proportion of people in the population with autism.

I never thought to wonder about this before, but it is quite an interesting question.
If autism is a genetic trait, and I believe that at least in part it is, who was the original autistic person? How did other disorders, for that matter, evolve an appear? Are they just spontaneous variations of dna that got passed down over thousands of years? I suppose that is the most likely theory. After all, there are accounts of autistic like figures even back from the 1600s an so on, but of course they didn't call it that then.