Are autistics part Neanderthal?

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I think that the interbreeding with Denisova hominids and other non-H.sapiens ancestry of Homo erectus might have also greatly contributed to human neurodiversity, as well as our morphological diversity. At least that's what one would expect.

Absolutely, but we would expect similar traits to have been contributed from Denisova given their coexistance with Neanderthal in Eurasia. We would expect human diversity to vary slightly between regions because of admixture with different groups, and also selection of different traits. This is also the case as the asian population in the US does not have the same factor loadings, and explained variance, as the Caucasian.

Indigenous Subsaharan Africans have every possible condition or co-morbid associated with neurodiversity, so while it doesn't appear like they were involved in the admixture event, it is certainly proof that the admixture event isn't a requirement for neurodiversity.

There is likely somekind of contribution associated with the admixture event, but the isolation of specifically what that contribution is, is beyond scientific understanding at this point in time.

If you contend to measure 70% of the traits in the general population with the Aspie Quiz, while I realize the "Aspie" brand is closely associated with it, and the "autism" brand is closely associated with your general neanderthal theory, that specific nomenclature, is still understood as less than 1 percent of the population.

More people do understand what Autism and Aspergers is as opposed to neurodiversity, so it draws attention for people to read the theory and participate in the quiz, if they know what aspie means, but your actual focus is 70 times outside of that nomenclature.

If you are measuring neurodiversity and contend that neanderthal ancestory is responsible for that neurodiversity; the aspie quiz is a biased measure because the term represents a condition that technically is no more than .5 percent of the population. It is more likely that someone warm to the possibility of having the disorder of Aspergers is going to take that test than anyone else in the general population.

I don't see an answer for this in your online quiz, because "neurodiversity", is a word that even less people in the general population are aware of, and is rarely even agreed upon as to what it means or consists of in online neurodiverse communities.

Many people that come to this site for Aspergers are completely new to that nomenclature. It's a term rarely used in the general population.

This makes reaching an unbiased sample of the suggested 70% neurodiverse group in the general population, almost impossible to test with an unbiased volunteer sample through an online survey.

But it's not going to hurt to add the question to your quiz, about the neanderthal ancestory test, at least you can reasonably test the hypothesis for the relatively small segment of the population taking an online volunteer test associated with Aspergers.

The neanderthal ancestory organization is a much better test avenue for it, I think, as long it is marketed in a way where a full cross section of the members there, will be motivated to participate in.

You will likely reach a population that is more representative of the general public than what you will find through a volunteer online test. And certainly, be more likely to reach people that have taken the test. There couldn't be a better source for that.

Asking "are autistics part neanderthal" is the wrong question to ask.
Even south of the Sahara everyone is likely "part neanderthal".

Its whether autism is caused by neanderthal genes. Two different questions.

Im an interested skeptic. I think the answer is no, but its an interesting question.


You could be descended from Beethoven (or beethoven's siblings I dont think he had kids) and inherit all of his bad temper but none of his musical talent.

Its vertually certain that vertually everyone north of the Sahara is "part Neanderthal" but only one percent are on the spectrum. So being autistic doesnt make you anymore "part neanderthal" than anyone else in most of ( or indeed all) of the human race.

white europeans are 1 to 4 percent neanderthal genetically. But what those genes code for, and how they get expressed differs from individual to individual. So a one percent neanderthaler might get the genes that get expressed as autism and a four or more percenter might get genes that dont get expressed in any detectable way at all.

I myself am officially dx'd as an aspie, and I happen to be barrel chested - atypical for modern people -but typical of monkeys, apes, and archaic hominids like Neanderthal Man!

Coincidence?

Actually- I think it is.

I think this neanderthal theory is what I call "usefully wrong"- its worth looking into but will probably be disproven. But it would be an interesitng journey that would inspire useful research in everythng from archeology to medicine.

It would be useful to know how many minority children in the USA are austistic and get missed by the health care system, and it would be useful to know if neurodiversity in subsaharan africa is
comparable to the rest of the world.

The most genetically diverse people are infact subsaharan africans.
Scientists have long known that a typical African village has more genetic diversity than the entire Eurasian landmass.
Modern type people have lived in africa the longest and have had the most time to diversify. So neurodiversity should be greatest in subsaharan africa. But the anatomical moderns who left africa, who were the less diverse subset of those who remained in africa, do seem to have "compensated" for it by absorbing tiny smidgens of dna from the archiac humans whom they drove to extinction (like the neanderthals and the denosovians)in Eurasia. So africans are more diverse. But the less diverse eurasians may have some dna africans dont have. And that little bit of input from archaics might well be 'more different' that than the greater range of diversity of africans because it comes from a more alien source. Africans are the array of gas powered cars made by GM, and the rest of the world are a bunch of monotonous VW bugs, but some of the bugs have deisel engines unknown in gms. If that makes any sense as a metaphor. These alien bits of dna might code for thought and behavior patterns. So in theory people who act different might be expressing archaic brain genes inherited from the neanderthalers.
Thus on one hand africans should be more neurodiverse than all the continents combined. So if autism really is more common in eurasians than among africans then concievably that could be a legancy of moderns absorbing some archaics.


But there has been so much genetic drift in the last 40 thousand years since archaic hominids died out that even africans would have some archaic DNA by now.

It would take a lot to sort this question out.
But my hunch is that autism has nothing to do with the Neanderthals.

I've heard that some people do have neanderthal DNA, but I doubt that it has a correlation with autism. Neanderthal DNA would be so sparse in the human genome that i would have very little effect on how a person acts or looks. There is a lot more to autism than lack of social skills. Neanderthals may have been more intelligent and less social but that doesn't define autism. Not all autistics are geniuses.

tl;dr- I honestly don't believe that autistics are part neanderthal.

They weren't necessarily more intelligent.

Larger brains, yes, but ASFAIK there was some impairment in the temporal and parietal lobes, or they were just smaller.

This controls(at least to some extent) not only speech, but critical thinking and complex thought, in general. So you could say that Neanderthal had...DUN DUN DUNNNNNN, an uneven set of abilities O_O

Also, it's not like what we see today presented as Neanderthal DNA would make someone exactly like a Neanderthal, Autistics would still be basically H.Sapien with a HINT of Neanderthal, a very tiny hint.

It's not "some people" it's almost all people.

1-4% of DNA is a small percentage, yes. But the effects of even 1% DNA has on an organism can be MONUMENTOUS.

Almost all autistics are part Neanderthal. Whether the Neanderthal DNA is the cause of, contributes to, or is irrelevant to autism is yet to be determined.

How do we know that? I don't think we actually do know that, it is just something we presume for political correctness reasons.



Not really. While we don't know the exact prevalence of "very likely Aspie" in the general population, I think we can be fairly confident it is above 1%. A good guess is 15-20%. If I'm not mistaken some prevalence figures for ADD/ADHD goes up to almost 10%, and since ADD/ADHD is part ot neurodiversity, we should not expect prevalence of neurodiversity to be below that of ADD/AHDHD, which sets a lower limit at 10%, The upper limit is the current ratio of "very likely Aspie", which is about 40%. So the outer limits should be 10-40%, and a fair guess 15-20%, but it needs to be determined with some random sample, which we don't have right now.

If neurodiversity is Neanderthal heritage, it means that perhaps 15-20% of the Eurasian population has so much Neanderthal heritage that they are behaviorally Neanderthal, while an additional 10-20% have a mix. That is a considerable contribution much higher than the few percent of Neanderthal DNA. However, the few percent of contribution is calculated in a different way and is not a measure of functional variation. They use all the genetic material, both the material that has no function, and the material that has a function. It is pretty likely that most of the Neanderthal DNA has a function, because their neutral / non-functional material has not been subjected to natural selection, and thus have a very low probability to have been retained.

Also remember that new research has determined that the immune system is mostly Neanderthal / archaic, so these figures for behavior are not at all impossible.

The current results on the 23andme Heritage, is that one Aspie has 3.1% (email) and one has 3.3% (Aspie Quiz). No NT has yet filled-out their results.

That might sound like a paradox, but it really isn't if you analyse it further. First, you need to understand that genetic diversity is measured by the number of mutations in a genome, while functional diversity is the number of functional variants in a population. While it might sound strange, it is possible that one population has a large genetic variation, but a low functional diversity (Africans), while another has a lower genetic variation, but a higher functional diversity (Eurasians). This is possible since most of the genetic diversity is from the direct ancestors of modern humans, while most of the functional diversity is from interbreeding with archaic populations. The reason why Eurasia has lower genetic diversity is because of bottlenecks caused by the Toba eruption and the last Ice age maximum.

Exactly. There is a very small difference between the human genome and the schimpanzee genome, yet the difference is profound.

Yes, thanks to google and the World Health Organization we do know for sure that indigenous African countries have individuals with every condition that is tested for in the Aspie quiz: OCD, Bi-Polar, ADHD, Tourettes, etc. All one has to do is google the country and the neurodiverse condition.

The Aspie Quiz appears to measure the Broader Autism Phenotype well, in those results that say likely Aspie as they approach the lower limits of the mid 120's.

Your estimates sound pretty reasonable for BAP, but of course statistically we understand the actual disorder of Aspergers as the third most frequent ASD, of which most official statistics state is less than 1 percent.

Very likely BAP is already understood to represent at least 10 percent of the population, with traits from specific criteria approaching thirty percent of the population.

A random sample in the general population would be interesting. Some of the questions are analogous to questions in personality tests for introversion, so your estimate of 15 to 20 percent very likely Aspie sounds reasonable in a random sample of the general population.

Many people function well in life with some traits of autism, so most of the individuals would not likely be impaired enough to need a diagnosis and professional support.

Those are two examples of high scores you have collected, so far. What were the countries of origin, for the two results?

Certainly, but that is not the issue. The issue is if they occur at a simlar frequency. That cannot be proved with case reports, it needs to be proved with prevalence studies. The issue is also where in Africa they occur. We need to remember that North Africa has a Caucasian population (mostly), and that South Africa has 10% Caucasians. We can be pretty certain that neurodiversity would at least occur at a frequency of 1-4% in South Africa, and 10-40% in North Africa,

The issue of racial prevalence in Aspie Quiz is a little complex. For Asian descent living in the US, the prevalence is considerably below average. From immigration statistics we know most Asians in the US come from Southern Asia, meaning that neurodiversity prevalence in South Asia seems to be lower than average. For African Americans the picture is different. Throughout the period from around 2006 to present, this group only comprise 1-3% of the answers from the US. This is exceptional when they represent over 12% of the US population. Of course, with over 100,000 answers from the US, this difference has enormous significans that cannot be discarded. There need to be a pretty good explanation for why African Americans don't want to do Aspie Quiz, and why this trend has remained unchanged for six years, keeping in mind that recruiting participants is done by 100s of different links on the web. The best (but possibly not only) explanation seems to be that the primary driving factor for whom does Aspie Quiz is that they feel different, and that this factor is much less prevalent in African Americans. It is also the case that the much fewer African Americans that do Aspie Quiz, score about the same as Caucasians, so it is not a selection of "severer cases" we see.

Africa itself cannot be studied, nor can South Asia, as very few from these regions participate. This could be for poverty reasons, or other reasons. OTOH, there is now a pretty large and growing sample from Russia (7,500 has answered the russian version), there has been requests to translate to Japanese (but no translation this far). Nobody has suggested translation to arabic languages or African languages. Why not?

This is also interesting to elaborate on. If ASDs were highly genetic and the extreme end of personality-traits (neurodiversity), we would expect diagnosed autistics to score extremely high on Aspie Quiz. Well, we don't. The self-identification "I'm different" is much more related to the extreme end of scoring than an ASD diagnosis. It seems like many people have a pretty good idea if they are odd or not (which probably contributes to the popularity of Aspie Quiz as the correlation with "self identified Aspie" is very high). In the latter versions, only about 60-65% of diagnosed ASD score in the "very likely Aspie" interval. This could be partially because many use Aspie Quiz as a "second opinion tool" when in doubt about their diagnoses, but it is still the case that diagnosed ASD is not at the extreme end of high neurodiversity socres. A high neurodiversity score is certainly related to ASD diagnoses, but severity of ASD doesn't seem to correlate well with high scores.

There are simply other issues than a high neurodiversity score that are more important to diagnostic status. One of these are covered by the "Intense world theory" (environmental causes). Another issue probably is that admixture problems (gene incompability) is a high risk factor for diagnosis, but also tends to happen when one parent is on the NT end and the other is at the Aspie end, and the individual is in the middle. A third issue is that when both parents are high on the Aspie side, there will be lesser environmental issues in the family, lesser risk of parents feeling that the kid needs a diagnosis, and thus high neurodiversity score and lower probability of diagnosis.

All health issues are under reported in developing countries, simply because they have fewer resouces for health care. However one can specifically find information on each of the neurodiverse conditions with a specific search of an indigenous African country, such as Uganda, and find similiar information I provided earlier there on Autism.

I successfully found information on all of the other neurodiverse conditions in Uganda, simply by matching the condition with the country with Google..

At least one explanation for why African Americans don't participate: studies have been done and shown that the African American Culture in the US, is not as likely to seek a diagnosis from a doctor, and anything associated with mental illness is more of a stygma in that culture in the US.

I reported additional information in Slarti's thread on this recently, and there are comments in the article he presented there regarding John Elder Robison's same question on this issue, that match the results of studies done on this issue.

Beyond this, it's an awareness issue as well. The word "Aspie", again, is a term created by a very small subculture that exists in the US that largely don't identify themselves as African American, on online forums, although there is no reason why they should. It's reasonable that some whom exist outside of the "Aspie" online culture, don't even associate it with Aspergers when they see the term online; it is relatively inclusive to the online environment.

This demographic issue may also account for your lower numbers of Asian representation, too. I'm not sure why the neurodiverse rates would be lower in Asia, when the highest rates of overall autism spectrum disorders have been reported there, at 1 in 38, in South Korea. And the scan that was done there, was not specific to autism disorder and PDD NOS, as opposed to what most official statistics reflect in other countries.

It would seem more reasonable that they are unaware of the cultural term "Aspie", or are just not interested. In an online volunteer survey there are potentially hundreds of factors that could influence this, but the obscurity of the term "Aspie", and the demographics of the individuals who are already in that culture, may be the biggest issue, of why more people aren't aware of what the term even means.

The only way to get reliable results would be to go to each country and sample the individuals there. Of course one wouldn't expect you to be able to do this. It hasn't even reliably been done in many countries for ASD's, on an official basis.

And too, anything done online, is restricted to those whom have online access, this of course is a restricting factor in any developing country.

**I reread your theory tonight out of renewed interest and edited this comment for some further thoughts related to the racial aspect listed in the table of contents. I must have overlooked it, last time I reviewed the theory, if it was included at that time.

It's not too surprising that African countries are not asking for language translations for the Aspie Quiz, considering the controversial statements about the racial aspect of the theory, that you acknowledge are politically incorrect. Also, highlighted with words to the effect in the table of contents of, "don't read if offended by race". It was polite that you offer that caution, but it makes it even more likely that people will read it out of curiosity.

And, it's also very likely part of the reason that some African American's, if they have read the theory, wouldn't associate themselves with anything related to the theory, including the Aspie Quiz.

Some of the comments suggested in that section, attributed to the work of JP Rushton, and "several others", have been debunked in regard to deficits in creativity, greater propensity toward impulsiveness, and promiscuity, in relation to the indigenous people's of Africa.

Also, could be part of the explanation of why not many arabic countries are interested in getting a language translation either, considering Rushton is well known for his suggestion that the religion of Islam is a cultural and genetic problem.

I notice you state you are separating this section from the rest of the theory; I think that is a good idea, because some of the suggestions there have been debunked; as long as you include it publically viewable on the website, it will likely skew the participation of the general population taking part in the aspie quiz.

Might not be as big of a problem in Scandanavian countries considering the relatively homogenous composition of the countries, and discontent over immigration among some, but it would likely generate a considerable amount of hate and discontent for anyone of African heritage and potentially some with Arabic heritage with access to that section.

This would also reduce any likelyhood that the quiz would be accepted on the Neanderthal Ancestry website, if linked with the Neanderthal Theory of Autism, and the section on the racial aspect. If you are intent on getting reliable evidence for the theory, by use of the Aspie Quiz, the section serves no useful purpose, to that effort, that I can see, and is likely counterproductive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton

Last edited by aghogday on 31 Jan 2012, 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I really don't care.

I mean, I guess it would be kind of cool, but...

All I really give a s**t about is that I don't have to listen to some half-baked s**thead pose the argument that we're somehow subhuman. Again.

Don't think I'll get what I want.

I would have scored in the 170's/80's, most of my life, but it didn't stop me from becoming financially independent, or from having a happy life. I fell into circumstances I could adapt to, and thrive in. I consider my self extremely fortunate though.

It obviously doesn't matter if someone scores the highest score possible on the test, as to whether or not they seek a diagnosis. I would have never imagined that I had anything associated, with my fullest understanding of Autism for Decades, the movie "Rainman".

Eccentric, odd, yes, I got that feedback, but culture is so complex, at least in the US, that Odd is becoming the norm rather than the exception, as far as what one would expect from a social primate.

I've noticed people here that are diagnosed with ASD's that report they score neurotypical on the test or neurotypical/aspie, but the only thing that makes a diagnosis, is the perception of a need for one. I agree with your comments.

This though makes it even more likely that you would reach the 20 percent in the general population, of which only 1 percent are understood as needing a diagnosis.

But it is also an indication of why no online test can be used to definitively determine whether or not someone would actually be diagnosed with the disorder, if they went in for one. That comes down to whether or not the symptoms work together to impair one in life functioning. But, again, it's a good measure of the broad autism phenotype.