Neanderthal theory and race

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That sounds like a good idea to separate the personality traits to see what you get.

Just for clarification, Professor Kagan, didn't make the claim that the dancing was associated with introversion, that bit of dangling speculation, was made by the author of the article; more of an anecdotal note to think about, than an actual assertion. Dancing is definitely associated with mating behavior, in all cultures; no doubt about that.

The Wallflowers, as they are termed, here in the States, might be more likely the ones, considered as the shy ones, or introverts, as opposed to those involved in the dance, no matter what the cultural difference might be in the actual dance.

As a young adult, it didn't come natural with my motor abilities, but I forced myself to dance; it was definitely a requirement for mating behavior, when I was young.

It has definitely lost favor in the US, in the last few decades. I can't help but to wonder if the home entertainment/IT revolution, is part of that cultural change, as well so many other things that have changed in culture in the US, as we have moved closer to home as a base of entertainment.

Don't forget that with a lot of dance, particularly folk with it's conservatism and traditions, is a form of story telling and about maintaining the cultural status quo.

That particularly formal style seems distinct from the more free form styles that probably are more associated with courtship.

Yes, that is part of the picture. I wouldn't say it is necesarily related to conservatism and status quo, but it is definitely a way of remembering cultural aspects.



There is a need to formalize folk dances because otherwise it would not be possible to dance them as every participant has their role. It is impossible to have a large collection of complex dances that a group can dance if they are not formalized and memorized. The free forms have no collection of dances, cannot be used for remembering / transmitting cultural information, and thus are different in this respect.

There are other differences as well. Arabic and African dances usually are single-gender to a great degree. Either there is one male formation and one female, or the dances are single-gender completely. Traditional folk dances are pair-oriented. Few folk dances have male and / or female formations, and those that have only have this temporarily. Folk dances also typical change partners frequently so that everyone gets to dance with everyone, which is a social factor.

This is interesting from a Aspie point of view. Folk dances promote socialization between opposite genders, while Middle East and African dances promote socialization with the same gender. It is a preference of many Aspies to socialize and make friends mostly with the opposite gender.

I agree, associated with mating behavior, but certainly not the only association.

What is already happening? It seems to me that the situation in America is getting worse, I don't know about Europe. Is Eastern Asia picking up our bad "medical" habits?



Hell no, I won't go! Unless they dramatically change their laws.

A big concern of mine is that it is very difficult to find much of anything that proposes that "autistic" traits can be functional. Society has changed dramatically in the last several decades but none of that seems to matter to just about everyone. Some people have suggested that ADD/ADHD traits have some advantages such as Thom Hartmann (and I am sure many many others). Psychiatry also gets a lot of flack from antipsychiatrists such as Thomas Szasz. Most of these people have been arguing that schizophrenia is not a real illness for decades. Only recently has someone like Thomas Armstrong taken a stab at speculating about autism's function. In my view most of the few writers aren't doing a very convincing job.

As I understand it, genetic defects are rare, at least genuine ones anyway. Even "diseases" such as obesity could be explained by a tendency pack on pounds when time are good in preparation for leaner times. If it is statistically impossible for more than one gene to cause a defect and occur more often than say, something like one in 50,000 (with perhaps extra or mangled chromosomes occurring at higher frequencies), why aren't at least some geneticists or biologists raising hell about this? As far as I know they aren't. Or is it that it is not just the medical and anthropological establishments that are Afrocentric and speciest.

Unbiased or less biased researchers are harder to find than people who didn't believe that Africans where "mud people" hundreds of years ago. Even Thomas Jefferson wanted to include a tirade blaming Great Britain for the slave trade in the Declaration of Independence. He also freed his slaves upon his death. As for not doing so earlier, perhaps he picked and chose his battle, I don't know.

Last edited by DemocraticSocialistHun on 29 Feb 2012, 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The most evident example is "Aspie Talent". OTOH, the traits that are most useful for demonstrating that autistics possess unique, evolved, traits that neurotypicals don't have is "Aspie hunting". Possibly also stims, but those have been degraded to "tics" by psychiatry. They haven't discovered the Aspie hunting traits yet.



Yes, this is a mystery that I don't quite understand.

Most of those people that are writing anything positive are few and far between. Geneticists and biologists saying that the "medical" "Defective Mutant Hypothesis" isn't plausible and simply has to be wrong -- there are too many autistics for one thing (let alone the entire six neurodiversity groups in "Aspie"-Quiz) -- would be most helpful in getting things on the right track. Otherwise you and the handful of other exceptions such as:

Andrew Lehman -- Neoteny Theory http://www.neoteny.org (and many others)
Alan Griswold -- Autistic Symphony http://autisticsymphony.com
Morton Ann Gernsbacher -- How to Spot Bias in Research, Association for Psychological Science http://www.psychologicalscience.org/obs ... fm?id=2076
Michelle Dawson (autism research papers, often with others such as Gernsbacher) http://autismcrisis.blogspot.com/
Olga Bogdashina -- Ukraine, U.K activist (President of the Autism Society, Ukraine)
Jared Edward Reser -- Solitary Forager Theory http://www.jaredreser.com/cognitivepars ... seven.html
Tyler Cowen -- Create Your Own Economy http://marginalrevolution.com/
Michael Simonson and others at the "Hunter School" in New Hampshire http://hunterschool.org, http://energeticallysensitivechild.com
Penny Spikins -- Mental problems gave early humans an edge, New Scientist 2837 02 November 2011 by Kate Ravilious
Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser and Wendy Lawson -- Montropism Hypothesis

are just howling in the wind of a category five hurricane.

In fact there is one -- George Church, Ph.D. (Professor of Genetics-Harvard Med School)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTFcJohN ... ideo_title

at Youtube channel of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

http://www.youtube.com/user/GENNews?feature=watch

(regarding the importance of cloning neanderthals): "...it's important to discuss the goals of our society with respect to neurodiversity, which is one of the things that we might learn from a detailed understanding of the Neanderthal genome. They are almost certainly different from us in the way they think and also it could be eliminated about how we approach the issues of biomedical safety and discrimination and stigmatization and so forth... (runs for 9 min 19 sec total)

Doesn't say neurodiverse people are behaviorally neanderthal, but does say we could learn from the experience since they are undoubtably different since they are "highly optimal sibling or cousin variations on the human existence."

How about finding questions that correlate to neurodiversity, environment, and psychiatric diagnosis, but not neurotypicality, environment, and psychiatric diagnosis. Is this theoretically possible? This could provide insight into why the powers-that-be hate us so much -- be it lack of insight and/or hidden agendas or both on their part. This could tell us what we are up against and why, could it not?



Am I correct in assuming you mean in the context of the current adverse environment, not the ancestral one of the neurodivergent/neanderthals, or even recent conditions several decades ago? Or did you write this on a bad day? As I understand it, the Neanderthal Theory is based on the idea that neurodiversity traits are adaptations because otherwise they wouldn't have been positively selected but rather washed out due to drift.

For example here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4409791.html#4409791

Last edited by DemocraticSocialistHun on 01 Mar 2012, 4:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

But why would people who live in small groups with low population density (one must go far to find another small group) need good immune systems? Pathogens wipe out whole communities in Africa often unless high-tech medicine intervenes.

The only possible reason I can think of is that the neurodivergent have too low rates of reproduction and invest too much in offspring while the neurotypicals consider life to be rather cheap. That would explain most philosophical and behavioral differences well too.

Not all I hope. Why no mention of r/k? Because at this point it is too hard to prove -- the evidence is there but not solid enough and needs revision?

What about the claims (studies or "studies" as the case may be) that there are numerous de novo mutations in autism genetics?

I do wonder though if they've sampled enough DNA to determine existing human variation or if they bothered to test the parents. Just because the researchers have Piled-higher-and Deeper degrees doesn't mean they are not stupid. It only means they are brainwashable.

Most of the recent linkage studies are misleading. They have researched differences between parents / unaffected siblings and a diagnosed individual. That research is totally meaningless. It should end up with a large amount of de novo mutations. It probably would if you grouped people based on political views, or shoe size as well.

I think r/k selection is a trait of northern populations, but since at least two of the proposed traits related to r/k selection has been disproved to show the correct relation with neurodiversity, I would need a new list proposed by somebody else that does show consistent relation to neurodiversity.

Good immune systems seems to be diverse immune systems. Even if Neanderthal didn't need an effective immune system against infectious disease because of sparse groups, they still had variants that modern humans didn't have.



Yes, I think that is true.