In a century everyone will probably be on the spectrum.

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I don't think they actually take effect until 2013. You can find draft copies of the text now.

Edit:

Here is a thread on AFF about the changes with the proposed text:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/showthr ... ?tid=21983

Could you imagine what would happen if 6 billion aspies were alive at once being the dominate people on earth? There would be great advances in technology, art, and science but a decline in population rise. People would be pursuing special intrests rather than wanting to start a family. It would be a good way to decrease the population with more people staying in doors avoiding human contact. It could be nature's way to slow the human race's over population sort of a evolution that would be benefical to the world.

I've seen that argument before but there are problems with it:

In the play “Lucy,” an emotionally distant anthropologist (Lisa Emery) decides that her severely autistic daughter Lucy (Lucy DeVito) is not sick. Instead, says the hermit scientist, she is the future: Lucy’s lack of connection to other human beings is actually an evolutionary leap forward. The rest of us? Obsolete—mental health fossils.

Our anthropologist supposes that hypersociality has created a poisonous overgrowth of society curable only by turning inward, and that autism (the diagnosis of which has increased tenfold) arose to accomplish that.

Thanks for the science, but she’s wrong.

Even if the assumptions are correct, her evolutionary hypothesis doesn’t work: Mutations don’t have a purpose; natural selection works on individuals and not whole species; the rise in autism, if it’s even real, has happened in just the last 20 years. Unlike the evolutionary “leaps” the anthropologist cites, autism involves many genes, and would take even more generations to spread if it were advantageous. And most of all, there’s the sex. As one character actually points out, it’s only an adaptation if it makes you have more kids, so a literal human connection is essential.

While science-based theater is potentially more profound and illuminating than, say, science-based cosmetics, Damien Atkins’s “Lucy” doesn’t get much past putting on scienceface. Even so, the basic idea is great. It IS possible that autism could be the next stage in evolution. As long as there is variation, it’s heritable, and it leads to differential reproductive success—that is to say, if slightly-autistic geeks get more play—then natural selection may increase the frequency of autism in the future.

And I’m not only saying this because DISCOVER is a prop on the scientist’s coffee table.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/disco ... evolution/

I find the entire "autism=next evolutionary paradigm" silly, but strictly speaking, having kids is not necessary. Propagation of the genes is necessary. Until this age, making babies was the only way. In theory, the 'superior autistic variant' could propagate through technological means of their own invention.

Thanks both. It's interesting to see the proposed changes, I hope things will work out for the best for everyone affected. In that case, I'm guess I'd better keep an eye on developments. If I am diagnosed with Asperger's, I may ask that my case be looked at again if the changes go through, in light of any new thinking on it.

I think the whole "autism is evolution" thing stems from the inferiority complex developed from years of not being up-to-standard in the neuro-typical world. It's an overcompensation for these feelings of inadequacy. Instead of accepting reality and dealing with a condition that may have some benefits as well as difficulties to one's life, an individual fearfully attacks the neuro-typical world, claiming that it is the inferior one.

It's all pretty silly.