Why has autism not "died out" way before now?

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Well not all of us have a special talent for anyone to be jealous of in the first place.

Getting curious about things most people around you aren't very intrested in is hardly what I would consider a 'god like' capacity.....sounds like you just get curious about things no one around you seems interested in. Also how is knowing that things go on in houses you walk by and that individuals have different things going on in their mind? none of that seems very god like to me, sounds like things some people could find interesting and some people would not care much about. Also none of this really seems like anything specific to AS.

Both my husband and I are NT yet our son is an Aspie - it's not only people on the spectrum who have children with autism

My thought is that there was some advantage for groups that featured some members on the spectrum, versus groups that did not.

How much of technological progress was a result of people on the spectrum? Pretty hard to say, but I would not be surprised if it enabled some key developments. It's associated with unique forms of problem-solving, but even more than that, there are a couple of intriguing qualities. For one - the fascination with nonliving substances and materials and their properties. It's not hard to imagine people on the spectrum coming up with the idea of metalworking. Not saying they did, but it's conceivable.

Same thing with domestication of animals. Autistics are well-known to have special insights into animal behaviour - Temple Grandin being a very obvious example. So, again, it's not inconceivable that autistics might have played a major role in animal domestication, which gave massive advantages to the groups that practiced it.

It's entirely possible that a certain level of autism is good for societies, even if it is detrimental to the reproductive fitness of autistic people themselves.

And that's assuming that autism has a negative effect on fertility to begin with. While possibly true in societies where people are expected to find mates using their social skills, in a society where social skills are less important (because of something like arranged marriage, for instance) mild autism may not matter.

My own theory is that humankind actually needs those with AS and ASD, because they've often helped move us forward and advance as a species. While we need people who are social and who can help group cohesiveness and cooperation, we also need those who can handle either being alone or with a small number of people, who don't easily conform so they're not worried about what everyone else thinks and going along to get along and who will then, because of that, be able to think originally and creatively, "outside the box", so to speak.

We now know that many, many scientists, inventors, artists, writers, musicians, research professors, etc., etc. who've been responsible for great discoveries, theories, inventions, advances, artistic works, etc., had some form of AS or ASD and that is believed to have contributed to their work which then advanced us as a species. That list includes Einstein and Mozart, just to name only two of many. We as a species need people who think differently and who aren't afraid to do so for fear of being a nonconformist.

However, you or your husband wouldn't know if you were carrying the genes. For instance, how much do you know about your husband's father's mother's mother?
As far as my family are concerned, they recon there haven't been people with ASD in our family tree until now. The fact that my mother was adopted and doesn't know the identity of her father doesn't convince me that they can be sure of that!

Come to think of it, there may be stuff that has nothing to do with intellectual capacities too. Purely conjectural, but imagine the following scenario:

18,000 BC, on the plains of Africa. A group of early humans is camped on the savannah at night. Sentries are posted. They have been in the area for weeks, and have seen no traces of large predators. The sentries get bored; the area is safe. They remain awake, but often aren't watching, instead joking and laughing amongst themselves, or becoming bored of looking out at an empty field for hours and deciding to work on some snares. However, a lion has in fact moved into the area, unknown to them. It's decided to see if it can catch one of the humans and begins stealthily moving through the long grass toward the group.

First scenario: The lion manages to sneak up on the group while no one is watching. It launches its attack by complete surprise. Charging out of the long grass, it immediately kills one of the men. It defends its kill; the group tries to ward it off, but another member is injured in the attempt. The group flees, leaving the lion to eat its kill.

Second scenario: This group happens to contain an individual who is not roughhousing with the rest of the sentries, nor working on snares. Instead, he is staring out at the long grass in the moonlight, watching the patterns in the darkness as a gentle breeze causes the blades to sway to and fro, to and fro. His attention is fully occupied by this, and the small stick he's slapping against his leg. He does this for hours, without seeming to become bored or distracted at all. Suddenly he spots a break in the pattern - there is something large moving through the grass! He calls out a warning cry, and the sentries stop what they're doing, grabbing their spears and forming a line in the direction of the threat. The lion stalks the camp all night, but each time it tries to approach, it faces a line of men with spears and fire. Eventually it slinks off.

I liked your story.


To the OP:

I think that there are several genes that lend to autism, and that each of them can be quite beneficial in and of themselves. The detrimental effects of autistic behaviors only seem to occur in individuals who have several of these genes, and even still not all the time is this detrimental.

Not all people who have a particular grouping of these genes needs to reproduce to continue to see the same grouping of genes occur in successive generations as well. Even if no people with autism of any kind ever reproduced again, I am fairly certain autism would continue in the human population, simply due to people with just one or more of these genes having a distinct advantage to those who have none, thus would reproduce...and generally with others who also carry these genes.

But in reality, many of us with autism do in fact reproduce. And so long as this is true, autism is not going to go away. And I'm not entirely sure we as a species should think or expect it would. I am of the mind that autistic individuals have been keystones in the advancement of human culture and ingenuity. Our technologic advancements alone stand as testimony to the autistic creative force in our species. I am not arrogant enough to claim that we are where we are only because of autism, but I am not fool enough to discount the enormous contribution from very "presumed autistic" contributors of science and technology.


On a personal note; I have endured numerous challenges in life due to being autistic, this is true. But it certainly has not stopped me from enduring them! A trend I have begun to notice is that many of us here seem to compare our achievements to our age appropriate NT peers. I don't think we should. I think we mature slower in general, and learn to integrate with people slower. But it can be done with determination. I have continued to survive, strive, and grow as an individual, and will hopefully not stop doing so until the day I die. My contributions to society may not be monumental, but I have made some. And I have enjoyed some measure of success for it. I have sired offspring, and my son is brilliant, but very NT. He sees the world, but it does not overwhelm him in many of the ways it overwhelms me. I most certainly contributed some of those pesky autism genes to his genetic makeup, and he will likely pass them on to another generation. I will very likely have more children as well. So I know firsthand that autistic individuals can, and do, reproduce.

It's not a single gene condition. It's a polygenetic condition - in other words, you have to have the right mix of several genes to have AS.

If you have a few genes but not enough, you won't be AS, but you may have one or two traits. Enough to get some of the advantages without the disadvantages. For example, being a specialist in a certain area can make you valuable to the group, and therefore more prosperous. And you can be a specialist (ie have obsessive interests) without having poor social skills.

Also, in the past, the conditions for having children were different. For a woman, for example, she might have an arranged marriage, in which case her marriage prospects may depend more on her father's social skills than her own. As long as she had the minimum skills to sit there and act polite while the men negotiated.

Assuming AS is genetic, which I am certainly not sure about, even if all the AS men in the world failed to reproduce, the women only need to be physically attractive and healthy enough to conceive and deliver a baby. They don't even need to be well enough to raise them, as long as somebody in the community can.

Don't men often complain that it's much much easier for even unattractive women to find a partner?

Well from the channel4 undateables program I would say no. They both have it as hard as each other. Unless they got the social skills or like uniqueness & different. From my experience too.

Click HEre Don't know if you can watch it if not in this country like.

I don't have the broadband necessary, can you say something about it?