Are autistics a subspecies of human?

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I thought they where just different species.

If that species could cross with humans (the only way by they could pass genes to the human population) this not mean that they should be considered a sub-specie?

A little off topic, but the term "subspecies" doesn't indicate inferiority in any way. I understand the term "subhuman" would mean "less than human" and hence inferiority. "Subspecies" is a biological term that comes under "species" in the classification of organisms, in the same way "species" comes under "genus". I just wanted to point it out because some people seem to think there is an implication of inferiority in the OP's or other people's suggestion.

Also two organisms in different subspecies in the same species can reproduce fertile offspring.

Good point- that the 'sub' in the word 'subspecies' is like the 'sub' in 'subdivision', not the 'sub' in 'substandard' or the like.

But at any rate autistics are not a subspecies. They dont even a resemble what a human subspecies would look or behave like.

Subspecies are geographically seperate populations within a species that breed within themselves and have limited gene flow to other such subgroups within the species so as to appear to be evolving into seperate species.

Autism is an endemic condition in every human population on earth, and constitute a tiny (less than two percent) of each population on earth. Autistics dont have a continent to themselves in which they are the main stock of people and can breed autistic lineages free of nonautistic gene flow. The word "race' is more or less synomous with 'subspecies'. Both the terms race and subspecies are largely outmoded because they lack scientific correctness (not because of 'political correctness'). But if you want to use the term race (or the term subspecies) the term definetly does not apply to autistics. We are not a 'race', 'subspecies', nor an 'incipient seperate species'.

Yes

Evolution is not forward thinking. Even if autism offers an evolutionary advantage, that wouldn't make NTs more likely to give birth to autistic people.

Autism is a complicated condition with many causes, including multiple genes. Parent 1 has two autism genes, Parent 2 has three autism genes, they feed their baby autism juice, and bam! Baby has 5 autism genes and is drinking autism juice, and so has autism.

(That is simplified, and there is no autism juice)

Yeah, definitely. That's why they have so much trouble reproducing with NT's. Anyway, that's the impression I got after reading all the "I can't get a girlfriend" threads in the L&D section.

Not to say it can't happen, but as with lions and tigers, it's pretty rare. Autistics in relationships with NT's are also analogous to tigers in relationships with lions in that, typically, only the female tigers can breed across species. After reading some of billiscool's threads, that's the conclusion I was forced to come to.

And here I was wishing I could get myself a nice cold glass of autism juice...

Yeah, if autism offered an evolutionary advantage, the way it'd happen would be, autistics would be more likely to reproduce and/or survive, so gradually there'd be more autistics and fewer NTs.

That's not the way it is, though. Autistics are less likely to reproduce. But I don't think that makes autism a maladaptive trait, at least not where entire societies are concerned. A society with autism genes floating around in it will have more diversity, thus more ability to solve problems, etc., than a society without autism genes. So it's beneficial to have a few autistics scattered around, but not beneficial to have nothing but autistics. Similarly, it's beneficial to a society, in an evolutionary sense, to have traits that allow acceptance and integration of those with atypical minds; these groups will benefit more from diversity and will be stronger than the groups which exclude atypical people. No clue whether that's natural selection or more of a sociological competition--maybe a bit of both.

I think we should stop thinking of ourselves as a separate group, and start thinking of ourselves as part of a bigger picture--as part of the human race in general. The better we work together, the better NTs can work together with us, the better off we're all going to be.

A significant number of features in the human genome are shared with other species, and many originated long before humans evolved.

However, this doesn't mean the neanderthal theory is any more likely to be true. Also, human diversity includes many features that are not neurological in nature and are reflected primarily anatomically.

A deadpan, literal answer, and I liked it.

But, is the likelihood of compatibility diminished, between different neurological types, such that the trait would become more dominant over successive generations.

How exactly do you envision that happening?

If all autistics were moved to one side of a mountain range, and all nts to another so they could not interbreed then ten thousand generations later the two groups might not be able to interbreed when they met again and would be on the way to becoming seperate species.

But in the real world aspies are tiny minority spread around the globe-so how could they possibly form a geographically isolated breeding population seperate from NT's - and have the population remain seperate for thousands of generations?

I had no problem reproducing with an NT. Bow chicka bow bow!

Well, as a female autistic, just think of yourself as the mother of a liger then. Interspecies breeding really can't happen the other way. Just read some threads in L&D, and you'll see.

Hardly worth the reply. But NO, we are not a subspecies of Homo sapiens. We share all the same genes. To my knowledge, there has not been 100,000 or so years of reproductive isolation between us and neurotypicals; about the amount of time, biologically speaking, to produce a subspecies.

We don't have the same genes actually.
We have changes on every single chromosome, according to new research.
Ironically we have been separated in a way - alone in a crowd - we have almost too big behavioral differences to be able to reproduce as easily with NTs as NTs can, just look at the amount of ostracization people here talk about. Every single one of our ancestors weren't autistics, and it takes 2 people who both have the genes to get an autistic child (or 1, if 1 of the parents is autistic) - hence NTs getting autistic children. The ones that were autistic just might have gotten along better with other autistics, so the chance of reproducing is much higher with another autistic, furthering this genetic chasm.
The thing is, evolution hasn't stopped. Ask any scientist if they think we're the only animal in the world exempt from evolution. But it doesn't jump from one species to the next without any intermediary.
Humans have evolved tremendously fast, especially the brain - it's gotten much bigger on a very short time scale. The way we did it was in part because we could revert to the already existing blueprint for the younger human, who have different body-proportions with a bigger head and thus a bigger brain compared to body size. They didn't need to acquire all the mutations needed to develop a bigger head as that is much harder than just using what the body does already. This is already confirmed that it happened in humans evolutionary history and it's called neoteny. An example is the domestication of dogs by humans - they have the body proportions of fetal wolves in some cases and are much more childish behaviorally than their wolf ancestors - a fun side-effect of neotenalization is that you don't get the (body-proportionally) adult versions instincts even when you're an adult, you're stuck in child/juvenile-mode forever, even though you have a bigger brain
Does that sound familiar to anyone else?

Body-proportions according to age in modern day humans:

Not really. The prevalence of neurodiversity probably is 10-15%, and that is not a tiny majority.



But that is not the way it happened. The neurodiversity-phenotype was isolated in Eurasia during as much as close to 2 million years, with only occasional interbreeding. Then the phenotype entered modern humans by introgression from Neanderthal, and has been diluted into a spectrum ever since.