To make the breakthrough that we all need to gain status in the eyes of society we need the cause of autism. I can give you that at least in its high functioning Asperger's form.
The conventional model of human evolution sees a species formed from a single sociable human personality. Variation from this "normal" personality is seen as "disorder" ie. something has gone wrong. I think this model is wrong.
Everything points to a species formed from two evolutionary personalities. One is neurotypical or from an evolutionary perspective "tribal". The other personality is its predeccessor and evolved pre language in an unsociable single-family existence. This personality is seen as autistic. Both personalities make up the species today. This is the reason for the variation we see in the world. It gives us the difference between Catholic and Puritan values. It gives us Republican and Democrat. It gives us poverty in Africa and wealth in the West. All born out of two evolutionary personalities.
The Asperger personality is entirly predictable from evolutionary cause.
Quite simply it isn't naturally sociable because it didn't evolve to be sociable. Observations of lack of imagination and excessive honesty all come from a pre language evolution. Without language you can have no stories to imagine and no sentences in which to tell a lie. The Asperger personality has to access all concious thought as language is all learn't. We see a tendency therfore to look away or upwards when talking in a similar way to when the neurotypical mind tells a lie.
As a population the Asperger personality is going through one of its low points in evolution. With the wealth generated in Western society the "tribal" sociable mind has become dominant. This has all happened before. In times of plenty "tribal" values dominate. In times of austerity Asperger or as I prefer "original " values dominate. It will turn and the "original" personality will regain its position in society. This won't however be without effort on our parts to establish our personality as normal.
I agree that Aspergers is evolutionarily influenced, but my reasoning is a little different.
I think that Aspergers represents the "in-between" state of NT and classic autism. Imagine, for example, that NT carry two copies of a master sensory gene (SS). At some point, the gene aquired a mutation (M). Two copies of the mutated gene (MM) produces autism. One copy of the original gene, and one mutated one (SM) produces Aspergers. Clearly, autism is not going to increase reproduction and will not be selected for by natural selection. BUT, as it the case with a number of recessive diseases, the heterozygous condition confers an advantage, therefore the mutant gene stays around. Two copies of the sickle cell trait is lethal. But one copy reduces malarial infection. Two copies of the cystic fibrosis gene is lethal. But one copy confers resistance to tuberculosis. So two copies of the yet-to-be determined mutated sensory gene cause severe problems, but one copy results in advantages - and therefore stays in the population. I'll go further and say that as we have moved from a society of hunter/gathers/farmers/etc to a society where security is derrived from economic success, benefits from Aspergers type is increasing, producing even more ASD in the population.
I agree with Lizmom23!
*smiles*
I also then to agree with Lizmom23, they can not hold us back forever!
To me it’s quite simply, it’s all to do with evolution – we have to evolve and change in order to survive, and most autistic people I know seem to have more complex brains, and maybe even superior minds!
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Agreed - there's an common idea when human evolution is mentioned that any step is the "next step", or the "better option".
In reality, especially when you look at human evolution, is that evolutionary "branches" were quite common - in fact at one point there were three separate species of human co-existing. The only reason that only one exists now is that homo sapiens sapiens, or modern man, killed off or starved out the others.
The spectrum gene doesn't represent an evolutionary "advance", just an evolutionary branch. There's nothing saying we have to be "better" to be a part of evolution.
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I agree as well. Not to mention that our environment changes as well. What was a positive adaptation/mutation in previous societies may not be one today. And vice versa.
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I think of this as the "myth of progress." It seems to permeate everything, not just evolutionary discussions. Some one wrote a book with this title last year, but I've been using those words to describe it for many years.
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There is a "better" in terms of evolutionary fittness. A "better" trait is selected for and maintained. But "better" in this context does not carry with it a moral connotation of superiority or even preferableness - although both may get assumed at some point. Most humans today would argue that standing upright is "better" because that it is cultural norm and the circumstance that fits our environment and have even assigned a certain amount of intellectual and moral supperiority to standing upright compared to our crouched cousins and ancestors. Despite the fact that we built our environment to suit that characteristic and not because we objectively choose that standing upright was "better".
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I also worry about calling AS an evolutionary step. I am better in some areas and worse in others. Some of the ways I'm better are helpful only to me and therefore no one else would really consider it an asset... I say different not better, not an evolutionary advancement.
I also think it lessens the AS cause if we run around saying, "I'm better than you, now respect me and stop putting social skills in job ads."
PS- does any one else hate it when people make a thread or two as their first posts and then completely disappear?
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I, for one, am not saying that AS is "better" (or necessarily worse) only that the condition confers *some* advantages, therefore stays in the population. It is hard to imagine that being heterozygous for sickle cells disease is "better" - you have a 25% of passing on a fatal disease to your child (assuming you marry another heterozygote). Not too many people are going to line up for that. However, there are some biological advantages to having one sickle gene which explains why it remains in the population.
Actually, the idea of progress connotes movement toward a goal; that there is some more desirable end state and each change brings us closer to it. Similarly, describing evolutionary change as taking the "next step" connotes movement toward a goal. But change is only change. Perhaps it is because I am a pragmatist that I see all life as, essentially, pragmatic: whatever works. The goal is constant and unchanging, not an end state toward which life strives. Bear in mind that this may have been a random opportunity for me to riff on something that is a personal peeve rather than much of a reflection on anything that has been said here. And forgive me if that is required.
No apopligies necessary. Your is an interesting POV and well worth veering for.
As a scientists, I suppose, I don't believe that evolutionary "progress" is directed toward a goal. The physical world is set in motion and we are all along for the ride. What is an advantageous adaptation today may very well be a death-sentence in the future. "Progress" can only be viewed in terms of how we got to where we are now and not to look into the future toward some unknown, even more superior goal. So I think we agree...
very right Liz mom, I apologize if I conveyed that. The original poster had the superiority complex, not you.
Sorry.
Oh, I certainly have a superiority complex. I am a bad-*** scientist and world-class mom. But it has nothing to do with my neurological status (or lack thereof) 
.
Thanks for all your replies. Taking Victor13d' s comments. The reason why I have the Asperger personality before the tribal personality is simple. If it had come after we would have all inherited tribal characteristics. Convention thinks "disorder" ie these characteristics have been lost. It makes much more sense to think they wern't there in the first place than somehow the brain malfunctionioned and rather carlessly lost them.
Saint: Thanks. Asperger wasn't quite the great hero everybody thinks he is. His work was based on eugenics which wasn't one of the sounder branches of science. The Asperger personality didn't just happen over night its always been there. In 1652 it was the personality that formed the Quakers. Their beliefs are all based on the Asperger personality.
I'm full of fascinating useful facts. Well at least I think they are. The tribe and the Asperger personality did come together and the Aspie formed the special place of religious leader to the tribe. This was after the minds were formed. We still live together today. Well just about.
Sarahjoke: An Aspie with a superiority complex is called a Narcessist. They have even got a separate disorder for that.
The Aspergic personality or "original mind" as I prefer is superior in some things and inferior in others. I have it as older than the tribal mind for purely logical reasons. Just because something is older doesn't mean it is better or worse. For instance a mark 1 ford escort was actually better than the mark 2 which rusted rather a lot. Sometimes its the other way round. As for the age thing its a bit like a 75 year old going out with a 78 year old. Time is almost irrelevant. One of my special stregnths is the ability to see patterns and I can see a pattern in the species that says two personalities form it. By the way my user name come from the name of a book if it seems a little odd.
Simen, what people keep forgetting is this is potentially a very...i think the word is volatile...place.
6000+ aspies all in one place. its a bleeding powder keg.
Thanks Simen for you reply. For a biological answer science would have to find all the genetic mutations that make the difference between the asperger personality and the neurotypical. People are looking for this however even if it is found is it going to be possible to say one has gone wrong.
My approach is about modelling our evolutionary story. Was that story especially complicated. The answer is no it wasn't it was actually quite simple. This isn't conventional science I don't pretend it to be. By taking our evolution from the trees down in reducing group sizes to the single human family we can make sense of how we behave today. For instance we live in single family groups. That does not come from a sociable evolutionary existence. Best friends comes from a group of two. Friendship from a group of three or four. These existences were the predeccessors to the single family. Following the single family we get the tribe with social characteristics that are considered normal. These include language, status, pride, loyalty, humour etc. They were neccessary for the tribe to function. By allowing the single family to survive along side the tribe we get the cause of Asperger's. Asperger's learn tribal characteristics. This leads to wide variety. You get extroverts and introverts with the norm being the tribal personality. It is the same with all the tribal characteristics. They can be learn't over the full range.
Ill give you the evidence that asperger's came from eugenics next time. Its on a floppy disk from my old computer and my new one hasn't got a floppy drive. It was all to do with psychopaths which some how seems to have been dropped from the original description "Autistic Psychopathy".
cheers
Simen asked for evidence that Asperger's was born out of eugenics.
The first published words I have found from Hans Asperger is his paper dated 8th October 1943. “Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood”. On that paper the president of the University of Vienna is named as Franz Hamburger. This is what he had to say in 1939 according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. It is inconceivable to me that Asperger’s paper got out of the university and published if it was not in accordance with Nazi party eugenic philosophy.
THE NAZI CREED WITH REGARD TO MEDICINE
The principle address at the inaugural session was delivered by Prof. Franz Hamburger, ordinarius in paediatrics (and successor of Pirquet), long known for his Nazi sympathies. He climaxed his talk with the following pronouncement: “National socialism means a revolution in every sphere of our civilisation and culture. No phase of western culture is unaffected by it. Most noteworthy of all, and what must remain most noteworthy, is the revolution in the realm of medical science, in the field of public health.” The speaker went on to say that, despite the achievements of natural science within the past 150 years, medicine had been on the wrong track. “Medicine has now progressed beyond its old frontiers and has broken out of its shell, thanks to the philosophy and deeds of the fuhrer.” The healing art of yesterday has become the planned hygiene of today, the medical knowledge of mankind. Thus paediatrics becomes the medical study of children, gynaecology the medical study of women and so on. “With admiral clarity and logic the fuhrer points the way into these fields, “like a physician by the grace of God he shows us the path to health.” The rubbish of which physicians must free themselves is the dross of misapplied science, that pseudoscience in medicine which opposes itself to the clearly ascertainable facts of everyday experience. Hamburger then assailed “that freedom from preconception” which has been such a source of pride. “A real renascence of medical science, on Nazi foundations, must take place.” That which is taught by university professors must be completely founded on the tenents of the Nazi program of life and health. “This should be easier for him (the teacher) because national socialism rests on an absolutely sound biological basis.” The chief spokesmen of the various medical disciplines at the universities must be confirmed Nazis; this applies especially to clinicians. Hamburger went on to deprecate the “arrogance of physicians” and to put in a good word for “nature medicine,” which, he said, ought not to be too lightly esteemed. “National socialism, unlike any other political philosophy or party program, is in accord with the natural history and biology of man. And because national socialism considers all known physiologic data from nature and from human behaviour, it merely represents truths about man. It is accordingly well suited to the direction of the health of our people.” Hamburger then turned his fire in succession on Catholicism, liberalism and socialism. He next entered into a discussion of several general problems, in the course of which he said that only a wrongly educated, intellectually biased patient would wish to know the diagnosis-and more along the same line.
JAMA 112 (1939) page 1981
Not too suprisingly nobody has replied to my last post. If anybody has read Uta Friths book "Autism and Asperger's Syndrome" there is a little history provided about Asperger's work. Hamburger is mentioned as he was working in the same field as Asperger at Vienna University. Asperger wasn't at a senior enough level to be recorded in the publications of the day. A bit like me really. When he was in 1944 information wasn't coming out of Austria because of the war. Hamburger on the other hand can be traced up to when war broke out. After that we don't get information comming out of the Reich for obvious reasons. I am afraid the truth is not always a pretty picture like the one Uta Frith paints. That does not mean however it is wrong to tell the truth or paint a different picture.
What is my purpose. Well it is the same as yours. Establish our personalities on a fair basis. At the moment the perception of the masses is quite simply you have got something wrong with you. Thats what everybody is telling them. What I am saying is that perception isn't right. We don't have anything wrong with us. The basis for a syndrome is highly unsound. I recognise that people find comfort it it as an explanation for the problems they face and that those problems are real. What I want to show you is something better. Something that there is no question of curing or trying to eliminate. A species made from two normal personalities.
My methodology is completely different to anybody elses. No boxing into the fortresess of science religion history mathematics story telling art. I see no walls. It is through looking at everything the breakthough comes. If you want to see what I can see talk to me.
What if AS mutations are just nothing more than resistance to some old world infection, vis a vis sickle cell anemia's "Evolution"? Where is your selection in this AS:Evolution theory? In employment or education? Where is your sexual dominance in this AS:Evolution theory? Superior? So what? Then all you've proven is that Aspies are like Apple computers; superior in their day, but never really loved or needed until purchased from a garage sale and tossed into the elementary school's library.