The astute reader may have noted that the views in my previous post are not entirely consistent with comments I recently posted about the bill recently introduced in the U.S. Congress to increase funding for autism research and related matters. Perhaps that is because I find myself very confused about these things.
Depends on which side of the argument you are between Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould.
I have to say though, I find the whole idea of whether there is some genetic evolutionary value to autism a bit of a red herring. Surely we as humans have gone a bit beyond simple genetic programming? The fact that we have self-awareness, the ability to think for ourselves, build civilisations etc puts us in a very different ball park?
Roderick