Is Autism The Next Stage in Human Evolution?

It was not so long ago that I was introduced to the idea that some people believe autism to be the next step in human evolution by a strange man in your average pub debate. I may have been a few pints down at that point, but even still, feelings of doubt were all I could muster up. To my surprise there are those both in the academic sphere and random morons of the internet that do side with this hypothesis, so I thought I'd take an objective look at some of their articles in this post. First, we'll visit an analogy from Dr Frank Gaskill, and then in case that doesn't convince you we'll be dissecting a reply from some idiot in a comments thread. That's all to come, but we'll start with a discussion on lemons from Dr Gaskill. How exciting.
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https://www.psychbytes.com/lets-talk-lemons-why-autism-is-the-next-stage-of-human-evolution/

https://medium.com/social-club/autism-the-next-step-in-human-evolution-c22d8d9648be
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This is a terrible analogy. Lemons provide a bitter flavour that may well enhance foods such as fish, but have no place in a full English breakfast or a Greggs steak bake. Just because something adds flavour does not mean it instantly compliments that said item. If we apply this logic to autistic individuals we find that they add flavour to humanity in some aspects but are detrimental abominations in others. The comment that really struck me was how not enough autism will not add flavour to humanity. Surely there are much better ways to add flavour to humanity than encouraging people to be born with a mental stigma. It's all very well being supportive of autistic individuals, but let's not brush over the very serious consequences this condition may have on not just individuals, but the people around them as well. I don't see this lemon analogy being of any use in clearing up queries about the spectrum.

I'd also like to question the factual accuracy of these statements. If we measure intelligence by IQ, which does provide a good general overview for intelligence in humans, we find that autistic children are indeed of average intelligence, even if the researchers like to sugarcoat their findings a lot less than this article. However, to call an autistic child averagely intelligent is missing the critical point that they have imbalanced components associated with intelligence, and so whilst they may have average IQs, they're often critically lacking in areas surrounding socialisation. The problem we're faced with here is that human beings are naturally a social species, and we remain heavily so in the modern age despite our more sedentary lifestyles. If we're presenting the idea that autism is the future of humanity then we have to address this huge hurdle of limited social skills.

The professor then goes on a detailed history lesson on the origins of autism and Aspergers, but we'll skip ahead for more lemon analogies. Can't wait.

You can tell this is the argument of a psychology professor. It's quite hard to imagine a 'Human 2.0' when evolution is a constant process, and we don't suddenly get massive updates that change our genetics forever. Its true evolution occurs at differing rates, with often huge changes seen in a short space of evolutionary time, but I'm still not seeing how spicing up humanity like a lemon is going to lead to rapid evolutionary change.

But let's live in this professor's fantasy world anyway. We have here a very romanticised version of medieval history where mere intelligence is enough to propel you to the most privileged positions in society. Even if we ignore this humongous flaw we have the glaring fault that this example is clearly equating modern societal norms with life in the middle ages. Just because there's a stereotype that people with limited social skills don't get invited to parties nowadays doesn't mean this same stereotype existed in the past. Surely the most lavish parties would have been thrown by the aristocracy in medieval times, so if you so happened to have found your way into one of the positions listed above you probably would get invited to a lot of parties, whilst also getting a pick of the women. The first man to build a refracting telescope, Galileo, had three children. Martin Luther, who translated bibles in his spare time, had six children. Obviously, you wouldn't have children in a monastery, but you get the idea that the people you're describing here are happily procreating.

In the Industrial Revolution I would have thought these flavoursome individuals would have lived in the British Empire, where the revolution actually happened. Casting aside my national pride I think we're diverting away from these lemons even further now. We're now becoming Benjamin Franklin, and whilst we don't know if he had autism, we do know he had three kids and a wife. What differs Benjamin Franklin from your previous examples? Not only do we have a psychology professor who thinks he understands evolution, but we now have one that thinks he's an expert in history as well. I have no fucking clue how any of this relates to the evolution of autism, and I find it strange we're now using modern examples of people who don't have autism to illustrate this poor analogy. The only trends we find in this analogy are that people now have a greater freedom of moment, higher social mobility, and the growing separation between church and state. How in any way does this provide evidence that autism is the future of humanity?

Okay I get it, similar individuals are more likely to copulate with one another and so the genes for autism are conserved and become correlated with higher intelligence. We'll ignore the fact that this process only describes a tiny minority of the population, and that intelligence is only one of many reasons men are seen as attractive, because that's not the case in this man's fantasy world. I think I need a sick bag to get through this paragraph. Thank God there's no evidence that this 'Human 2.0' is taking over the world because I don't want my life to end up like a fucking Ladybird children's book. Fuck you and your lemons, this is just anecdotal horseshit.

It wouldn't be one of my blog posts without looking at how some nutjob on the internet sees things, and so here we have an even less rational approach to this argument:

Oh boy have the standards dropped here, and they weren't very high to begin with. How do you even attempt to dissect everything wrong with this one? Firstly, you may well see elements of pack mentality within humans, but that doesn't mean pack mentality is the very foundation of modern society. There are huge differences between wild dogs and modern humans, and I'm not just referring to how distantly related we are to wolves. Just because these wolves and humans share a hierarchy system does not mean their social tendencies are related or in any way similar. We can actively see changes towards oppressed members throughout human history, whether that be the civil rights movements in America, or Rome's acceptance of Christianity. There's no indoctrination into certain systems, and the Western World prides itself on the freedom of thought. Maybe in some households individuality is stamped out, but in general children are free to express themselves. What I'm getting at is these brief and terrible generalisations of society are painfully reductionist and describes a world that doesn't exist. Autistic children do not only hang around with other autistic children, and in Western countries we aid these troubled individuals in tasks they may find difficult. That's not pack mentality, and it certainly isn't brainwashing.

Whilst I agree people tend to look down on autistic individuals, I do not agree with your blanket assessment that these individuals are not 'defective'. As we've seen in my analysis autistic individuals generally suffer from social deficiencies, so I'm bemused as to why this writer would claim the inverse to be true. Surely autistic people are just as much a part of society as anyone else, and so by separating autistic people from the rest of society you're creating the very boundaries you seek to destroy.

You can always tell a point is going to be well argued when it begins with the letters 'IMO'. I also don't know why 'gifted' has become a proper noun, but I can only assume this is some strange term originating from this writer's fantasy realm. It must be a fictional world if psychic gifts are being cited as evidence for evolutionary processes. I dread to think what these 'New Age Gifts' are, but they're probably called that because in days of yore society would actively burn people who had these gifts whilst they were still alive. Maybe not being persecuted anymore is why being autistic is suddenly an evolutionary advantage. With this level of bullshit you just never know.

Just to clarify, the reason why autistic individuals are often socially inept is that apparently they feel everything, rather than the fact their abnormal brains might lack depth in areas, which is a point we've already seen scientific evidence for. The exposing of nerves, often called multiple sclerosis, is yet another terrible comparison, and has nothing to do with feeling everything; or autism for that matter. In actual fact the demyelination of neurones often decreases the sensitivity an individual experiences. Not only is this writer wrong, but the direct opposite is actually true. Yet more evidence is piling up that this person has no fucking clue what they're going on about.

Sorry, you're now arguing that normal people are categorised by their lack of empathy! Surely that's the other way round. A lack of empathy is one of the defining features of autism. Do you have the first idea what autism even is? Surely people with impaired social skills would have more emotional barriers, not less. The lack of barriers apparently means autistic people have never been cruel or unkind throughout history, which is just an absurd generalisation. and paints the average human being as an emotionally detached zombie. Incidentally we've still yet to find a shred evidence, which is strange, as all this sounds so plausible.

Another point I disagree with is that people interact less with each other. I actually think the opposite is true, and the increased connectivity provided by social media services and global cell phone networks means we can talk to potentially billions of people from just about anywhere on the planet. Sure, you could argue these interactions aren't on a personal level, but you can't deny the number of conversations between individuals is increasing in volume as we progress through the digital age. I just think this writer is trying to force a deeper meaning out of an issue that isn't there in the first place, and has been doing so throughout her whole piece. Never has the term 'faux intellectual' been more appropriate.

I really want to question whether humanity really is more hateful than it has ever been. Is it really more hateful than when we used to invade whole areas of the world in the name of religion? Is it really more hateful than in the days when we used to enslave whole countries in exchange for goods and services? Just a quick trip to any moor in Britain will give you all the evidence you need that humans have historically cared little about the environment, with whole areas of forest being felled into barren grassland. Caring about the environment isn't an adaptation, and these processes have nothing to do with autistic people. If you take issue with this then provide some fucking evidence for once.

That's a big fucking 'what if'. A more sensible 'what if' would be suggesting you're a complete moron who has no fucking clue what they're talking about. Nature's solution doesn't necessarily try and improve the status quo, and in fact when faced with peril species will often enter what's known as an extinction vortex in which rapid adaptations and rapid environmental change lead to destructive changes. Nature has no concept of morality, and doesn't give a toss over the fight between good and evil, so let's cut out this spiritual crap. This has just become pseudoscience now, plain and simple. It's just one poorly explained statement that's trying to convince people to make a radical change that has dramatic effects on the very future of mankind. It's the sort of prophecy you would expect from a sadistic lunatic, and the quicker thoughts like this are moved to the fringes of society the quicker humanity can sort itself out through rationality and empirically based reasoning. This rationality will not magically reach a golden age if we start worshipping autistic people, but by actually analysing the facts and stop spouting nonsensical tales that are counterproductive in aiding individuals with special needs.

Funnily enough the scientific literature is strangely quiet when it comes to proclaiming autistic people as the future. Evidence has shown that individuals with autism are more likely to mate with each other, passing on the genes correlated with autism through generations. Furthermore, studies on honey bees demonstrate how genes linked to autistic tendencies are conserved through generations, even if this particular organism displays vastly different social tendencies than humans. It's when we start to ask ourselves why these traits have been selected within human populations that these articles above start to fall apart. There are a variety of differing hypotheses surrounding the evolutionary history behind autism. Some studies entertain the idea that autistic behaviour originated in individuals that preferred to forage alone, whereas others have suggested that autistic traits arise in mating strategies geared towards longer partnerships. Some have even suggested that increased sociality is advantageous when procuring resources from parents, with the reduced ability to procure resources being attributed to autism. All we need now is evidence that autistic traits are heritable, and we have a potential mechanism as to how autism evolved.

Critically evolutionary studies have not found any evidence to support the hypotheses proposed by the idiots in this article, nor is there any substantial evidence that these evolved traits will be advantageous in the future. The unfortunate truth is that we simply don't know how autistic genes became fixed in populations, let alone why they've been conserved over time. Somehow the opinions presented by the writers in this piece thought differently, relying on ignorance instead of evidence, and only aiding in turning a complex problem into reductive hogwash. There are clear negative consequences from being autistic, and simply misinterpreting this behaviour as evolutionarily advantageous is certainly not a compelling enough argument to start rejoicing mentally handicapped individuals as the new master race. Both of these articles are useless quite frankly. They draw up these idyllic pictures of how genetics works, yet fail to analyse any key components of how genes become fixed within populations. It's yet another example of how ideological idiocy can easily be labelled as scientific, even if the very foundations are complete bullshit.