If you want to evolve, ask someone Autistic...

I want to bump this discussion up the list, and hope the following is comprehensible. Couldn't the theory explain much of how we are different? It fits in neatly with the idea of neurodiversity, and recalls:

• Temple Grandin: 'Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.'
• Steve Silberman: 'Whatever autism is, it is not a unique product of modern civilization. It is a strange gift from our deep past, passed down through millions of years of evolution.'

The article conjures up a particular autistic phenotype, archetype or stereotype: the tracker, the witch, the monk, the boffin. Where would we be without specialists? Probably extinct, or still in isolated tribes. There would certainly be no settlements or modern society without specialisation, or someone to experimentally and doggedly pioneer that specialism.

(Of course there are dangers with too much specialisation and we seem to require more than more specialists to deal with that. As Carl Sagan said: 'We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster. It’s dangerous and stupid for us to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain.'  Relevant to specialisation, Aldous Huxley: 'An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.')

So if autism is adaptive for the tribe, it explains a few things, 'symptoms' which may or may not occur together; attention to detail, to become fascinated with animal behaviour or where plants are found; intense focus or 'monotropism' and a tendency to special interests at the expense of general communication; 'local processing bias' which the paper describes as associated with talented representational artists; concern with symbolic systems; sensory hypersensitivity to the environment, and hyposensitivity to physical needs and sensory processing differences; both wanting things the same, and seeking out something specific.

These characteristics might differ from those of others, who use much of their brain for understanding social dynamics, emoting and communicating to keep the group together, for their own purposes and for the group's. Apparently it's been found that the regions of the brain that in neurotypical people are used for recognising faces, understanding non-verbal communication and social implications are in autistic people used instead for special interests. This could provide a few individuals (not too many), with enhanced abilities in specialised fields. Those people would be more flexible, in a long-term sense, and diverse. It's been said that autism is like a different 'operating system'. In computing terms, I wonder if it is more like being built without certain optional firmware ROMs, so that social abilities are not hard-coded, but can be learned in general-purpose software.

Maybe we can imagine identifying with our forebears in a cave scene by firelight: 'Please stop waving that smelly mammoth leg around. Can't you see I'm trying to finish my PhD painting on "101 ways to skin a sabre-toothed tiger"? Get those breasts out of my face. Stop partying!"

The problem I have with the idea is that if there's such a long evolutionary history, why do autistic people find social interaction so much harder? Wouldn't it have been better if people had evolved ability to concentrate on a particular subject, without losing the abilities to see social context and bond emotionally through shared signals? That way, we might have less desire to spend time chatting than we do sorting and studying, but could still socialise when needed to achieve a respectable status with our peers.  Some related possibilities:

• It's just not possible to have the one without the other, the focus without the social impairment, either because of genetic linkage or that's just how it is, local versus global processing. This seems implied by the research paper.
• In many societies (some mentioned in the paper), these traits wouldn't have been so much of a disadvantage as they are in our isolated world. Those societies would be closer than modern cities, so that there was no chance of not forming friendships with the group; and the autistic traits, particularly if expressed in art or music, would be well respected.
• Lack of inclination to socialise early on means little practice and so under-development of the ability.
• As part of the overall genetic package, delayed development of social skills are the way in which the special interests are formed in childhood and throughout life. Evolution doesn't much care that we can't do what it makes us want to do, and consequently become unhappy.

Autism is not, as is often assumed, a recent phenomenon as the genes coding for autism have
a long ancestry, dating to before the emergence of the hominin line. Autism is thus part of the shared ape
genome [refs] with autistic traits apparent in chimpanzees
(Marrus et al., 2011; Faughn et al., 2015) and autism genes also found in other primates including macaques
(Yoshida et al., 2016). These genes play a role in the ‘evolvability’ or capacity to adapt of the ape and human
genome ... individuals with exceptional talents in realistic depiction also commonly experience social
traits associated with autism ... Spikins et al. (2016) have argued for example
that the incorporation of autism is explained through understanding that autism spectrum conditions are
not asocial, but differently social, with individuals with autism without intellectual impairment potentially
bringing important skills and fulfilling important roles in society in the past, as in the present ... In the case of those for whom local processing bias also brought with it traits of autism, compulsive behaviour patterns or certain social difficulties, emerging roles for their social and technical skills (Spikins et al., 2016) would explain the positive selection for autism genes through a balance
of skills and deficits.

Well, maybe. I suggested here http://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/11765/is-aspergers-the-next-evolutionary-step-for-humans that intense autistic traits may be maladaptive for the individual, but adaptive for kin or for the group, because of the cultural advantages the specialist brings that are adopted by the group, or because in weaker combinations or forms, the genes variants manifest more as intellectual 'skills' than deficits.

I want to bump this discussion up the list, and hope the following is comprehensible. Couldn't the theory explain much of how we are different? It fits in neatly with the idea of neurodiversity, and recalls:

• Temple Grandin: 'Who do you think made the first stone spears? The Asperger guy. If you were to get rid of all the autism genetics, there would be no more Silicon Valley.'
• Steve Silberman: 'Whatever autism is, it is not a unique product of modern civilization. It is a strange gift from our deep past, passed down through millions of years of evolution.'

The article conjures up a particular autistic phenotype, archetype or stereotype: the tracker, the witch, the monk, the boffin. Where would we be without specialists? Probably extinct, or still in isolated tribes. There would certainly be no settlements or modern society without specialisation, or someone to experimentally and doggedly pioneer that specialism.

(Of course there are dangers with too much specialisation and we seem to require more than more specialists to deal with that. As Carl Sagan said: 'We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster. It’s dangerous and stupid for us to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain.'  Relevant to specialisation, Aldous Huxley: 'An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.')

So if autism is adaptive for the tribe, it explains a few things, 'symptoms' which may or may not occur together; attention to detail, to become fascinated with animal behaviour or where plants are found; intense focus or 'monotropism' and a tendency to special interests at the expense of general communication; 'local processing bias' which the paper describes as associated with talented representational artists; concern with symbolic systems; sensory hypersensitivity to the environment, and hyposensitivity to physical needs and sensory processing differences; both wanting things the same, and seeking out something specific.

These characteristics might differ from those of others, who use much of their brain for understanding social dynamics, emoting and communicating to keep the group together, for their own purposes and for the group's. Apparently it's been found that the regions of the brain that in neurotypical people are used for recognising faces, understanding non-verbal communication and social implications are in autistic people used instead for special interests. This could provide a few individuals (not too many), with enhanced abilities in specialised fields. Those people would be more flexible, in a long-term sense, and diverse. It's been said that autism is like a different 'operating system'. In computing terms, I wonder if it is more like being built without certain optional firmware ROMs, so that social abilities are not hard-coded, but can be learned in general-purpose software.

Maybe we can imagine identifying with our forebears in a cave scene by firelight: 'Please stop waving that smelly mammoth leg around. Can't you see I'm trying to finish my PhD painting on "101 ways to skin a sabre-toothed tiger"? Get those breasts out of my face. Stop partying!"

The problem I have with the idea is that if there's such a long evolutionary history, why do autistic people find social interaction so much harder? Wouldn't it have been better if people had evolved ability to concentrate on a particular subject, without losing the abilities to see social context and bond emotionally through shared signals? That way, we might have less desire to spend time chatting than we do sorting and studying, but could still socialise when needed to achieve a respectable status with our peers.  Some related possibilities:

• It's just not possible to have the one without the other, the focus without the social impairment, either because of genetic linkage or that's just how it is, local versus global processing. This seems implied by the research paper.
• In many societies (some mentioned in the paper), these traits wouldn't have been so much of a disadvantage as they are in our isolated world. Those societies would be closer than modern cities, so that there was no chance of not forming friendships with the group; and the autistic traits, particularly if expressed in art or music, would be well respected.
• Lack of inclination to socialise early on means little practice and so under-development of the ability.
• As part of the overall genetic package, delayed development of social skills are the way in which the special interests are formed in childhood and throughout life. Evolution doesn't much care that we can't do what it makes us want to do, and consequently become unhappy.

Autism is not, as is often assumed, a recent phenomenon as the genes coding for autism have
a long ancestry, dating to before the emergence of the hominin line. Autism is thus part of the shared ape
genome [refs] with autistic traits apparent in chimpanzees
(Marrus et al., 2011; Faughn et al., 2015) and autism genes also found in other primates including macaques
(Yoshida et al., 2016). These genes play a role in the ‘evolvability’ or capacity to adapt of the ape and human
genome ... individuals with exceptional talents in realistic depiction also commonly experience social
traits associated with autism ... Spikins et al. (2016) have argued for example
that the incorporation of autism is explained through understanding that autism spectrum conditions are
not asocial, but differently social, with individuals with autism without intellectual impairment potentially
bringing important skills and fulfilling important roles in society in the past, as in the present ... In the case of those for whom local processing bias also brought with it traits of autism, compulsive behaviour patterns or certain social difficulties, emerging roles for their social and technical skills (Spikins et al., 2016) would explain the positive selection for autism genes through a balance
of skills and deficits.

Well, maybe. I suggested here http://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/11765/is-aspergers-the-next-evolutionary-step-for-humans that intense autistic traits may be maladaptive for the individual, but adaptive for kin or for the group, because of the cultural advantages the specialist brings that are adopted by the group, or because in weaker combinations or forms, the genes variants manifest more as intellectual 'skills' than deficits.

Cassandro said:

The problem I have with the idea is that if there's such a long evolutionary history, why do autistic people find social interaction so much harder?

I suspect we can guess the answers to this, but you're not going to like it...

I posit that throughout human history it has been necessary to make certain tough choices, or "see things through" in impossible circumstances. Under these conditions, seeing things logically rather than being constrained by "what other people will be feeling" would have been an important advantage in terms of survival.

The ice age: the tribe is starving. There isn't enough food. You can see that if everyone is fed equally, everyone is going to die. Perhaps only someone with autistic traits is able to see with clarity what must be done, and see it through:

Prioritise the children older than three years, the women of fertile age, and sufficient healthy males to provide for the tribe and impregnate the females when more food is available to sustain a population increase. Cease wasting resources on the sick, the injured and the old. Children younger than three are unlikely to survive because they are not yet strong enough to survive the harsh conditions, and the babies will die anyway because starvation will cause their mothers' milk to dry up. Exile the sick since in a malnourished state disease will spread quickly. Anyone healthy who succumbs to the conditions can perhaps be put to more immediate use - dinner.

The Black Death: Perhaps only someone with autistic traits would be firm enough to shut out those who may be carrying the contagion, thereby preserving a settlement whilst all those around are stricken, as a result of their "humanity".

Perhaps only those who valued principles above "fitting in" would stand up for what they believed to be right, regardless of the consequences. Clearly, many such individuals would have suffered an unpleasant fate when no one else stood with them - but some would probably have ended up heroes, albeit as a result of the luck of history. These individuals would probably have bred (repeatedly) with multiple females, at least until those females figured out that their hero was actually rather odd, and a bit dull after all.

Cassandro said:

The problem I have with the idea is that if there's such a long evolutionary history, why do autistic people find social interaction so much harder?

1. Because a great deal of it can be deemed as unnecessary, purposeless and rather banal
2. it can get in the way of getting “stuff” done 

Maybe you could tier character types... the sociable diplomatic to unite the tribe and keep peace, the worker bees - I.e Hunter, soldier, physical labourer, and the geeky director working at levels of abstraction working at a conceptual level.?

we are still here, so it evidently hasn’t stopped breeding taking place... being silent maybe deemed an attractive feature! ;)