Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all
I was musing the other day on the roots of autism and two things struck me:
So both are potentially controversial theories and please we are trying to only look at scientific information and not conspiracy theories, my reason for saying this will become very clear in a moment.
Looking at the first point, whilst it had been comprehensively shown scientifically in multiple studies that there is not a direct link between vaccines and autism, and the original "research" that started that whole controversy was unscientific and unethical, there are still some important questions that remain. Autistics for instance, are far more likely than the neurotypical population to have a range of autoimmune medical conditions, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, which is interesting as there is a small risk with every vaccination of an autoimmune reaction. Hence there is an interesting question as to why autistics are more autoimmune disease prone and does this make them more disposed to a vaccination reaction? So whilst they already had autism do the traits come out post vaccination due to an autoimmune reaction or is there not link or something more sinister?
As for two species, we know that all, but people of direct African decent, modern humans contain some neanderthal DNA. IS it possible though that autistics contain some other neanderthal DNA that makes them more neanderthal than human, hence two species in effect. We know that humans and neanderthals did copulate ad have cross-species babies, so its possible that they "live on". Think also what happens when one crosses a horse and a donkey, so what happens if one crosses a neanderthal and a human? Before dismissing it, think about it, think about the possibilities and what we could represent.
Cheers
Andy
I'm not sure about anything you state as facts. I believe human DNA and genetic make-up is very complex and mutations can be good or bad. In the natural world, the fittest survive, the faulty die out. The fact that there are common genetic problems means that the DNA molecule has common weak points.
My Asperger's means I can do things that NTs can't. My ability to see through complex problems and abilty to concentrate on fine details and my eidetic memory means that I make most NTs look totally incompetent and non-productive in comparison. I was lucky and found my 'place in the world' so I was successful. I consider myself a 'good' mutation. i'm also a non-identical twin and my brother is NT.
The whole MMR thing is a red-herring - there was no such thing as MMR when I was a kid - yet here I am. I have a serious auto-immune problem. I look back at my school days and there were loads of 'different' kids but they ended up in special schools or remedial classes so they were invisible to society. Today, they all go to mainstream schools so they stand out more.
I said from the outset that the MMR thing itself was a red herring, however, an autoimmune reaction to any vaccination is something that happens on a day to day basis, in the same way as people can have an allergic reaction to food, it is the same biological mechanism. So that is scientific fact, that some people will have an autoimmune reaction to the MMR jab, in the same way they can to the flu jab, which is why I am now hypothyroidic, or any travel immunisation. The probability of a reaction is very low, but given that as laid out above aspergians are more likely to have certain autoimmune conditions, they what I am doing is postulating a hypothesis that autistics might have a predisposition to autoimmune reactions. There is a body of work out there that supports the hypothesis and it is an area that is being studied for instance https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5373490/ or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29301665 remebering that RA is an autoimmune disorder.
As for the scientific basis of the neanderthal hypothesis, that again was based on scientific fact "Neanderthal Genome Project found that 2.5 percent of an average non-African human's genome is made up of Neanderthal DNA. The average modern African has no Neanderthal DNA. This information could support the interbreeding hypothesis because it suggests that Neanderthals and other species only bred once the other humans had moved out of Africa, into Eurasia, according to a 2012 paper published in the journal PLOS." (source https://www.livescience.com/28036-neanderthals-facts-about-our-extinct-human-relatives.html). So in that respect there is a potential basis and an area in which a minor gene dominance could trigger one from being more human to more Neanderthal. As you said yourself, your identifican brother is NT but you are Aspergerian, the only difference has to be a single mutation or perhaps something else caused it such as an autoimmune reaction.
All I am doing is putting forward two hypothesis that do have some genuine scientific information behind them, in order to start a discussion that may or may not turn out to be interesting.
I don't think the vaccine theory is true. There have been many, many studies that tried to find an association between autism and vaccination, and each one is clear that vaccines don't cause autism.
Here's a general overview of the history of how this idea spread: https://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/do-vaccines-cause-autism#1
Here's another scientific study that gave several reasons as to why the idea of vaccines causing autism by inducing autoimmune response is flawed: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/48/4/456/284219
The Neanderthal and Homo sapiens idea is quite fun, but I don't think it's true that "autistics contain some other neanderthal DNA that makes them more neanderthal than human". Firstly, we would be able to see differences in appearance if that were true: a wider, barrel-shaped rib cage, a reduced chin, sloping forehead, and a large nose. Second, and probably a stronger argument, is that you've said Africans don't have Neanderthal DNA, but autism does exist in Africans. And at the moment, there is no indication that there’s anything different about the presentation of autism in Africa.