www.plosone.org/.../info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0057380
look at these links, some boffins in america have discovered they can correct autism in mice by using some chemical stuff, injected over a period of week, mice with autism behavours just become normal. (Hell, why can't we do anything like this in uk?)
What do you people think of this? is it ok to correct autism? would you do this?
(I would, hell I would even pay money to be included in kind of trial reguarding this)
longman said:I think the decision is being made for us. Autism has moved very quickly from being a 1 in a 1000 frequency to 1 in a 100, and still rising.Perhaps because we've moved from the survival of the fittest mode of gene development to one that tolerates a very wide range of fitness, we are seeing increases in the proportions of humans who find their environment difficult, and who wouldn't have survived in the past.
This is a harsh way of looking at things, but as more people survive to adulthood despite having characteristics less favourable for survival, they interbreed and produce yet more weaker strains.
Another indicator is the rise in allergies. One explanation is simply the increase in synthetic and gene modified foods and materials. However a few hundred years ago there were few mixed farming economies, most being either predominantly pastoral (raising animals or hunting) or agrarian (staying in one place several years and planting grains and roots). In pastoral economies you had to eat meat and drink milk to survive. In cultivator economies you had to eat cereals, roots and pulses.
The ability to acquire knowledge, which needs different thinkers, is how we stay ahead of extinction, though we already seem to be running out of time as regards antibiotics. But then we are also running out of fossil fuels, hence the fracking debate and whether to continue nuclear or have wind farms, and we are running short of key minerals. Diverse thinkers may be a luxury, as we could soon be back to basics.
Basics means that most of the population have to be engaged in food supply. Until about 1950 more than 50% of the populations of Spain and Portugal were engaged in agriculture, whereas in Britain it was down to 3%; Spain and Portugal are catching up. But this is unsustainable, and there is increasing pressure on our ability to support large numbers of "thinkers".
Certainly we need to think seriously about giving as many people as possible on the spectrum the means to live independent lives. Because if we don't confront this there will be consequences down the line. We talk about the increasing elderly population, but for the most part they contributed to their pensions and health schemes and have earned support in retirement. There is a limit to how many people we take on who have to be supported throughout their lives.
That's a clinical view that will horrify many. But its part of reality. The professionals have to start taking autism seriously if we are to avoid tragic outcomes sooner or later.
I concur Longman. To me it doesn't sound harsh or clinical, but then I am using my logical Aspie brain.
I have often wondered whether autism is an evolutionary thing, as we know, nature experiments until she gets it right. If we take emotions out of it entirely, (and I am aware this is considered very un-PC, I do not mean to offend) we know that in the past nature created species and versions of species that became extinct due to not being successful. Along the way, evolution of characteristics and traits of species were modified for the environment. Perhaps autism is the same thing, the most likely cause of which is of course, environmental. We live in an unnatural environment, people live and work in boxes so the group mentality is required less and less. We communicate long-distance and remotely.
Perhaps the reason autism is a spectrum is that nature is trying to fine-tune the adaptation. Nature has never been kind, it's always been eat or get eaten. We have complex human emotions but this doesn't mean we are not still animals and will not get treated the same as all other animal by the natural forces on this planet.
I wouldn't want to be "cured" I don't think. If everyone was as open and honest as an Aspie and said what they actually meant our difficulties in that area would dissolve. If people didn't play games, as we don't, we wouldn't get confused. If everyone concentrated and applied themselves as we do, a lot more would get done. If unnecessary crap was got rid of (or Aspies/auties came up with solutions) and people behaved a lot more logically, a lot of our sensory issues would be under control. In an optimum environment people with ASCs would react very differently. Currently, our environment is controlled entirely by NTs. If autism is an evolutionary adaptation, our numbers will grow and grow as Longman says, perhaps one day we will be treated like something to envy rather than defective.
Scorpion0x17 said:Also, this doesn't sound like a 'cure' in the traditional sense - one would probably need to continue taking the medication for life to remain 'cured'.
...and who knows what side-effects the chemical may have. Would it be a well-tested and researched for years, chemical?
Are you a member of the allotment association, Long man? :-)
I think the decision is being made for us. Autism has moved very quickly from being a 1 in a 1000 frequency to 1 in a 100, and still rising.
Perhaps because we've moved from the survival of the fittest mode of gene development to one that tolerates a very wide range of fitness, we are seeing increases in the proportions of humans who find their environment difficult, and who wouldn't have survived in the past.
This is a harsh way of looking at things, but as more people survive to adulthood despite having characteristics less favourable for survival, they interbreed and produce yet more weaker strains.
Another indicator is the rise in allergies. One explanation is simply the increase in synthetic and gene modified foods and materials. However a few hundred years ago there were few mixed farming economies, most being either predominantly pastoral (raising animals or hunting) or agrarian (staying in one place several years and planting grains and roots). In pastoral economies you had to eat meat and drink milk to survive. In cultivator economies you had to eat cereals, roots and pulses.
The ability to acquire knowledge, which needs different thinkers, is how we stay ahead of extinction, though we already seem to be running out of time as regards antibiotics. But then we are also running out of fossil fuels, hence the fracking debate and whether to continue nuclear or have wind farms, and we are running short of key minerals. Diverse thinkers may be a luxury, as we could soon be back to basics.
Basics means that most of the population have to be engaged in food supply. Until about 1950 more than 50% of the populations of Spain and Portugal were engaged in agriculture, whereas in Britain it was down to 3%; Spain and Portugal are catching up. But this is unsustainable, and there is increasing pressure on our ability to support large numbers of "thinkers".
Certainly we need to think seriously about giving as many people as possible on the spectrum the means to live independent lives. Because if we don't confront this there will be consequences down the line. We talk about the increasing elderly population, but for the most part they contributed to their pensions and health schemes and have earned support in retirement. There is a limit to how many people we take on who have to be supported throughout their lives.
That's a clinical view that will horrify many. But its part of reality. The professionals have to start taking autism seriously if we are to avoid tragic outcomes sooner or later.
So you're saying that because maintaining the packs' survival has been so difficult in terms of finding food and staying safe from predators and elements, people could not afford to carry a 'weak link'? Do you think that although we now live a very different existence, these practices have remained? Even though we now have the knowledge that thinking outside what is considered 'normal' can be greatly advantageous?
If we go back to being monkeys in the trees, its easy enough - natural selection. The weaker ones will get marginalised out or worse, because for the pack (or whatever collective noun is apt) to survive they have to work in coordination and cannot afford to be let down by one weak member.
Diversity is important in the process of natural selection, but would not be seen as an advantage by a pack of monkeys. Its about conformity, though not necessarily with the best role model other than the pack rules
To return to human social groupings there remains an extraordinary fear that someone might not be "pulling their weight" in which case more work for others, or someone might be a threat to the status quo, or someone might do silly things that "show up" the sub-group concerned in front of others. So there is a very strong will to get rid of any non-conformists.
It is amazing to watch this process in work settings. Employers seem very blinkered to what goes on unless it threatens themselves directly. They are afraid to intervene in case it leads to unrest that will undermine profits.
However what employers miss is the scale of sabotage and wrecking that goes on - various activities to fiddle expences, waste time etc., but compounded by the efforts to marginalise people who don't fit into this by undermining their value to the employer. Its totally amazing what goes on, and is a far bigger drain on profits than absenteeism (though one by product is victims taking time off work through stress).
Bullying and rivalry within British workplaces is universal. But it is still denied by managers and left to fester unchecked.
One direct consequence is that disabled employees rarely get allowed to co-exist. Forget disability discrimination here - the employer may be liable but it is much harder to prove constructive discrimination when a group of "workmates" decide they don't want a disabled colleague.
People on the spectrum really stand little chance of holding a job, unless they develop enough confidence and resilience to survive.
Yet the politicians and the professionals rabbit on about how people on the spectrum should be able to find work. Yet they themselves must have had bad run-ins in the workplace, just they were more resilient. The idea that disability could make someone less resilient doesn't enter their heads.
Littlebattler said:Diversity, in terms of natural selection, can be a life saver, a species saver. Why, as a group then, do humans feel the need to weed out and ridicule those who are different? This happens at school, in the workplace and in nature but why, if diversity is so necessary to our species?
Because for the majority of our evolution we lived in extended family groups ('the tribe'), and adopted rituals and traditions that allowed competing groups to safely come together and maintain genetic diversity.
The behaviours we see in the modern world are due to our not having yet evolved and adapted to fit the environment in which we now live.
Diversity, in terms of natural selection, can be a life saver, a species saver. Why, as a group then, do humans feel the need to weed out and ridicule those who are different? This happens at school, in the workplace and in nature but why, if diversity is so necessary to our species?
How on earth can you correct something that is not wrong?
And too many are paying a harsh price for being 'too normal' (see my post in the other thread).
Fair enough....in that case what chance have we of getting local authorities and national government to take us seriously?
I agree that autism, while being cruel to many, may be nature's way of providing abilities to make crucial breakthroughs.
Trouble is that applies to less than one in a hundred. The rest seem to suffer needlessly and harshly.
I don't think I suggested anywhere that autism was a disease. But there is surely no denying some people's lives are very seriously constrained by it.
Therefore I don't think "different" is sufficient. Too many are paying a harsh price for "different"
We, Longman, are normal in the sense that Autism is not a disease.
It is, in my opinion, a natural, and I would argue necessary, part of the human phenotype.
A product of natural genetic inheritance, and environment.
Not a product of something going wrong.
I strongly believe we are different, not abnormal.
Ah, Scorpion0x17, how are we normal? Normal is a relative term to the behaviour of the general population. Are we back on the "spectrum" / "continuum" idea? We're just a few shades off normal? I think not.
There's something more to all this and we need to stop understating the case.
Junerae said:Some days I would say yes please cure my son of Aspergers...however he wouldnt be my son if you did...funny enough I had this conversation with my son just a couple of days ago....and he said he doesnt want to be "normal" he said whats normal for one person isnt whats normal for another....
We (people with Asperger's) ARE "normal"!
Some days I would say yes please cure my son of Aspergers...however he wouldnt be my son if you did...funny enough I had this conversation with my son just a couple of days ago....and he said he doesnt want to be "normal" he said whats normal for one person isnt whats normal for another....
Sounds like a 100 year old eugenics thesis, even more so as it's reported in the Daily Mail.
Longman is right. However may I add, genetic drift is what also causes evolution. I'm happy to let apehood take it's natural course to extinction.
Another factor is that the human race only survives because of diversity (something NTs find hard to accept). Cruel though autism is, it does create different thinkers. Most of the breakthroughs in medicine, engineering, architecture, agricultural science, aerospace......have been by persistant, meticulous, focussed even obsessive thinkers.
The notion that the "normal" human, nicely standardised, will survive very long, shows how little understanding there is in these claims.
