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At 10/1/09 03:17 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: Autism isn't a disorder, it's a condition made up by phychs for parents who think they have unruly kids.

Ignorance of the highest order.

Autism is sometimes caused by physical conditions including maladaptive mutations and faulty synapses. It most certainly isn't "failed evolution" because evolution cannot make a being go backwards in progress.

In other words, evolution would prevent a land-dwelling mammal that evolved from a fish from developing gills. Obviously, this is incredibly over-simplified, but I hope it clears things up a little.

At 10/1/09 04:14 PM, Bijhan wrote: There is nothing guiding evolution.

Environmental selection. The definitions of guiding and selecting may be different, but the result is the same.

B) YOU DON'T HAVE TO HAVE KIDS YOURSELF TO PARTICIPATE IN EVOLUTION

OK, let me put it this way: Have you ever seen a properly autistic person successfully have their own kids OR care for anyone else's kids? Didn't think so. This point does not apply to fully autistic people regardless.

People with autism don't just think outside the box, they think of the box in a wholly different way, and it may save the human species some day.

Define 'the box'. There's no real line between normal thinking and abnormal thinking, as was the point of a large chunk of this thread in the first place. You don't HAVE to be autistic by anyone's measure to have original thoughts.

Considering there isn't a destinctive area with a large amount of cases or a whole community of people with autism, it cannot be called evolution. But rather a hereditary factor. Hereditary factors are the basic principles of evolution. But considering how human society broke natural selection, evolution is no longer taking place or needed on a large scale.

And trust me, Asperger's isn't just a little hinderance. While it does have it good points such as increased logical capacity and usually higher IQ, it also usually results in a very low EQ. Considering how society requires alot of communication and social events, it really is a big liability in that part. Not only is it a problem of feeling socially awkward, but also simply not understanding certain things what others would think as normal. ( thus the low EQ )

At 10/1/09 03:39 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: Stuff

I'm in the exact same situation. I've been told I have Aspergers, ADD, OCD, and Depression from different psychiatrists, yet I experience none of the common symptoms of any of these.

It's beleived that people who don't grow wisdom teeth are more "evolved".

At 10/1/09 04:37 PM, Rabid-Animals wrote: In other words, evolution would prevent a land-dwelling mammal that evolved from a fish from developing gills. Obviously, this is incredibly over-simplified, but I hope it clears things up a little.

Wow. No. Evolution wouldn't do anything of the kind. A land-dwelling mammal that developed gills would not be "prevented" by evolution. If a land-dwelling mammal were to develop gills, it would require an extreme expenditure of calories to maintain these useless organs. Or else the individuals who had these organs would find some use for them. A land-dwelling mammal that developed gills would likely be evolutionarily advantageous, as it would fill a new niche as a semi-aquatic mammal capable of spending vast amounts of time underwater. But only if the opportunity of both the mutation and an environment in which to take advantage of this mutation exists.

At 10/1/09 04:46 PM, Sheizenhammer wrote:

At 10/1/09 04:14 PM, Bijhan wrote: There is nothing guiding evolution.

Environmental selection. The definitions of guiding and selecting may be different, but the result is the same.

B) YOU DON'T HAVE TO HAVE KIDS YOURSELF TO PARTICIPATE IN EVOLUTION

OK, let me put it this way: Have you ever seen a properly autistic person successfully have their own kids OR care for anyone else's kids? Didn't think so. This point does not apply to fully autistic people regardless.

People with autism don't just think outside the box, they think of the box in a wholly different way, and it may save the human species some day.

Define 'the box'. There's no real line between normal thinking and abnormal thinking, as was the point of a large chunk of this thread in the first place. You don't HAVE to be autistic by anyone's measure to have original thoughts.

I'll address this on a point-by-point basis.

1) Durrrrrr. Environmental factors don't guide evolution. They don't make decisions, and they don't try to accomplish things. They are parameters. The checkers board don't move the pieces; just tells them where they can go and where they can't.

2) Autistic savants don't have to help pay bills to enrich the human community, first off. The human lust for art and expression is a positively adaptive trait that has led to extremely complex behavior. Without literature there would be no psychology; without sculpture no architecture; and without painting no physiology. Autistic people are not ALWAYS positively adapted. Some are. Matt Savage, Daniel Tammet, and Kim Peek have made plenty of money for their family and helped enrich the lives of people across the world. So no, not every autistic person is going to be able to perpetuate their own genes. But read what I said about ants again, and this time pay attention. Contributions to the SuperOrganism (read: Humanity) help perpetuate the species. That's evolution, baby.

3) You're still thinking in the box, boyo. I'm not talking about original thought, I'm talking about SIDEWAYS thought. Anyone can have a thought that no one else has ever had. But think of the way thoughts are formed. I'm not going to make some kind of paltry analogy because the process is complicated and elaborate. Surely it's different for every person. Our thoughts are all similar enough, though, that we can condense them into little squiggles on a surface. Or we can bark them out in complex wiggling of our tongues and throats. We have the ability to translate our thoughts into language, and translate language back into thoughts. The more autistic a person is, the less able they are to do this. Why? It's not the translator that broken.

This is a gross oversimplification, but here goes. You make a machine that can translate any English you put into it, into German. You put in an English dictionary, poof, it's a German dictionary. This machine is the part of our minds that understands language. English is our thoughts, and German is what we give to one another to communicate. In this bizarre analogy. Anyway. Autistic peoples' translation machine is fine. It will translate any English into German just fine. But they don't have English to put into it. All they have is French. And when you put French into the translation machine, it doesn't come out German. Because you didn't put English in.

A functioning autistic person is someone who'd figured out how to read whatever comes out when you try to translate French into German using an English-to-German codec.

In a world of this strange, strange analogy not many people have much use for French at all. But that doesn't mean they won't.

To put it another, perhaps more sensical way, autistic people do not have different thoughts from other people. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the method in which they devise thoughts is distinct from the most common way, and often distinct from one another. There is no "Rosetta Stone" (the historical artifact, not the software) for translating their thoughts into the types of communication we all take for granted. That is what isolates them. Many have learned to communicate in spite of this, using vastly more complex cognitive mechanisms to find communication patterns in order to convey simple concepts. Others have not.

Just because you don't know what good a trait will do the individual doesn't mean it won't benefit the population.

HAVING TWO HEMISPHERES IN YOUR BRAIN: The Original Autism
Once upon a time there were organisms roaming the Earth that had only one major portion of their brain. This made things easy. They had simple instructions, and they followed them. There was never a conflict or a doubt or a worry in their heads, because they were unable to compare different points of view. Then, one day, an organism appeared on the Earth with two pieces of brain. Each pieces of brain was perfectly capable on its own. But this did not give the organism quicker speed, no no! In fact, it reduced the reaction time of the organism. Now, instead of having a gut reaction to absolutely everything, this organism could weigh the options, consider different outcomes, and debate the merits and demerits of different courses of action.

Many of these organisms were snapped up by predators as they peered into the carnivore's jaws, wondering what to do.

Then, one day, all of the organisms were being chased off the edge of a cliff by a large predator. The stupid one-hemisphere brain'd organisms just had the one thought in their head: "Run, mothafucca!" But the two-hemisphere brain'd organisms realized, "Shyit, if I run off this cliff, I ain't NEVA gonna git laid." And instead took the elevator.

The moral of the story is that diversity in a population is never a bad thing. The trait has to already exist in the population for it to be acted upon by natural selection. EVOLUTION IS NOT THE CHANGE OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

You, sir, are both arrogant and ignorant - a soulcrushingly common affliction. Please seek professional help. From a scientist. Go to school or something. And if you're a highschooler, so help me, I will break down and cry.

Let me just put this concept out there: AUTISM, ASPERGUS SYNDROME AND MOST OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE TO ACCOUNT FOR DIFFICULTY IN SOME AREAS.

There you go.

At 10/2/09 05:50 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE

Bingo on the money.

Not all autism leads to amazing abilities. My cousin for example doesn't seem to have any above average abilities but has a lack of social skills and an unhealthy obsession of trains, Sci-fi, and medieval crap.

Evolution is a process which produces mutations in the DNA. If by failed evolution you mean the DNA of a specimen which produces offspring at a slower rate than that of the rest of its species then I suppose both autism and Asperger are "failed evolutions". Unless People with Autism and Asperger get mad pussy and have tons of unprotected sex.

And no matter what some sci-fi author writes, survival of the fittest always meant the specimen which has more offspring capable of producing more offspring in the shorter duration, which makes whatever genes behind traits that make you easier understand and solve problems dwarfed by the genes behind the traits that makes you want to fuck pussy in terms of value for the survival of the specimen. At least so far, anyway.

I have asperger's syndrom, I suck at math

At 10/1/09 03:17 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: Autism isn't a disorder, it's a condition made up by phychs for parents who think they have unruly kids.

then you haven't met Edwin

At 10/2/09 06:47 AM, robin1232 wrote:

At 10/1/09 03:17 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: Autism isn't a disorder, it's a condition made up by phychs for parents who think they have unruly kids.

then you haven't met Edwin

oops, wrong person, here's a picture on a social networking site http://walibier.hyves.nl/photos/70324327 1/0/656l/

First of all, to everyone who has posted in this topic....
THANK YOU!

Your discussions sparked my interest in Aspergers... so I began to look at youtube videos on Aspergers.

After watching 2-3 vids... in the related videos section i saw a familiar face and thought "no way"...

I clicked the video.... and sure enough.... It was someone I know!
My OLDDDDDDD friend Fiona from New Zealand (who I used to talk to, every day, over the internet, when I was probably between the ages of 12-15 years old [I'm 22 now])

We had long since fallen out of touch, and I would have Never in a billion years found her if I wasn't searching for Aspergers on youtube.

It turns out, she has it, and is leading quite the normal life.

I'm so thrilled to have found a long lost friend!
Thanks again everyone.

Don't some kids get that shit from shots they get when they are babys? some chemical they use as a preservative in the medicine causes a lot of it.

So I don't think its evolution, just people getting fucked up chemicals and also prob the mom taking fucked up medicine when the kid is still in them

At 10/2/09 05:50 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: Let me just put this concept out there: AUTISM, ASPERGUS SYNDROME AND MOST OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE TO ACCOUNT FOR DIFFICULTY IN SOME AREAS.

There you go.

Aaand thread resolved.

At 10/1/09 02:50 PM, Presidentjlh wrote: While I see your point, I don't think autism and Asperger's are genetic mutations that show where humanity is headed. They are more hinderances than they are benefits. I think that we should look at them not as mutations or examples of evolution, but as disorders that require treatment and care.

Well, that's just not true at all.

My father had Asperger's dx and he was a famous and very successful classical music composer, loved by his friends (hated by his enemies because he spoke his mind, said it how it is and nevel lied, never sucked up to anyone and was obsessed with justice which is not wrong!)

I have Asperer's dx and yes, I was bullied as a child and sometimes rejected and disresepcted as an adult but I have more friends than peopole who treat me bad (those are usually twisted and insecure and unhappy with their own lives and are just looking to pick ojn anyone who is 'different' - they no longer upset or bother me. It's their problem)

I'm successful in my career and in life, I'm very proud to be brainy - I have tested 155 IQ in Mensa test and I have an excellent memory for facts and figures. I like the fact that autistics treat people with respect regardless of their social class or financial situation - I was brought up this way and I believe it to be the right way to be, anyway.

My two sons also have AS (one diagnosed the other in the process of being diagnosed) and even though the older one was bullied at school pretty badly (he still gets beaten up but he hits back now and he always stnads up to bullied when he sees someone else being picked on) they are academically bright and don't follow the crowd which means they won't fall for any brainwashing like taking drugs to fit in, e.t.c.....

There is a lot of good about being autistic and with the right support and understanding the good outweights the 'bad' (if telling it how it is and standing up for justice is 'bad')

Incidently, nobody mentioned Stephen Spielberg and his Asperger's and it didn't seem to cause too many problems to him. Or to Zach Braff.

In fact, they say that UNLESS you have Asperger's you have no chance of making it in Hollywood as a director

At 10/1/09 02:47 PM, Cojones893 wrote:

If Autism is a failed evolution

There is no such thing. Evolution is failed autism, not the other way around.

At 10/1/09 02:47 PM, Cojones893 wrote: If Autism is a failed evolution, is Asperger's Syndrome a thriving evolution?

I know a person with this, he is socially a bit strange...

But with education its different, in science, he can have a go at explaining the structure of the universe, but he fails english.

People with Asperger's syndrome seem to be terrible at everything other than science and knowledge, so yeah, it's evolution and its positive, but surivial of the fitest is no longer being used to decide who lives so that means they won't be the only ones to pass on their genes.

The system is flawed, evolution is working and the superior are surviving... but so is everyone else.

There's currently no explanation to the existance of Autism, so really, who knows? I don't believe it's evolution though; the malgamation of mind such as Autism has been about in any species since forever, it's an unfortunate defect in the structuring of the brain, 'posessive male syndrome' it's sometimes been described as. Not so much evolution, but a deformation of original primal instincts that we evolved from.

At 10/1/09 06:06 PM, Hellraiser wrote: It's beleived that people who don't grow wisdom teeth are more "evolved".

Not by anyone credible. Maybe by you. But I guarantee the scientific community thinks nothing of the sort. "More evolved" is a term NEVER USED in the scientific community because evolution is not a linear progression, and no one species' or organisms' adaptability is comparable to another.

You are stupid.

At 10/2/09 06:26 AM, turboNEGROID wrote: Evolution is a process which produces mutations in the DNA. If by failed evolution you mean the DNA of a specimen which produces offspring at a slower rate than that of the rest of its species then I suppose both autism and Asperger are "failed evolutions". Unless People with Autism and Asperger get mad pussy and have tons of unprotected sex.

And no matter what some sci-fi author writes, survival of the fittest always meant the specimen which has more offspring capable of producing more offspring in the shorter duration, which makes whatever genes behind traits that make you easier understand and solve problems dwarfed by the genes behind the traits that makes you want to fuck pussy in terms of value for the survival of the specimen. At least so far, anyway.

Aw, aren't you cute! Spouting off scientific words completely incorrectly! You obviously have ZERO idea what evolution is. You also have ZERO idea what a "specimen" is.

First and foremost, evolution is NOT the process of creating mutation. When Darwin developed his theory, he knew that there had to be "trait diversity" in a population for evolution to operate upon that population. But no one in the world at the time had any idea what "mutation" was, and they didn't know about DNA or genetics. They knew about heritable traits, but not the sophisticated understanding of how complex acid molecules code for proteins and structures in the body.

Evolution is the process of eliminating the physical or behavioral traits in a population. Period. Those physical and behavioral traits are MOST COMMONLY caused by genetic variation. Genetic variation is a PREREQUISITE to evolution. It is not in and of itself evolution.

And finally, a "specimen" is a very specific individual organism. If you've got a butterfly on a pin, and you point to that butterfly, you can say "this specimen". A SPECImen is SPECIfic. In your hypothetical you wanted the word "organism".

Don't try and "clear things up" when you have no idea what you're talking about.

At 10/2/09 05:50 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: Let me just put this concept out there: AUTISM, ASPERGUS SYNDROME AND MOST OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE TO ACCOUNT FOR DIFFICULTY IN SOME AREAS.

There you go.

Autism is still incredibly real, trust me, I've seen the extremeties of it. The social constructions are simply that we have designated it a name, like dubbing gravity the title. Autism shouldn't really be compared with things like ADD, which is really stretched out to shit.

And to the user that said evolution is not effected by environment, you are totally wrong. An example is the Peppered Moth, a type of moth that had a mass of its population wiped out, indirectly, due to the industrial revolution. Trees were far paler, and the moths were the right colour, and hid from predators in these trees. Some moths were slightly darker though, and when smog and pollution darkened the trees over time, these were the moths that hid from predators. Over time, the paler peppered moth HAS died out, and the peppered moth has evolved with environment to match it. That is evolution, to adapt to environment. It's survival of the fittest, because the fittest isn't just the toughest, but the one who can adapt and fit to where they live to survive the best.

I have Asperger's and my IQ is considerably higher than most people my age. Certain forms are autism may be coldly regarded as "evolution's fuck-ups," with the exception of savants and other beneficiaries of autism.

Im autistic and I can honestly say....

What the crap?...

I can agree about autisic be failed though. the amount of autistic kids I have seen are just nuts.

but the funny thing is one of my brothers has no disorder while my other has aspergers.

so it goes from

aspergers

normal

autisic

from oldest too youngest.

What? No christianity?

At 10/2/09 03:37 PM, Otto wrote:

At 10/2/09 05:50 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: Let me just put this concept out there: AUTISM, ASPERGUS SYNDROME AND MOST OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE TO ACCOUNT FOR DIFFICULTY IN SOME AREAS.

There you go.

Autism is still incredibly real, trust me, I've seen the extremeties of it. The social constructions are simply that we have designated it a name, like dubbing gravity the title. Autism shouldn't really be compared with things like ADD, which is really stretched out to shit.

Honestly, I'm not accusing autism to not be real. I was diagnosed with aspergus syndrome at a young age after a delayed acquisition of language. Still sometimes trip up on words (lately I've been fucking up a bit on the word "road" when writing it down) but mostly fine. Social side of things, I'm not okay really but whatever.

However, what I am saying is that the demand for proper socialisation has only recently gotten to the point where if you're unsocial, you're mentally unwell. Saying that there's something mentally wrong with you if you have behavioural characteristics is something pretty new and a social construct. In the 18th century, if you had autism, you'd just be labelled queer (strange), retarded or just unsocial; the same with things like ADHD, depression and DID (with obvious differences). Labels for certain patterns of behaviour is a social construct, that's it.

At 10/2/09 05:50 AM, Lost-Chances wrote: Let me just put this concept out there: AUTISM, ASPERGUS SYNDROME AND MOST OTHER MENTAL PROBLEMS ARE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS MADE IN THE MODERN AGE TO ACCOUNT FOR DIFFICULTY IN SOME AREAS.

There you go.

It's spelt "Asperger's Syndrome". I was diagnosed with a moderate form when I was just a year old, and it has screwed up my life.

And for the OPs (and other posters) information, humankind has for now bypassed the benefits of natural selection. We are changing the world at a faster rate than the world is changing us. And I wouldn't say that AS is a "thriving evolution", as a) it was not really necessitated, and b) there is no great reproductive benefit to having it.

EVIL-LUTION IS A LIE!!!!!

At 10/2/09 05:29 AM, Bijhan wrote: 1) Durrrrrr. Environmental factors don't guide evolution. They don't make decisions, and they don't try to accomplish things. They are parameters. The checkers board don't move the pieces; just tells them where they can go and where they can't.

Which bit of 'the result is the same' was lost in translation here?

2) Some are. Matt Savage, Daniel Tammet, and Kim Peek have made plenty of money for their family and helped enrich the lives of people across the world.

Unfortunately, what I meant by PROPERLY autistic people was those that are obviously incapable of caring for themselves (read: 'you don't need a psychologist to tell you something's wrong with them'), not those labeled as 'autistic' by the unclear medical definitions on where the boundary between 'normal' and 'abnormal' are (as was stated earlier in the thread, which you plainly still haven't read). The above named are not fully autistic like the people I was referring to.

3) You're still thinking in the box, boyo.

This is the biggest pile of vapid pseudo-logic I've ever seen.

I'm not going to make some kind of paltry analogy because the process is complicated and elaborate.

Oh, sure it is. It's obviously SO complicated that no-one but you could possibly understand. Am I close?
Try me. Assuming it's not conveniently impossible to put into words.

Surely it's different for every person.

Prove it.

Autistic peoples' translation machine is fine.

Prove it.

A functioning autistic person is someone who'd figured out how to read whatever comes out when you try to translate French into German using an English-to-German codec.

Prove it.

In a world of this strange, strange analogy not many people have much use for French at all. But that doesn't mean they won't.

Going by this logic, it's more that they can't use it. And if you can't use something, then it does indeed mean that you won't, as long as you remain unable to.

To put it another, perhaps more sensical way, autistic people do not have different thoughts from other people. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the method in which they devise thoughts is distinct from the most common way, and often distinct from one another.

Explain to me why this matters at all. So what if the thought was arrived at by different means than normal? If the thought itself is no different, where is the significance?

Many have learned to communicate in spite of this, using vastly more complex cognitive mechanisms to find communication patterns in order to convey simple concepts.

Again, total lack of proof = I'm not buying it.

HAVING TWO HEMISPHERES IN YOUR BRAIN: The Original Autism
Once upon a time there were organisms roaming the Earth that had only one major portion of their brain.

Wrong. Brain structures have always been at least roughly hemispherical, and the number of sides a brain has is of no significance on an organism's capacity for higher reasoning. That's down to the size of the pre-frontal cortex, and precious little else. People who've had one half of their brain removed don't get suddenly stupider.

You, sir, are both arrogant and ignorant - a soulcrushingly common affliction. Please seek professional help. From a scientist. Go to school or something. And if you're a highschooler, so help me, I will break down and cry.

Oh lovely; an ad-hominem attack stuck onto the end of an already logorrheous, sad attempt at sounding clever. As if I needed more proof that I'm not dealing with anyone possessing a real scientific background.

...Actually, let's test this. If you are as well-educated as you indirectly claim to be, tell me what's on the other end of this link without having to pay for it.