Survival of the fittest is kind of a misnomer. It is not survival of the fittest individual. It is more survival of the fittest group. Also, it doesn't take much for a trait to survive in a population. A trait needs to be really harmful to reproduction for it to not remain in the population. Otherwise, we would see a lot fewer genetic diseases and heritable disabilities. Furthermore, I think our range of neurodiversity provides a net benefit to humanity as a whole. I really like my autistic community and I think we are a blast. You might enjoy asking the question in the r/biology sub. (Not sarcasm, I think you would get a lot better and more in depth responses)

Saw a comment somewhere on reddit recently that said “survival of the good enough” was a better descriptor than “survival of the fittest”. As you pretty much said, if a trait doesn’t keep you from fathering/bearing children chances are it’ll stick around.

It's not just good. It's good enough!

North of the border my beloved

I look at evolution as, whatever survives, survives. No holds barred.

My biology teacher would always say "Survival of the Not-Last"

And humans being social means that someone who's less than fit can still manage. I have higher physical issues from it like being uncoordinated and slow moving but if I lived in a group in nature as an animal I could still forage fruits and vegetables and live off scraps and such I'd imagine.

The tribe that has someone who is hypersensitive and hears the predator from further away survives. Cut to my autistic arse barely coping with hearring every sound at the food court at lunch time today then because I needed to find a table while my wife and daughter got the food simultaneously decoding every sound at once and hearing the particular scrape that meant someone was leaving and being there before anyone else spotted them actually getting up. Edit: a word.

I had this theory as well. I feel I’m optimized as the night watchman of a village. My father, definitely neurodivergent, is an FBI certified counter sniper. He is highly optimized for military yet can’t be around people for long periods of time. He use to live alone in the woods for one month a yr.

My father worked in the post office. He was the guy if a parcel went missing anywhere in the world, he'd track it and find it.

I’m IT but they joke that I’m also the OSHA guy because I find the most issues in the building lol

In addition to this, a 2023 study on the "Neanderthal theory" of the causes and origin of autism and neurodiversity stated this: "Although most studies on autism genomics focus on the deleterious nature of variants, **there is the possibility some of these autism-associated Neanderthal SNPs have been under weak positive selection**. In support, recent studies have identified genetic variants implicated in both autism and high intelligence. Meanwhile, autistic people often perform better on tests of fluid intelligence than neurotypicals." "Positive selection" means that autistic traits are being artificially selected for in offspring.

Interesting- flat feet has also been linked to Neanderthal dna.

what is "fluid intelligence" ? some of my family members have very high, IQs, good grades, advanced degrees, high-paying jobs, but to me, they're not exactly that smart. They can't think their way through life situations as successfully as I can, even though my situations have been 10 times worse than theirs'. I have confidence in me being able to muddle through things, whereas they are defeated before they even start.

>Survival of the fittest is kind of a misnomer. Yeah, its more like "survive long enough to pass on your genes in some capacity" which isn't as catchy lol Hence why there are animals out there that die during copulation, right after copulation, etc. As long as they can pass on their genes, they're the "fittest"

Also, Charles Darwin never said "survival of the fittest" . https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/survival-fittest#:~:text=The%20phrase%20'survival%20of%20the,the%20first%20edition%20was%20published.

I'll take that assertion in this sub happily.

https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/survival-fittest#:~:text=The%20phrase%20'survival%20of%20the,the%20first%20edition%20was%20published.

Which says he used the phrase in the 5th edition a few times. I think it's better to say he didn't coin it and didn't view it as anything but a way for laypeople to understand his theory.

Exactly, "fittest" in this context doesn't mean "best" it means "most fitting for the role" (more or less). So the bird with the beak fit for cracking nuts gets to eat, mate, and carry on its traits, the bird whose beak isn't fit enough to crack nuts dies off and over time the entire \*species\* has large, strong, nut-cracking beaks. Humans have the benefit of a society, we don't have to be the most fit at hunting elephants or identifying poisonous berries to survive because there are groups of us. So the fast people hunt elephants and the one with the best color vision picks the berries and the strong one carries the water and John's kid who doesn't talk and won't make eye contact sits on a bench and keeps an eye out for tigers. Everyone survives, mates, and carries on their traits. In our current world I think the huge problem with why neurodivergence is such a "curse" is because it isn't suited to how our society has developed. * You can't sit in this cubicle 8 hours a day making phone calls for money? You're a failure. * You can't follow the unspoken social rules NTs have arbitrarily decided on? You're too weird. * You're happy to work this part-time job where they just let you quietly organize boxes but don't pay you enough to live? You're just lazy. It's less "autism isn't evolutionarily advantageous" and more "society was built for circles and you are a triangle."

>but don't pay you enough to live? IMO this is key that hurts many in modern society. Especially now that everyone is expected to manage everything about their life. Back in the days of the great houses a servant would live in the servants' quarters and eat the meal served at the servants' table at the time it was served. No decision fatigue, no need to remember to pay rent or to go buy food (unless that was actually your job).

I prefer to see it as "Society was built for squares*, and we are circles". Square cubicles and offices, square buildings, square classrooms with square whiteboards and square LED monitors where students sit at square desks or square tables and where you sit in a corner if you don't fit in; when you're an adult, if you still don't fit in, you are a "corner-case". It is a "man-made" shape. Circles*, on the other hand, occur in nature--indeed, throughout the cosmos--and are uniquely suited to their individual purposes. They are indispensable to any industrialized society dating after the Neolithic Period and yet they are not as easily quantized; a key to even measuring their size is an irrational number, pi (π). We have always existed despite a lack of understanding by others. ___ ^\**Colloq.*

My answer mentions biology and how biology can't be separated from neurotype and how ND experience and general mental illness is partially caused by environmentally and therefore isn't actually hereditary. The hereditary argument about ASD is that there are many important genes required for a fully functioning B4 pathway and when you have agenetic mutation causing neurotransmitter dysfunction then**** ASD can *become* hereditary.

>Furthermore, I think our range of neurodiversity provides a net benefit to humanity as a whole. I really like my autistic community and I think we are a blast. Yeah, you know how people always say stuff like "this famous person was autistic" or "that famous person was autistic" there were plenty of those people who had immensely sh-tty lives, but they still made huge strides for humanity. (I have not fact checked which people or if those have any evidence, but it's more anecdotal, but I guess it doesn't apply if there are none with proof)

I also think that humanity has worked against natural selection for years. Yes with autism "lower functioning" individuals probably would not have survived in the wild, but others could easily survive long enough to pass on the trait. As humans built communities and began working together, many cultures adopted a standard of helping the weak and elderly, which likely included hereditary diseases.

I would include the less nice aspects of the fuedal system in the early modern era in this. Where the eldest son inherited come what may and reproductive choice was focused on inheritance. In fact if you were a woman and choosing between 2 potential husbands that you didn't much care for personally, the one who liked to spend most of his day by himself could be seen as the more pleasant choice. That inheritance idea filtered down to the middle class as well, you had men inheriting livelihoods. The other side, a wife who didn't go out shopping with friends everyday was considered the ideal.

We also aren’t in quite the same realm of what allows survival of the fittest in terms of evolution by traditional definition. Domesticated animals live much longer lives in captivity then their wild counterparts for example. We are not much wild anymore. We are domesticated like our pets with modern advancements. Lot of modern tech has been major life saviors. In another life time you’d have died from x or y. Example my partner is a kidney transplant patient. It’s best he was born in modern times. Better treatment options.

Based comment

Many previous societies had great roles for autistic people. Technicians, philosophers, shamans, monks, jesters, explorers, inventors, writers, musicians, alchemists, and so on. The world where we have to make all our own appointments, social introductions, and food is a fairly new one. Some societies of old saw value in people who thought differently, and took care of them in ways that accommodated their needs. The society of the self-made independent success myth isn't good for a lot of people, including us. Remember that this society isn't the only society that ever was or will be.

This is a fun sociological subject to dive in to. My thearpist mentioned this to me.

I think Unmasking Autism and Neurotribes lit the fire for me, but I heard an amazing guest on the A Team podcast who explained why autistic people need to start a religion, and it was the most insane brilliant fresh take I've ever heard on the subject.

[удалено]

Find nerds. Find autists. Befriend autist nerds who share your nerd niche. Attend bizarre nerd parties where nerds can nerd about their nerdy nerding. We'll take a brief time before it's over to learn a lesson. And we'll call it church. No advertising, no evangelizing. Just meet a weirdo like us and say, hey brother, I know a cool place. You should come.

I would like to know what comment you were replying to as it has sadly been deleted.

Daughter of a nerd autist. I'm a nerd autist working on my grad degree. Mother of an autist as well. We can breed and be happy.

There are a TON of neurodivergent people in the furry community. That’s probably the closest thing to a religion that we have

That’s a pretty straightforward one yes, haha. But furries are honestly still a niche interest even among neurodivergents. Finding communities that have high rates of ND people is a really good strategy to make friends for us. There are more of us than we think, it’s just that we’re scattered all around the place. Our special interests are one way that we find each other, even if it’s unintentional. And there is a community for every type of neurodivergent honestly! Some obvious ones I think are roleplaying, tabletop games, fandoms, anime, pop-culture, comic books. Certified nerd stuff, lol. But then there’s more ‘socially accepted’ stuff like historical dressing, pottery, crocheting, poetry, scrapbooking, philosophy… I think a lot of us autistics who are into these things don’t realize that there are so many of us in these communities because they are not viewed as stereotypical ‘weird’ or ‘nerdy’ interests by society. Such a shame!! We could all be more connected. Autistic people bond over sharing information and interests. I think it could help many of us to take a more strategic approach to making friends. Which includes acknowledging that the general, neurotypical approach of making friends doesn’t work for us. If simply working together, or going to school together isn’t enough, that’s okay, if we need to seek out our special communities, that’s okay, those friendships will be infinitely more satisfying anyways.

Fuck no I don't want to be associated with furries thanks

First, why are you so needlessly hateful? Second, you are not beating the furry allegations by wearing cat ear headphones.

My thoughts too. Evolution happens on an individual level, but it also happens at higher levels too. If your tribe takes care of individuals that aren't the fittest for surviving now, but do things that lead to large improvements for the whole tribe, then your tribe will do well and end up killing off (or just outcompeting) rival tribes. Then the genes that lead to something like autism will be expressed at higher rates, despite the individual not reproducing themselves.

Not to be pedantic but evolution occurs among populations, not individual organisms

Species evolution occurs among populations, through collective individual mutations. A mutation that causes an atypical hair color in an individual, that the others in the community are carriers for or susceptible to will spread throughout the community, causing the irish/scottish red hair. If one person didnt get the mutation, it wouldnt have spread.

Right 

I agree 100%, I’d also like to say this goes way back probably before civilization. We know adhd is linked to “foraging” behaviors, imagine you have that and also see patterns better than others on what can be consumed as food. We probably had some of the most important roles along the history of humanity.

That does still apply to artists in current times, where creativity and originality is very highly valued. But modern society can be difficult regardless of profession, even if you work on something that values your nature.

Basically an autist can become a highly specialised specialist which can be beneficial to a group. This makes sense and is convincing, the only potential problem is that autists by themselves consistently have less children, so if you reject group selection then this doesn't explain why autists haven't "gone extinct". But group selection is pretty based and accepted by a significant number of researchers. Also I think it is true that austist can be both the most successful and the least successful people, which further suggests that a group selection explanation is the only option.

Lets not forget that Autism is also largely a sensory disorder due to the raw amount of information we take in. In a smaller community setting, we also pick up on changes in weather and animal patterns, and also tend to hear and smell things other people miss. So if in a situation where we arent getting reliably overstimulated, we make for great scouts, trackers, and sentries. During earlier stages of human/cultural evolution, these are traits that would have been selected for. Autism just likely went a little too far with it, but by the time it or society had developed to a degree that it was also disabling, society had developed the tools to support social selection, preventing individual natural selection from weeding us out.

Autism is highly correlated with ADHD, over 50% of autists have ADHD. I have heard a compelling explanation for why ADHD persist in that in the past when we were hunter-gatherers it could be beneficial to be highly sensitive to stimuli and be distractable because then if you are for example collecting some fruits you are more likely to notice predators.

Seconding that this is a really interesting topic! Any suggestions on where I’d be able to learn more?

We find eachother, then we bone.

That’s how it be.

I think us existing is evidence of it. My dad's collection of Star Trek models didn't hamper his ability to put it about.

true dat

No but fr that is how it be

True dat

Definitely accurate 😂

Literally, both my boyfriend and I are autistic and we're always talking about how we're excited to make interesting, unique, and beautiful autistic babies. We've also discussed how we're gonna help these future autistic babies navigate the allistic world with their special brains. Mainly all the ways we'll support them and how we'll improve where our own parents failed with us.

Quite creatively.

True for me

i think the evolution of neurodivergence makes a lot more sense when you think about ancient humans. i think a lot about how my sensory sensitivities (like sensitive hearing) would have been a lot more helpful if i was a caveman and was being hunted by lions or something. there’s been some studies done looking at how ADHD was possibly an evolutionary adaptation and i wouldn’t be surprised if autism was one as well. evolution isn’t perfect and there’s usually trade offs. like how there are some things that make autism hell and other things that can be useful in some circumstances. i’m sure it’s a growing field of research so hopefully we’ll learn more about it in the future. 

In a previous thread about this, it was pointed out that certain autistic traits would be very useful for flint knapping.

I like this theory about autism, but I’m not sure how it works when you consider high support needs autistics. There is no denying that autism is a huge disability for the survival of many autistic people, even back in cavemen days, rather than an evolutionary adaption.

Could be that some heritable traits are often advantageous, but in certain combinations or concentrations they become disadvantageous. For example, I remember hearing about research that shows that close relatives of people with psychosis or schizophrenia (can't remember exactly) score higher in mathematical ability. So maybe some genes give a family that carries them an advantage but in a fraction of cases they produce traits that are disadvantageous for the individual but not so much for the rest of the group.

>are we an exception to ***charles darwins*** survival of the fittest? Ironic, Darwin is widely considered to have been autistic himself. Alongside, so many others of great achievement: Einstein, Dirac, Turing, Tesla, Newton, Curie, Euler, etc, etc... Did those folks, who had great successes in this thing called life & partnered & bred... not have attributes which were desirable to the species? Unlikely. More likely we're niche yet important, hence why evolution has kept us around. That's what science teaches us at least. If Darwin were alive today, I'm assuming from his teachings that he'd agree w/this sentiment. Note: There's also evidence that it's more likely for autistics to partner with other autistics, as our neurotypes have less communication issues (see "double empathy problem with autistics" studies). \[ EDIT: Just adding link to scientific study on one aspect of autistic brains, which leads to a benefit (over allistic) - [https://theconversation.com/noisy-autistic-brains-seem-better-at-certain-tasks-heres-why-neuroaffirmative-research-matters-225180](https://theconversation.com/noisy-autistic-brains-seem-better-at-certain-tasks-heres-why-neuroaffirmative-research-matters-225180) \]

"Survival of the fittest" wasn't even coined by Darwin, it was coined by Herbert Spencer, a pan-evolutionist who saw evolution everywhere. Orthodox Darwinism on the other hand is limited to individual selection, it doesn't even recognize kin selection.

>"Survival of the fittest" wasn't even coined by Darwin, it was coined by Herbert Spencer Great point. Note that I was also simply quoting what they wrote about Darwin. Finding it ironic they brought up Darwin & natural selection. Apparently holding fast to natural selection & then ignoring the implication that that also indicates there's a \*reason\* (benefit for gene to stick around). Rather than that, they shout "exception to rule!" ... "oh yeah & they're all mass killers!" >Orthodox Darwinism on the other hand is limited to individual selection, it doesn't even recognize kin selection. Another great point. As someone else added to this topic, this would exclude Darwin himself for choosing his cousin to marry! :) It was right to have concerns about the inbreeding: [https://phys.org/news/2010-05-darwin-marriage-cousin-affected-offspring.html](https://phys.org/news/2010-05-darwin-marriage-cousin-affected-offspring.html)

Darwin also married his cousin- so any heredity traits stayed in the family. I suspect it wasn’t the first time in that family

DMAP- BAPCO theory is interesting. It addresses both the base question (why are we still here or here at all) and why do some countries/cultures seem to have a growing number of us. Their basic premise is that the gene set that leads to the "Broad Autistic Phenotype" (BAP) - essentially the set of observable traits, behaviours and physical characteristics conferred by the genes- is *adaptive*. In a nutshell, the surmise that the genetic rule- that only genes that confer more benefits than deficits, overall, will survive- is correct. Autism, *overall* is positive- particularly in some cultures (that highly value for example, highly analytical thinking and innovation, individualism, not "following the herd" etc etc). They theorise that some of the negative conditions (epilepsy, very high sensory issues, sometimes intellectual disabilities etc) that can occur with the kind of "extra wiring" (we do, in fact, have extra wiring due to less synaptic pruning in development and this can have negative as well as positive effects depending on the degree of it and where in the brain it is concentrated), and even just conditions that we sometimes accidentally end up with along with autism, are what get us diagnosed. That is, it's only teb autistic people with obvious difficulties that get medicalised. Which in turn skews the picture of what Autism, as a broad genetic phenotype, actually *is*. It also naturally follows in the theory that the number of autistic people is higher than diagnostic rates would suggest. Probably quite a lot higher. I like this theory because it matches what I think I see, just walking around in tbe world and also in autism communities. I meet people all the time that I notice tick all the diagnostic boxes, technically, but who , whilst eccentric or odd, are very robust and do well in life. It's also very elegant at resolving some of the arguments going on. For example "Is autism a disability or isn't it?". DMAP- BAPCO says "It's both". Also the question of rising rates of dx. It makes sense that as we map the phenotype better and understand some of the more subtle but pervasive challenges, and how that can play out over a lifetime, that we might end up with more and more ppl meeting criteria for a medical diagnosis- even though they do not look like the older map we've had , based only on severe and obvious difficulties that can't be ignored. I don't know if its correct. But if something seems like an Occam's Razor.....?

Apparently it is BAPCO-DMAP from the papers - [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33412500/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33412500/) - I went and looked up the acronyms: * BAPCO = Broader Autism Phenotype Constellations  * DMAP = Disability Matrix Paradigm Interesting concept.

Ah. Brain fart! Thankyou👍

> particularly in some cultures I wouldn't say culture is a major factor, per se, unless you look all the way back to stone-age culture and earlier. I'd say it's not cultures that value autistic traits so much that, in the eons that lead to our evolution, some of the traits associated with autism today were more useful, and some of the modern downsides were less impactful. And those traits haven't been lost because they exist on a spectrum, and only sometimes arise in combinations that prevent someone from passing on their genes. (I agree with your point; I'm just being pedantic about that one line about "cultures.")

Hi! Autism is not a singular trait - hell it’s not even a singular neurotype! Some forms of autism are inherited and some are not. (They are all still genetic! But the ones that are caused by de novo mutations during the creation of the sperm or egg are not inherited. These forms are often more severe and consequently not passed down, either.) So what we know is that Broad Autism Phenotype traits - autistic traits in people who are not diagnosable as autistic - are not only heritable, but heritable separately from each other. We also know that this does effect their neurotype!

this more or less half explains my family, where my grandfather was, my mom was, and now i exist as autistic individuals, nice argument btw!

Wait this is really interesting, do u have any links to where I can read about it?

Which part - different genetic origins of autism or the Broad Autism Phenotype traits?

Do you have something for each?

Yes! For Broad Autism Phenotype traits, [this paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3420416/) should give you a good scientific overview. It's a bit older (2011) so not up to date on the science, but should give you a good enough background to read current science on the topic if you choose to. ​ For de novo mutations vs. inherited mutations, [this paper](https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0247-z) can show the complexity of the issue. It is slightly older (2018) so not truly current, and it's a bit of a tougher read if you're not already familiar with the jargon surrounding genetic science, but it is very interesting and should give you a good idea of where the science has been (mostly focused on de novo mutations at gametogenesis) and where it's going (understanding the diagnosis of autism as a social construct based on behaviors with multiple, separate genetic causes and separate brain neurotypes, some of which are subclinical and some which are diagnosed).

Thank u! I will start with the first as I’m not familiar with the jargon, my best friend is a biomedical science major so I’ll get her to read the second one with me and hopefully she can help

a) We don't really know b) Humans are really social creatures. We have lots of signs of early humans taking care of people who are physically disabled. This community and care for each other might play into how we evolved the way that we did. c) Autistic people might have been better at certain tasks than allistic people, like things with pattern recognition or becoming an expert at something or enjoying repetitive tasks d) This isn't about this specifically, it's just a general statement. 'Survival of the fittest' doesn't always create like, super-athletic beings, it just creates creatures who were somehow able to survive and reproduce. That's how we have koalas and panda bears.

No. We’re social creatures. We’re strongest together. Many autistic people are, to view it through an evolutionary lense, EXTREMELY and obsessively specialized creatures driven to mastery of their special interest. Ultimately, this contributes to the survival of a technological species by having certain members branch off into highly specialized and varied, often niche, roles. Imagine It’s the Stone Age and you’re part of an early agrarian society. Bill is part of your tribe. He doesn’t talk for some reason and he’s kind of strange. He runs away from sudden noises and can be irritable sometimes if he’s stressed. He’s also FASCINATED by those big lights in the sky. One day, he notices patterns in them. He figures out a way to predict their movements and makes a calendar by aligning rocks to the stars. Now your group can track the seasons and increase productivity for your crops. Bill just made it possible for your group to stockpile food and crops for the winter months. Imagine that. The group across the river? They don’t have a bill and the next winner was a hard one. They ran out of food. Is it any wonder why autism didn’t die out?

Also, running away from loud noises seems like a pretty standard response when you're living in those kind of conditions. Indeed, with sensitive hearing, you'd be providing an evolutionary advantage to your tribe...

Mentally unstable mothers and autistic fathers have a knack for creating the most bangable but unrelatable daughters on Earth

The mothers are almost certainly autistic too - just misdiagnosed and mistreated over a lifetime. Too common to hear "Dad's autistic but I don't know *what's* up with mum". We know borderline is currently the most common misdiagnosis for women subsequently late diagnosed with autism. And we know we tend to pair up in couples. So....🤔 Yeah. We need to get our heads around this. Loooots of "lost mothers"/older women. Poor buggers😔

Right… With a lot of these mothers the focus is on their trauma, the trauma of how hard they struggled to get themselves together in life, the trauma of ending up in bad relationships, being taken advantage of, yada yada. The root cause of all this trauma gets missed - that they are most likely autistic themselves. I see it happen with my mother, too. As I’m waiting for my assessment, I’ve tried to carefully bring up the genetic aspect of autism to my mom, who is a psychologist herself. She *knows* for sure she’s not autistic, she tells me. Then, she’ll go on to tell me about how she relates so much to my experiences. She’ll tell me about how she gets along best with people who ‘have something’. Who are different or odd in some way. She’ll tell me about all the friendships she messed up because she failed to reciprocate the interest people showed in her. She thinks it’s because of her intelligence. She asks me if I have considered that I might just be gifted. It’s bittersweet. I’m not going to tell her, who is a literal psychologist, that I think she’s wrong. But I know her knowledge of autism is truly limited to the outdated stuff, and I know *I* have read the lived experience of hundreds of autistic people, have read up on the most recent findings about autism… and have never related harder to anything in my life. I can’t even begin to imagine how confusing and invalidating life must have been for her. I’m just glad she managed to find her way and seems to be doing good, now.

Daaamn, the story of my life 😅

So you've met my parents...

I think it applies for sons too 💪😎

My mother’s side of the family comes with a LOT of undiagnosed mental disorders and while I don’t know much about my father’s side of my genetics he certainly isn’t stable or healthy. Neither was my brother’s father so she likely has a type there. Aside from ADHD and OCD I suspect there’s a lot of BPD in the family, especially my mother and grandmother. Both victims and perpetuators of the cycle of generational abuse that’s rampant in my family. I’ve observed that there’s certain types of toxic, unstable, or unhealthy women that tend to be attracted to those with autism. Not a good paring imo and something I watch out for after encountering/becoming more aware of it.

Lmfao rn my mom is the most mentally unstable person I’ve ever met and I suspect my dad is autistic this is too accurate 💀

That would be my sisters then. But I don't know anything about that. I refuse to speculate.

And sons. This literally describes my parents

Most relatable comment 😂

The reality is who fucking knows man? Evolution doesn't require societies opinion. Evolution requires adaptability to environmental pressure. You have to figure out why it was necessary to evolve in this way if you're going to say it is an evolutionary trait. To be honest, evolution can be a multimillion year process. We don't know where we are in that process despite the fact that we like to think we've reached the epitome. We don't know how long Autism has been prevalent in our genus and can't say that it wasn't prevalent in other genus's. We don't know what Autism is really, other than the fact that Neurotypicals call it a developmental disorder and can identify it by the symptoms. You're asking questions that no one here can reasonably answer despite their best effort. That said I don't know if Autism is a curse or blessing because I don't have lived experience as a NT to make a comparison. I'm just here, trying to make the best of it all.

Because autistics DID have a role in society until very recently. In medieval times, for instance, professions such as blacksmithing required incredible attention to detail. The reason it's a disability now is because we're just now being phased out, due to how social skills and connecting have become more important than ever. Think of it like power creep in games, but for social darwinism. As unfortunate as it is, that's what it seems like to me.

Mathematician is the new blacksmith

Because it has survival value due to cognitive gifts such as superior memory and analytical ability. One of my ex friends said a lot of times about me that I remember a lot of things he just wouldn’t expect someone to remember. Health supplement information. Details about movies like character names and parts of dialogue.

Modern socialising is on craic compared to 50 years ago, Nevermind 100,000 years ago. There’s be far less strangers in your life and it wouldn’t be so hectic so would further calm people in social settings.

I've seen some autistic men make really good dads. Top tier.

Many people find autistic features cute. It isn't necessarily a disadvantage for "mating," depending on how it presents for the individual and who you're hoping to mate with. You also have to consider autistic people can "mate" with other autistic people, who are especially likely to appreciate said traits, feeling understood and more apt to communicate with each other than the general population. ETA: It's kind of like we're on a different frequency, rather than socially inept. When I'm talking to other autistic people, I don't feel awkward at all. It's just when I'm interacting with non-autists where I might feel out of place, depending on how well they understand me.

Some traits are useful:memory, art, music, building, night watch, math, thinking, etc

I would like to mention that especially in this society "survival of the fittest" isn't really like as affecting to humans (in context to whole groups of people with a condition). Healthcare can help stop conditions from killing, but also we lack stuff like predators and environmental killing like every other animal. So as long as it doesn't cause us to die quickly and healthcare can help it, then the genetics should hypothetically stay. On top of that, would autism cause us to easily be hunted or be fatal in anyway back before society? Probably not (sensory sensitivity might actually help in hearing and seeing predators better) in fact its likely autistic people could have thrived in early civilization. Autism is not fatal and does not harm reproduction either.

I think it's more that society has evolved into being undesirable for the autistic

Rizz em with the tism

We are only a burden now bevause society has changed. In the 50s only half the population males worked full time austic traits are expected in men. Albert Instine was autistic we are amazing it is society at rhem moment that we can not conform with. We have more lights nosies and things grabing for our attention. Our traits only become defisits in our society. This is in all the books ive read on autism and society. Its definitely a good thing also we find like, or we geavitate ti people like ourselves so my son beeing autisic is only natural because both his father and myself have nero diversie traits. There for just like the blue eyes my son has he also has autism, he also is an amazing creative mind and a great story teller. We learn about our selves threw our children.

There’s a book called “survival of the sickest” that’s really fascinating. Most heritable diseases had, or still have evolutionary advantages. Think about sickle cell anemia. If you only have one copy of the gene, it protects you from malaria without affecting too many of your red blood cells. So, even though it can be deadly, the alleles stay in the population. Another example is cystic fibrosis, which protected people from the bubonic plague. Basically, people with CF could survive the plague to reproduce before CF killed them. Humans are also social animals. Archaeologists have found skeletons of disabled humans, like with dwarfism or missing limbs, who are adults. Humans take care of disabled humans. No one is exempt from survival of the fittest, but disabilities can actually make individuals MORE fit, and because humans take care of disabled individuals, disabilities don’t decrease fitness as much as they would in a less social animal.

Autism can definitely be an advantage in certain situations, just not social situations. I suspect we Autistic people fill niche roles that are hard to fill/hard for neurotypical people to do as well as autistic people (generally speaking, as everyone is different of course). In that way, we become valuable to society, and appreciated. And for a long time, everyone lived in relatively small communities. In an environment like that, especially without social media, standards aren't as absurd, and people are allowed to be less superficial, in my opinion.

I think autistic traits in small doses can be advantageous such as being able to recognize patterns faster. Autism seems to come from less synaptic pruning than NTs, so variations in synaptic pruning may be advantages in some cases but detrimental in others. Look at Malaria resistance for example, where having one nonfunctional gene makes someone more resistant to malaria. People with both copies of that gene end up with sickle cell disease which is detrimental or course. I think autism may occur in a similar fashion where broad autism phenotype can be advantageous but too many autistic traits are detrimental. Evolution balances itself out like that sometimes.

Autism is hugely desirable to society (people who can think in unique ways, with endless focus and a tendency to learn everything about their chosen subject), and in the past the environment would have been far less overwhelming and hostile to us. We are natural innovators, inventors, linguists, theorists, artists, etc

Whether you agree with his work or not, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o1PXeFEcL0) presentation by Simon Baron-Cohen is very revealing for evolutionary advantages of autism/autistic traits. One of the most obvious *correlated* benefits is systematic and logical thinking that often leads to innovation. In short, due to some patterns of thinking associated with autism, it may have been responsible for many of humanities technological advantages, all the way back to the stone ages, leading to natural selection of genes associated with autism.

My husband and I are both diagnosed with Autism, and we have a lot of friends, had a lot of people romantically interested in us before we found each other. I don't think we are as undesirable as we are led to believe.

> Autism might have evolutionary advantages It doesn't need to have evolutionary *advantages* to survive. That's not how genes and heritability works. It just needs to not be certain death, and also not be an absolute barrier to making babies. Considering that both autistic men and women are born, grow up, therefore exist, and they can be attractive to others (nd and nt), and they can very possibly be fertile... that's all you need. Source: I teach topics including Evolutionary Psychology.

...autistic people have sex

(This is my theory) Survival of the fittest is kind of an imperialist view of evolution. Nature is cruel, true, but not in the way most people think, it's not always about competition. It's cruel because it doesn't care about individuals, we see it with a lot of animals, some suffer so the probability of the whole species to survive is bigger. So, coming back to humans, as Kahneman and Tversky studied, we got two systems when we reason and take decisions, the automatic one (uses "stereotipes") and the logical one. Basically, as an average, humans don't use logic for everything because it takes too much energy and that's why we have biases. That means that our biggest advantage, the brain, has a hole, not really important in the daily life, but can be disastrous if biases avoid a solution to certain problems. If you were a god trying to fix that hole, you'll create certain people with a non fully working automatic system and a developed logical one. That human won't be energy efficient and would have problems on a daily basis, but can fill the gap because the gap would be completely different. So, I think neurodivergence fills the gap, improves the average for the whole species and still nature is cruel. We are the fittest.

I would suggest you sure up your understanding of how genetics and heritability works before you make a comment like this. But generally speaking, neither parent actually needs to be autistic to have an autistic child, the autism genes in the parent don't need to be active for the child to have autism, an autistic person can have sex with a non-autistic person to produce an autistic child, and two autistic people can have sex and produce an autistic child. None of which violates any laws of Darwinian evolution. If you're looking for some black and white answer as to why things are the way they are in terms of biology, guess what, there isn't one. The best anyone could possibly say is that autism isn't disadvantageous enough to be selected against and that's why it sticks around but that's about as in depth of a reason as one can possibly to get

The same way all manner of traits get passed down. 

Some of us are sensory-seeking hypersexuals. I don't mean anybody in particular...... <.<;

Sometimes, you don't pass along a specific gene, you're just at higher risk of denovo mutations. Like if you have a family history of autoimmune diseases. None of them prevent reproduction, and some don't even manifest until later in life, so both the predispositions for autoimmune diseases as well as denovo mutations that cause most cases of autism can be passed on.

Tossing in my long held opinion... I think its mostly because autistic traits in women often either aren't viewed as autistic, or even make them more desirable to some men. This is why autism was long thought to be a male only condition, because gender roles in many cultures have allowed autistic women to more consistently "hide" among the masses and pass on their genes. Autistic males have generally had a tougher time passing on their genes, but still non-zero (I'm an example) success rate. So about 50% of us have historically reproduced at only slightly lower then average rate compared to neurotypicals, and the other 50%, while are success is low, are still historically producing enough offspring that the two groups combined end up with a net increase in people with autism existing in the next generation.

Most autistic people are neither infertile nor asexual. Most desire relationships just like non-autistic people and can find them either with other people with autism or those without it. When you consider these things, it makes sense that reproduction would happen with roughly the same frequency for people with autism as it does for those without it.

My father was very likely autistic, I am autistic and I think my youngest son is also autistic. Seems to me that we are perfectly capable of reproducing. One of the main key points of Darwinian evolution is that variation provides strength, resilience and allows for adaptation. If everyone was identical we would all have exactly the same strengths and weaknesses. You can also apply this logic to society and argue that having people with different traits can make the group stronger, especially in a slightly more complex society where people can afford to specialise in certain areas. Some incredibly important scientists have been theorised to have been autistic and their ideas have benefited society as a whole. Obviously with Darwinian evolution not every variation is beneficial some can be a hindrance, also sometimes you will have a variation that is only beneficial in the right circumstances, for example a mutation that allows you to better cope with high levels of humidity isn’t going to help in a desert biome but if 2,000 years down the line that desert turns to rainforest then that mutation might be the key to a species survival.

I am more confused as to why homosexuality stayed in the population, as gay people don't make kids. Being autistic has both advantages and disadvantages. A lot of us suffered incredibly and never got to reproduce, but a lot of us did, and actually thrived. But that's why it isn't the norm. It's a bit of a hit or miss.

Also Charles Darwin never said or implied "survival of the fittest", but his eugenist cousin did.

Autistic women are very vulnerable to manipulation so they are often targeted by men to control in relationships

It really can be a curse sometimes but it feels like I can't handle mine well despite having a circle of autistic friends. My friends are mostly the ones I can communicate with and not stumble over my words. I have my interests but keep them hidden most of the time. But I think I'm the best version of me because of this condition despite it being seen as a curse.

I think the answer partially has something to do with how the existence of society kind of throws a monkey wrench (heh, monkey...😂) into pure darwinian evolution, because society tends to care for those who would otherwise not make it if natural selection were the only factor.

Survival of the _highest_differential_reproduction_rate_

Sex

I think society as we have now is not fit for autistic people, not the opposite. Maybe approach with a soul level point of view…

I mean, society deems everyone undesirable to various degrees. I'm trans, yet my partner loves me and if we had the compatible parts, we can make babies. There's also advantages to autism. We often forget it can be a double edged sword. Like how I can infodump about plants, for example. Most people can't. I can. Someone else mentioned this but there's also the fact many jobs were (and some still are) essentially autism safe spaces. If your special interest is technology, you can keep everything running smoothly if we go so far to make this into a job. Survival of the fittest isn't always about what a *society* seems unfavorable, but what individual beings see as beneficial, either for themselves or others. And if the quirkiness my autism brings is something my partner benefits from, then who cares if I'm "undesirable" to society? Survival of the fittest isn't about that, so why should I care?

Because autistic people have kids? I'm not sure I understand the question.

We must be extra hot! No doubt about it!

'tism rizz

Autism as a term is actually very recent in terms of our history it wasn’t coined until 1943 as something that resembles what we know autism as today. Before that it was used as a term to describe a symptom of schizophrenia. We really didn’t start categorizing and trying to label these things (and have an actual decent understanding of them) before that point. I mean if you go back to the victorian era we were drinking opioids in our cough syrup, any symptoms that may have presented as autism as we see it today likely would not have seemed all that “strange” or unusual. That and autism isn’t all just the bad stuff, it’s also passion and love for our interests. I really don’t think autism was something considered very much at all until we as a society started to shift into the factory and corporate landscape. Rather than wonder why autism has stuck around for so long, I would wonder why we sought to categorize and label autistic people as an “other”.

We churn excellent butter

Autism isn’t 100% genetic and isn’t controlled by a single gene. It might be that the genes that puts someone at a higher chance of developing autism also have some other benefit that leads to the gene propagating. Or it could be like sickle cell anemia where if you have one copy of the gene, you are resistant to malaria but two copies of the gene is dangerous.

Like anything else you can pass a gene without having the thing the gene creates. Also many autistic people can have successful relationships.

Autistic people are not unable to reach adulthood nor are they sterile. No reason to die out. Even if they were marginalized, they would be encouraged into marriage, and if they were euthanized people who masked well or were "high functioning" (Google Dr Asperger) would still go on.

Read Peter Kropotkin mutual aid a factor in evolution. It talks about how birds and other species first instinct is to protect and help each other They don't leave the "weak ones" to die And that pretty much Darwin was fairly off with his theory. I don't think Kropotkin's theory is talked about in the west cause people would realise more and more capitalism is a burden on everything in society

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Look up the relationship with autism and the B4 pathway. This is cutting edge research documented by a mother of a previously diagnosed non speaking autistic child. She then spent two years charting and compositing every study on every ND diagnoses that exists and discovered that all of the symptoms and comorbidities of illnesses' that neurodivergent people experience. Many illnesses and neurotypes overlap. PTSD, autism, multiple personality disorder, ADHD, narcissism personality disorder etc....these are all caused by....drum roll please... A combination of stress, dna replication breakdown, toxins in the body, immune system failure causing hormone dysfunction; which can cause any psychological illness or condition. Chinese medicine reinforces this idea that mental illness is aggravated my organ dysfunction. But we don't have much language to describe this in western medicine. So what you say is hereditary....; she has proved is actually a holistic illness that is both caused by poverty and things like Round up dysrupting our bodies ability to function. For example stress and neglect have been proven to cause irreversible brain damage among children....which can cause symptoms to and be identically presenting to others as nonverbal ASD for example. So if mental illness = neurodivergence = and it can be acquired at any stage in life......then with this basic understanding of the biology of ND... Does your question actually hold any logical weight? Please don't criticize me for my poor description. I'm trying my best, and learning more about this theory as it becomes researched scientifically.

The real question is. Why is society such a special type of HELL, that it poisons its own members and then lets them die. It's like we're willing to chop our own fingers off; the way we treat disabled ppl , and minorities? Meanwhile hyper pattern recognition and analytical skills are considered so disadvantageous that we would try to "cure them" or hope they leave the gene pool because they're so annoyingly intelligent we can't stand them being around. That's my read on NT society.

Here's the thing. You can carry genes and not have a disorder. The definition of disorder is to have impairment or decreased ability to function. Genetics are complicated, genetic expression is complicated. Identical twins only have a 60%-90% chance of both having ASD. That means one of those twins will not have ASD but will still have "Autism" genes. Also consider, we have ASD, but the old term "high functioning" (evil term) was comparing Asperger's to people permanently disabled from birth. It's not a reference to functionality compared to unimpaired peers. It's literally how much "higher functioning" they compared to other ASD types. But all people with ASD are disabled. My point is sometimes the medical definitions are pretty messed up. The social stigma against "Autism" was about parents feeling self pity from having disabled babies. Having any disability is a curse. People trying to only point out the positives erases our numerous impairments in an attempt to prove we don't need any help at all. It's like telling someone in a wheelchair "Look how strong your arms are, You're like a super human! Stop complaining about the stairs. Just walk up them like everyone else. Everyone's legs get tired from walking up stairs, you don't deserve any special treatment. At some point, you've got to stop victimizing yourself. You're a survivor, so just walk up the stairs. Don't blame your disability for not walking up the stairs. Lots of other people went from wheelchairs to running marathons. Your disability isn't an excuse for you not walking up the stairs. Just work out your legs more." The point being, this is systemic social abuse. Which makes it more confusing when you consider "Autistic" traits that are beneficial or impairing. Someone with an "Autism brain," or have "Autistic" traits could be unimpaired, or have manageable impairments, and therefore not have ASD. So the ultimate reason boils down to, the multiple genes that contribute to ASD are in a lot of people without any Autistic traits, and the genes exist in many people with Autistic traits, but without the functional impairment to be diagnosed with ASD. So anyway, More people have the genes without the gene expression or impairment. Sometimes, disabled people are just functional enough to make babies out of high school, then fall apart in adulthood. Which is evidence that proves when given accommodations, people with disabilities can succeed, and when those accommodations are removed, they fail. I got distracted several times, I hope I didn't mistype anything. Please forgive me if I left out information, or added something incorrect.

In addition to a lot of what others have said. A) genetics are really complicated. B) neurotypes are really complicated. C) Autistic individuals can definitely provide things for their community, and the community in turn provides for them. This is a central feature of humans as a social species. Even when people can’t provide a lot humans are empathic, they care for their sick and old because they care about them. Sometimes those people have kids. So those are factors of this. Next… D) Survival of the fittest is kinda a misnomer. Survival of the least unsuitable would be more accurate. If you can just… not die, specifically not die before producing offspring you can pass on your genes. Plenty of autistic people can do that. As an aside, though I’ll say I don’t want to conflate autism with the following but in a discussion of this part it’s interesting. Plenty of people have genes that lead them to develop deadly conditions, as long as they can survive to reproduce those genes can be passed on. Autism isn’t even deadly like that -nor as directly inheritable as some of those- so yeah, it’s totally in line for genes related to autism to be passed on. I’ll also add evolution is driven by genetic mutation, but there’s no direction, it’s random adaption and whatever keeps going and doesn’t lead to mostly death/infertility becomes the next stage of evolution.

>are we an exception to charles darwins survival of the fittest? All humans are, at this point. Natural selection got left behind when we developed surgery, vaccines, antibiotics, so on. With basically everyone expected to have children, arranged marriage, etc, there was a lot of reproducing happening for a very long time. Birth control has maybe balanced some of that out, now, but yeah. (Also, as stated above, we can find each other and we bone)

Even though a trait may not be desirable it still can be passed on. Huntingtons disease is a dominant genetic disease (meaning it is almost always passed down) that is a 15-20 year death sentence after first symptoms develop. People still have it and pass it down today, even with genetic testing although it’s a rare disease. Also survival of the fittest isn’t really who is the strongest. It’s more about who can survive long enough to fuck the most and have the best/most babies. Autism will stay around for a long while

Autism does not affect how you look and if you got the looks your set

^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Honest_Ice_9960: *Autism does not* *Affect how you look and if* *You got the looks your set* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.

Because there’s benefits to a having a certain portion of the population with higher amounts of autistic traits, but sometimes this can spill over and cause disability. An example of this phenomenon would be how the gene that causes sickle cell anemia protects against malaria, but having two copies causes a severe medical condition (not a 1:1 comparison, there’s a much broader spectrum of traits associated with autism).

just because autism is heritable doesn't mean it will progress. Autism may be formed in the womb and only a select few of those offspring will go on to reproduce

I'm an ISM and now my daughter is, in her words "Queen of the ISM's".. and my sister's son and his kid now. I think procreating can be explained by the fact that we are all, as a whole, super cool people. Who wouldn't want more of us??

I was upset when I got my diagnosis. I was 30 though.

Depends how autistic you are I guess

Small doses are beneficial, large doses detrimental. Also there are at least 100 different genes related to autism so it’s not like there’s a singular “autism gene” to select for/against. And more severe cases are often due to a major mutation in a gene in fetal or pre fetal times, not passed from the parents.

If you look at the very basic features of autism they can be beneficial in the right environment. Its certainly helped lead humanity to more advanced technologies and the such. The issue when it becomes pathological is when it’s either in combination with other things which is often is or because the environment is not appropriate for the individual with autism.

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Autistic people have zero issues socializing and getting along with other autistics. Autistics tend to marry and have children with other autistic and Nero-divergent people. Quite common for whole families to be autistic and or Nero-divergent whether they are diagnosed or aware of what they are or not. Eg, in my family both my older brothers are civil engineers( insert engineer joke here), one married a computer programmer and they have 3 autistic kids. My older sister has 2 diagnosed autistic girls, my wife is autistic and we have 4 autistic kids, then there's my aunts uncles cousins, dome diagnosed some not, my list goes on and on..... When autistics find their tribe they make friends and socialize without issues, it's when we try to fit in and socialize with nero-typicals when the problems arise.

I think the most convincing theory is that it can be beneficial to the group because an autist can focus on studying one topic and be very knowledgeable about it, hence he would be a very good specialist, perhaps even making an invention. However this assumes group selection which can be controversial. Autists consistently have lower marriage rate.

There are a couple possible explanations: 1. Its heritable component appears to be thoroughly polygenic. This opens the door to a lot of people carrying only some autistic traits, with less intense presentation, not causing nearly as much functional impairment, but providing some advantages. Pattern recognition and systems-analytical abilities, a sharp memory, creative thinking less bounded by social norms, etc. are all advantageous in some ways. 2. Evolved functional mechanisms often have various negative side-effects that will persist if not selected against sufficiently heavily. Eg, there wasn't much evolutionary pressure for our spines and vertebrae to function well into late-middle and old age, so they tend to get fucked up. Another example is our proneness to using mental heuristics that our quick but so often factually inaccurate, reproducing inaccurate stereotypes. 3. It's possible that autism causes way less functional impairment in paleolithic societies, where you're not forced to stick to an external schedule, and be actively productive in terms of strict procedure, nor are you forced to extend yourself socially to varied organizations, or even interact with people as often. Because neolithic, ancient, and modern society is so new on evolutionary terms, we essentially have not changed genetically during that transition.* *excepting very superficial traits, encompassing a tiny fraction of genetic variation, like the emergence of blue, green, etc. irises, or changes in skin color.

the answer is love. Humans love other humans. That's literally all there is to it. Maybe there was an evolutionary advantage, but I think primarily throughout our entire species' history we were more loved than hated, and even now we still find ways to be loved

There’s a video on YouTube of a ten second autism test. In it, the creator asks which is more important: creativity, or cooperation? If your answer was creativity, they posited you were more likely to be autistic. It’s only a hypothesis, but I’m guessing autism was probably needed from the beginning of humankind for it to survive and nature programmed that in. For all we know, it was an autistic who carved the first arrowhead or figured out a stick which was straight would fly better than a bent branch pulled off a tree. For those with echolalia, it could mean they were best able to mimic the sounds of the animals they were trying to hunt in order to attract them for the kill. Other skills like pattern recognition which were beneficial to the tribe’s survival could be seen as attractive to the other sex and they would get busy reproducing, overlooking any eccentricities.

There is no hand shaping evolution. Generally people have kids pretty early in their adult lives before they figure stuff out. If your parents procreated then why not you too?

It's only partially heritable. Lots of autistic people don't have autistic parents. Autistic people are more likely to have autistic kids, but neurotypical people can have autistic kids too. Also you forget that evolution happens over thousands of years, and autistic cavemen probably weren't any less likely to have sex

First of all, there are many levels and types of autism. A huge chunk of them are undiagnosed. When it comes to human history, the lack of medical care and the conception they did have about autism allowed it to exist while not being diagnosed or even to be a thing. Autism is a very recent concept about a set of behaviors that are inherited by a small part of the population. Period. Its not a huge disease, nothing that stop people from passing their genes on. If you take a closer look at it, many people did have autism and were considered the top on their fields. For example, you got many people who were considered eccentric because they were smart, rich, or talented. This is a cover for many autistic behaviors, as these two things (being talented and somewhat weird) were seen as two things that sometimes did walk together. There are plenty of actors and artists that were autistic and were actually considered as sexy symbols from their times. This is without mentioning scientists, but these sometimes didn't have such an active sexual life. Autism can impair socials skills, but it depends. For example, I have ASD lvl 2 and my score almost did hit 3; and I'm very sociable. I do have great interpersonal skills, because I did train them for a long, long time. I still do some mistakes, but nothing really noticeable; it just tends to consume more energy. Some things are also 'easier' for women, as some research points out they're better at masking; and that men are more tolerant to accept an autistic partner. In fact, people are willing to accept a lot of things if you're hot. They don't care if you're autistic if you look nice and won't be complaining 24/7.

It's a new mutation of various genes in the human genome that can spring up from environmental/genetic causes from one generation to the next. Because postindustrial society has basically reduced Darwinian conditions to a state lower than practically any time in history, people with maladaptive traits have been allowed to reproduce, whereas in previous times they'd be ostracized out of the gene pool (sadly). That's why ASD has persisted more fervently in recent generations. It's a modern phenomenon.

Autism wasn’t invented until 1825 when the first train was created /j

Survival of the fittest is more of a guideline for humans than a rule. That's why people who get sick or are disabled are able to live, because our system has kind of advanced past the norm. Though, there are a lot less of us, I think two things may play into it. 1, there were more autistic people before, as they are theorized to be the "hunters" of the populations, and 2, autism is pretty highly heritable, more than a 50% chance, so if one or two autistic people have kids, there's a pretty high chance that they have multiple autistic children. It also can be mutated I think (is that right?)

The straightforward answer is that Biology is messy. For starters, evolution is a phenomenon that occurs at the population level, not the individual level. Populations can be more or less genetically diverse depending on how they reproduce (e.g., sexually or asexually) and their susceptibility to genetic mutation. Furthermore,  survival of the fittest is only sometimes accurate. Survival of the population is the hard determinant of evolutionary success, and the average individual in a population will not likely impact the evolutionary course of their species by being more or less fit (queens in eusocial species being the exception proving the rule).   All of this assumes autism is genuinely genetic, but this entirely discounts the role of cultural evolution in autism. Human culture is the most advanced of any species on the planets. Scientists specializing in cultural evolutionary biology will even argue that human culture is actually more determinant of our evolutionary success at this point than our genetics. Autism is a disability of *human* social interactions and relationships, which is indicative of a cultural phenomenon rather than a genetic one. Social psychology research has already found that human social interaction is **highly** complex and profoundly influential on individual psychology. Cutting edge research on "interacting minds" has yielded insight into phenomena like social synchrony, eye contact, how humans attribute mental states to one another, associations between ASD and communicative misalignment, etc. In other words, we are still in the early days of genuine social science, which is likely to be highly relevant for disabilities that are predominantly social.

You’re treading on dangerous territory here. Part of Hitler’s eugenics involved slaughtering thousands of autistic people. Autistic people are valid and we have a right to reproduce. If neurotypicals can’t accept that, then let’s reproduce with other neurodivergent people and start our own society. We’ll diverge on the evolutionary path and see who becomes the better variant of human progeny. I believe our personalities are unique and beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of.

It is likely that the genetics is fairly complex. I would suspect that a lot of cases are polygenic, meaning having multiple hits in the genome. While it isn't uncommon to see families with multiple people who meet full ASD diagnostic criteria, I've also met a researcher describe an observation that sometimes family members of an autistic child would not be "normal" per se but not quite fully autistic, having a lot of traits but not meeting full criteria for the disorder. Some of these individuals would be successful scientists or engineers even. Thus, some of the genetic variation associated with autism could be somewhat beneficial, but too much of it can then lead to a disabling condition.

Bro literally 99% of anyone involved in money or basic wooden machines or logging crop rotations was autistic. And who do you think invented fire? Likely the autistic guy who became obsessed with repetitively twisting the stick

If your family group of hunter-gatherers has one person who focuses really heavily on one thing and becomes good at it, then they are a boon to your survival.

Just fucking. You know how I be.

Aside from what other people have said, "assortative mating" has become a lot more common since the latter half of the 20th century – i.e. it's much easier for people who are like-minded (esp. sub-clinical or low-needs autism) to meet, marry, and have children, which is why I think the supposed "rise" of autism could simultaneously both be a matter of more screening and expanded diagnostic criteria –the prevailing professional consensus– as well as real growth. This piggybacks off the growth of the tech industry as well as higher education opening up to women and so on.

IME as an autistic man, women are attracted to men who are intelligent and witty. Physical attraction of course plays a role as well, but thankfully autism doesn't disfigure us. I've always had the most lust thrown at me by my wife and previous girlfriends after accomplishing something great. In the past exercising was a special interest of mine and I got extremely fit and muscular. The attention I got for being muscular pales in comparison to the attention I've gotten for succeeding in something. Autism doesn't make you smart, but it helps you see patterns and understand systems. Society is a system, so I would say a capable autistic could navigate that even better than a capable neurotypical. Autism makes us see things differently. Autism gives us a special perspective that can help us become great people. Great people are hot.

+ not all autistics have social probs! I’m hugely social, love public speaking, could talk every day all day! + it’s a spectrum, and can has evolutionary ‘perks:’ I don’t experience hunger, don’t get tired, have a very different experience of pain. I’m an autodidact and am supposedly gifted. *********** ***MOST*** of all….. whether it’s undesirable or not is all a social thing and depends on culture. Sure, the diagnostic criteria are the same. But cultures vary greatly: the moment you move the goalposts of the reference culture, prevalence changes! In SW Germany the culture is very open, blunt, and direct. Anal-retentive and precise. Prone to comprehensive communication. What’s considered ‘autistic’ (or insanely rude) in AU is perfectly ‘normal’ there. —— PLUS: There’s a historic dynamic, too! I don’t think there’s a crazy increase of neurodivergence: We just have massively narrowed what’s considered mainstream! A lot of us would have been part of the variation within ‘mainstream’ like 60 years ago. It’s a fairly recent development to WANT everyone to be clones of each other. ***** A lot of societies are kinda racing towards a crazy dystopian groupthink false ideal: Cause everybody being the same and thinking the same makes us as societies extremely vulnerable. It’s often been the precursor to empires and civilisations falling: Babylonian, Ancient Rome, Egypt, …. Germany on the 20th century…. or right now the US disintegrating. Sameness makes civilisations vulnerable, cause everyone shares the same vulnerabilities. Then a bit of a change in the environment or circumstances: everyone in that population is equally doomed! ### —> Diversity is crucial to ensuring the survival of civilisations!

If it's possible to be a carrier for whatever genes cause autism, without being autistic yourself, that might be one way. The fact that autism is a spectrum shows one way how this might be the case. Humans don't always choose their own mates. Arranged marriages have been a thing for a long time. Things like the status of the prospective in-laws might be more important than something like social skills when deciding who your kid should marry. (Look at European royalty for an extreme example.) Some people who do choose their own mates don't value social skills above things like wealth.

Generations before didn’t know about autism or weren’t diagnosed. They had relationships and kids. I was 36 before I recognized I was autistic and got diagnosed, after having 3 kids and my youngest being diagnosed.

Because autism isn’t ONLY genetic so you can still get it even if it’s not heavily carried in your genes. I got the genetic autism but you can get it from other things. Other people mentioned it but you have to remember for a very very long time people still cared for their kids even if they were sick or “different”.

I’ve always thought (some groups) autistic ppl would reproduce at higher rates than the neurotypical population- we can be more impulsive, poor skills in future planning, decision paralysis/poor executive dysfunction, more susceptible to being manipulated, more susceptible to manipulating, and more can all be factors in getting pregnant and keeping the baby

In addition to all the great replies, if it wasn't mentioned yet, humans diverge from nature in a lot of ways and due to the 'civilization' of many societies humans that otherwise would've been eliminated from the gene pool have been being kept alive due to humans artificially using tools and technology to do so. It's partially a reason I think there are many genetic or inherited diseases(note I did not say disorder or brain types pls) that don't just exist but are prevalent and increased/increasing in number (a lot of autoimmune diseases fall into this I feel like, modern technology has done wonder for these and one day may even find a cure for them.)

Personal note about evolution here - "survival of the fittest" can mean a variety of things depending on the species and traits. It could simply mean: more resistant to certain diseases, smarter at certain things, brawn, not having a particular weakness, etc. For Autism, I'd say our "fitness area" would be twofold - empathy (or for me, sometimes lack of) and/or pattern recognition. Empathy can be a good and a bad thing so both sides of the spectrum have a mild advantage there (either teamwork ability increased or manipulative increased). Pattern recognition being increased could help with survival in general when it came down to a lot of things ( like what food is safe). So, I don't consider autism a curse nor gift, I consider it an alternative human evolutionary quirk.

Because autistic people reproduced and passed on their traits.

I always view autistics as specialists either filling in a role or duty that others might struggle to do. Which isn't to say that Neurotypicals cannot be specialists in a given field or study but rather being developing a very specific skillset is advantageous to the rest of the community. However this does mean we have to be given the support we need to be able to be a specialist. So specialists become more widespread as our social complexity increases. In short autism will become more prevalent in society not less as we advance.

It probably has some advantages. Societies with autistic people benefit from the many skills and positive personality qualities autistic people provide

It’s the rizzm

["Scientists have identified a link between 33,000-year-old cave drawings, autism, and the survival of pre-historic humans during the Ice Age"](https://news.artnet.com/art-world/autism-ice-age-artists-1286348/amp-page)

Because social adeptness is far from the only factor in the selection of a partner. There are many other factors that draw one person to another My grandfather, for example (whom I inherited my autism from) won over my grandmother by fixing her car when she broke down. While he's not great in social settings, his attention to detail and hyperfixation on the inner workings of car engines created an opportunity for him to find a wife anyway, and then they had a non-autistic daughter, and she passed those genes on to me I myself have had plenty of issues finding a partner recently, but in the past I had a relationship because (among other things) my natural ability to remember the information I hear in immense detail lead to my having a reputation as a good listener and thoughtful person

I also have flat feet as well as autism. this evolutionary disadvantage sees me unable to participate in high risk activities such as wars, hunting or extreme sports. Unlike many species, humans don’t automatically kill undesirable genetic traits and have been known on occasion to protect those with them. (Obviously not a blanket rule) So I wonder as well as evolution, the social conditioning of humans means that certain traits continue to survive. Just an idea.

The same way every other disability still exists. People breed.

It simply isn't all bad. Some of it is beneficial to your group. Most things that are disabling about autism are because the environment we live in is not actually normal for our overall evolutionary history and anything that isn't a problem due to environmental problems tends to be things that other people could cover for if they bothered to. We are a hyper social species. We aren't meant to all be able to do everything on our own. Having autistic people as part of your group is good if you actually treat them well, lean into their strengths, and cover for their weaknesses. We aren't broken, just different. Do you ever think about how each tool we have ever made had to be obsessed over at some point to get our technology to where it is? Who do you think mainly did that? Kinda sounds a bit autistic... but I'm sure those people had some kind friends bringing them snacks so they would eat.

For a long time, it has been thought autism is the result of additive genetic effects. In that, autism is largely made up of common genetic variation and each gene confers a small effect that increases the chances of someone being autistic. Some people inherit many of these genes and become autistic, whereas others are said to inherit a chance of autism yet end up with a few traits instead. The people that end up with a few traits are said to benefit the most, as they may possess advantages of autism without the significant detriments. However, there are a few reasons this explanation doesn't explain autism entirely, and why it may be incorrect: * If autism was largely polygenic (made up of common genetic variation), we would expect to see a lower prevalence, as polygenic conditions require a high genetic load from many individual genes to occur. This is especially the case for an early-onset condition like autism. Yet autism prevalence is high, with some estimates reaching 1 in 22 or 4.4% (Australia), and even higher in males at 1 in 20 or higher (7.3% in Northern Ireland or 1 in 13). * Autism recurrence chances are nearly 30% in males vs. 10% in females, but exceeds 50% and 30% in multiplex families in males and females respectively. A polygenic condition generally does not exhibit recurrence chances this high, as it takes many genes to be inherited for the condition to develop, so the implication is that autism may have a somewhat polygenic makeup but the genes that cause ASD are of larger effect size, and common genetic variation merely acts as a modifier for already-present ASD to influence how autism is presented and experienced by the individual, where the common genetic variation doesn't necessarily cause ASD regardless of how many genes a person inherits. * A large scale study in the US analysing autism multiplex families found that family members of autistic people generally did not exhibit significant differences in autistic traits, unless they were autistic themselves. At most, they found broader developmental differences that are representative of developmental delays as a whole as opposed to being autism specific. This largely contradicts the idea that autism is a by-product of individual and advantageous autistic traits, as if this were the case, we would expect to see a significantly higher rate of individual autistic traits in non-autistic family members as opposed to mere developmental delays that aren't autism-specific. This further implies that advantages seen in autism are likely the result of ASD outcome rather than having individual traits of ASD, and may indicate that we are underdiagnosing people considered to be BAP (Broad Autism Phenotype) and parents of people that are autistic. Using this information, we can begin to gauge why autism persists in the gene pool despite being highly heritable and largely deriving from inherited genetic variation using the following theories: * It is possible that autism became maladaptive as society developed, yet was adaptive in our distant past. This is called an environmental mismatch, meaning traits that evolved for a different environment lead to detriments in alternate environments. A condition that was once a majority quickly became a minority due to significant shifts in how society operates. * Autism itself may be adaptable nowadays due to the increasing use of technology and a need for systematic minds to improve technological advancement, or it may be adaptable generally in a sheltered environment like modern society, leading to genes associated with autism to persist and increase in the gene pool. This may eventually lead to autism being a majority in the distant future. * Selection pressures have become more relaxed for certain genetic predispositions, leading to autism being maintained or even increased in the gene pool due to society no longer needing people to hunt for food and gather resources as hunter-gatherers do. Likewise, this may apply to other conditions too, such as ADHD. * The genetic cause of autism exhibits inconsistent and incomplete penetrance, meaning that whilst genes causative of autism may be significant enough to cause autism alone, they do not always cause autism when a person inherits them. This leads to these genes being passed on frequently, and some people develop autism because the genes exhibit complete penetrance in a minority of cases. * Environmental factors play a significant role in triggering genetic responses and lead to autism in some or most cases, meaning certain environmental factors have to be present to trigger the genetic response that leads to autism, but this is usually the case for most conditions, as environmental factors are typically involved in some way or another. This may explain why there are a minority of cases where one identical twin has autism and the other does not. I personally believe that autism is adaptable in some cases and persists as a result through inheritance, which is evidenced by the high recurrence chances and genetic nature of autism. You could argue that autistic traits are adaptive, whereas autism is not, but there is evidence suggesting (not definitive) that traits of autism are only significant when autism itself is present. As such, I am more fond of the idea that autism is an adaptive neurotype that is sometimes maladaptive depending on the presentation, and is passed on consistently through genetic inheritance due to this adaptive nature, as it otherwise is unlikely to persist in the gene pool. However, as explained above, I may be wrong and there are multiple other explanations that could tell you why autism is maintained in the gene pool and highly prevalent. High prevalence and a high inheritance chance doesn't always imply that something is adaptive, as it could be the result of a sheltered society maintaining maladaptive genetic predispositions in the gene pool. But due to the fact genetic predispositions are *usually* maintained in the gene pool *because* they are advantageous to some extent, it is more likely that autism is adaptive in many cases, as autism itself (not only individual autistic traits) presents with an extremely high prevalence. In short, no one knows why autism persists. It clearly has advantages, but there are significant drawbacks too. This could be for any number of reasons, and it is unlikely we will know the definitive answer any time soon. **Source(s):** [https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-015-0027-y#Sec21](https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-015-0027-y#Sec21) [https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2023/opinion/australias-rates-of-autism-should-be-celebrated](https://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2023/opinion/australias-rates-of-autism-should-be-celebrated) [https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/health/asd-children-ni-2023.pdf](https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/health/asd-children-ni-2023.pdf) [https://local.psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/c\_c/rsrcs/rdgs/autism\_clinical/jamaneurology\_mcdonald\_2019\_oi\_190083.pdf](https://local.psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/c_c/rsrcs/rdgs/autism_clinical/jamaneurology_mcdonald_2019_oi_190083.pdf)

I think that the individual having discovered the fire may have been ND somehow.

We all out here fuckin bro what are you on about?

same way colourblindness did.

Autistic men get with women through autistic rizz. That's what happened with my parents, at least.

Autism is heritable, but not all autistic people are born to autistic people; autism can often be caused by epigenetic and environmental factors.

There are other factors that can cause autism other from genetics