Could Autism Be an Evolutionary Step Forward?

[meadowlander]

39. Autism is within the range of normal human variation and has always been with us.

As you note, many famous people - particularly scientists, would clearly have been diagnosed as autistic if they were born today. And many autistic people have made contributions to civilisation that went unnoticed because, in general, autistic people are loathe to take credit for things on the basis that any attention is bad attention. But I'm sure many ancient artists, weavers, food science and culinary experimenters, astronomers, priests, etc. would have been autistic.

We can also see evidence that autism has always been with us with the stories of changeling children, child demonic possession, hermits and witches.

Having said that, I do think autism is currently having a moment and that many of the challenges of the next stages of technology (computer science, AI, climate engineering, biomedical research, etc.) will benefit massively from contributions from autistic people as we rely more and more or our intellects for our survival. And because computers have largely been invented by autistic people (see Charles Babbage and Alan Turing both of whom should probably be on your list) in some ways they work in a way/speak a language that autistic people have an advantage in understanding.

I agree that selecting autism out of the gene pool or otherwise "curing" it would be a self-defeating tragedy. But I also don't see a future where everyone is autistic. Our resilience comes from our variation.

For all the people eager to jump up and say "autistic people are assholes too!" Yes, obviously a certain percentage of people in every group is composed of assholes. But I think you also need to look at that in the context of the extreme prejudice and bullying that autistic people face (and the more insidious but equally damaging social pressure to not be or at least not appear to be autistic) which leave many of them feeling embittering and antisocial.

Who knows where we would be at now if Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg had been able to get laid in high school because being really smart and into computers was considered an attractive trait instead of something to pick on people for. Maybe they would still be awful, and maybe not. I say we give that kind of world a try though, test the evidence, and find out.