I used to joke to myself that I was the next step in evolution, home sapiens superior. I was aware enough no to provoke my classmates though ;)
But, I wonder if it is at all related to Neanderthal lineages. They had bigger brains and were basically autists: the species. Since we are a bastard of them and early Sapiens, maybe some of us present with more of their genome than others?
They don't need to be evenly distributed to be strong evidence against the Neanderthal connection. If autism was basically "latent Neanderthal ancestry", then you'd expect essentially no autism outside of people with European or Middle Eastern ancestry.
And it seems that the prevalence of autism is actually fairly even, but might actually be lower among white people.
I think you'd only expect to find a significant difference in the rates of autism between regions where interbreeding with Neanderthals occurred, and regions where it didn't.
That seems highly dubious. The global human population isn't that well connected, or at least wasn't until recently. And single genes aren't that easy to isolate, so if they could travel that quickly we would also see all kinds of more visible traits moving around, but instead for most people we can get a decent idea of their genetic heritage looking at their face.
All people on Earth are descended from Neanderthals, and East Asians have the highest ancestry. The idea that only Europeans are related to them is outdated.
blaming Neanderthals for most things is a gross over-simplification and misdirects reader's attention towards genetics. While there is some humour to it, I would be cautious of giving into unwarranted fixation towards genetics, as we no longer live in the world where it needs to be defended against Lamarckism and like.
I posit that the "runtime environment" i.e. epigentics, among other things, has a far traceable cause than the smidge of related species. The nature and consequences of autism land me to believe that it's more likely a consequence of a compiler error, although shoddy source code could be a secondary/compounding cause for it. Take Down's Syndrome as an prime example of genetic disorder, and it becomes clear why such categorization does not work for autism: autism is too broad, it describes the effect rather than cause, and I'd argue that autism is far less debilitating (pronounced) and definitely not inherited.
Autism being "too broad" is why it doesn't have a genetic cause?
Autism's nomenclature not being descriptive enough is why it doesn't have a genetic cause?
Autism not being as debilitating as DS is why it doesn't have a genetic cause? (developmental logic aside, are you familiar with Type 2 and Type 3 autistic individuals?).
Extra dings for not for over-use of CS analogy, "unwarranted fixation", and "we no longer live in the world".
I think the real problem here is this can potentially be a politically heated take. I don't believe it is in this case, or they were making an effort to not make it so. Of course, that is just my reading of it.
In identical twins, autism and homosexuality both have about the same rate of non-occurrence between the twins: 50%. This means, of course, that autists and gays are "born, not made" by the environment. Move along. Nothing to see here.
But, I wonder if it is at all related to Neanderthal lineages. They had bigger brains and were basically autists: the species. Since we are a bastard of them and early Sapiens, maybe some of us present with more of their genome than others?