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Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

My cousin had debilitating autism that was greatly diminished by removing wheat germ from his diet, so I partially buy the environmental take, but on the other hand it is a disease that is correlated with parental IQ, where a higher IQ leads to more likely incidence of autism. I don't think it's a coincidence that the rise of co-sexed secondary education and finer grained sorting with institutions like Harvard and MIT getting an even more concentrated amount of intelligent people.

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Since this thread is about evolution, we might even say that the evolutionary pressures we currently face in the developed world actually favor mild variants of ASD.

It might be because some ASD traits help people become more successful in the information economy. Asperger's people often thrive in well-paid occupations such as programming and data analysis where spontaneous social interaction is widely acknowledged to hurt productivity.

Or it might just be a side effect of a society that places a lot of emphasis on intelligence, making it more likely for a person with high IQ to seek a mate with similarly high IQ. The more smart people "inbreed" among themselves, the more ASD cases we will naturally see.

In either case, since evolution is whack-a-mole, this will lead to not only mild ASD but also more cases of severe autism if they are caused by the same set of genes.

Being economically successful in the western world, does not necessarily translate to more (surviving) offspring.

But it does ensure your child/ren have access to medical professionals, which causes what the medical community as a whole to see an increase in cases.

I have not seen any evidence that Asperger Syndrome or mild autism leads to well-paid occupations. For sure, there is some anecdotal evidence (which I find unconvincing), but I haven't come across anything more solid, like a research paper or study. If you've seen something along those lines, please post a link.

I do believe that children with Asperger Syndrome often see the symptoms grow less severe as they age. Perhaps with lots of hard work and a good support structure, some of them people grow to enjoy above average success. It seems entirely unreasonable (and to my mind somewhat cruel) to credit this success to Asperger Syndrome itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

Even Asperger thought that his patient/students had unusual gifts as well as issues. In an attempt to keep the then-new Nazi regime from closing down his school (and later, eliminating "defective" children), he suggested they might make excellent codebreakers. Steve Silberman covers that well later in this audio interview with Terry Gross, and presumably in his book as well:

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/43674237...

What appears to be Aspergers now is very similar to spending lots of time on the Internet and then trying to interact socially afterwards. It's quite difficult to appear neuro-typical after a surfing session, and for today's kids, Aspergers is the 'New Normal'. Aspergers was even taken off the DSM-5: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

aspergers was lumped into autism, it wasn't made non-diagnosable. Previously the criteria for aspergers were the same as autism but without delayed language development. Now they decided that distinction wasn't worth singling out with a special diagnosis so it's considered autism regardless of language delay. Those who had aspergers are now considered to simply have autism.

If I'm understanding your comment correctly, it sounds like you're insinuating that it's a fake disorder. No offense, but you're grossly misinformed.

In a child with autism, pain becomes debilitating because they can't communicate or cope with pain well. That doesn't mean an allergy or intolerance causes autism, however.

An allergy or intolerance is much worse when it make your nonverbal child irritable and violent, then when it makes your verbal child say "mom, my tummy hurts bad" after you serve pizza.

Now that he's verbal he can describe what it felt like: He was completely off his ass baked. Just high as a kite. Unable to focus he was so high.

Really? Did they do any kind of blood tests with and without wheat germ in his diet? It would be interesting to know what exactly was causing that response. That doesn't really sound like a normal allergic reaction.

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