> our ancestors started inventing things 70,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Erm, and what about the other 200k-230k years of homo sapiens?
Not to mention that Homo erectus invented the handaxe and domesticated fire about 1700k years ago, both of which were a pretty big deal!
https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thundersto...
And that modern humans had some kind of creativity explosion substantially after they were anatomically modern.
They also talk about individual learning as a third mode, which somewhat ironically seems to be what the autism article is talking about... except the conditions for it are genetically based ! (But I guess so is the transition to mostly social learning?)
EDIT : Hmm, and since autism is "anti-social" (and also probably generally anti-survival and anti-reproduction), may it be that it was only once that large, stable, strong social groups were put in place starting with 300-200 kya, that the conditions for "autistic specializations" could emerge starting with 100-45 kya, and this is what in turn turbocharged inventions leading to the "creativity explosion" ? The autism article would make a lot of sense under this light !
Anyway, perhaps we can't cleanly separate nature and nurture, see also recent discoveries somewhat rehabilitating Lamarckian inheritance.
Also, my author in a parallel article says :
https://loukeep.substack.com/p/vagaries
> The first modern human bones are in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, 300 kya. H. rhodiensis - the African variant of heidelbergensis - disappears at around this same time. There are just-about-simultaneously collections found in the Rift Valley, Kenya, that point to incredibly “modern” behavior[1], including pigment production and obsidian distant enough to suggest trade networks. Once, I think, it could be maintained that some kind of “great leap forward” in human behavior took place some 60,000 years ago or so. I don’t particularly understand how one can keep that up now.
Asocial people on other side are not social, but they don't do any anti-social things - because that would mean that they have to socialize and that is opposite to being asocial.
Autistic people are not anti-survivalists, as by definition they have hightened fight-flight response, so they want to survive, however they have to really depend on society(humans by definition are social animals) to provide them survivable environment, so they could invent. Hardly any invention can happen, if there is no fertile ground, as being among morons requires different goals and skills to survive and adapt - with creativity.
Autistic people also are no anti-reproduction either - modern society is in general against reproduction, as there is overpopulation on this planet.
There are no problems to reproduce, if female is autistic, as she has much higher chances to find a partner and produce autistic offsprings, but it is more complicated for autistic males to find a partner and without a partner there is no reproduction even if males are pro-reproduction.
> There are no problems to reproduce, if female is autistic, as she has much higher chances to find a partner and produce autistic offsprings
Not only she has to birth children, in the absence of a strong (extra-)familial community she also has to be able to care well for them. Don't you think that autism, especially if in strong form, might make this a problem?