Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
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Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
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Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#2Interesting paper!
I have an autistic son (and my second might have something similar but much milder) and I suppose I would meet the "systemitizing" criterion (my wife wouldn't, but that doesn't really argue against the conclusion of the paper). Of course, anecdote != data, etc.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#3Very interesting. I wonder what other researchers think about this.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#4> Among the 1337 block groups [...]
Teehee. Interesting paper.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#5Don't miss the end (pp. 41-43), where he calculates that the net economic benefit of mating between "systematizers" as very positive, modeling the resulting higher wages compared with the cost of autism (as 3-SD systematizing behavior) and Asperger's syndrome (as a 2.5-sigma trait).
In this model, net economic result is still very positive, even if the lifetime economic cost for a case of autism is $5 million, and the presence of Asperger's cancels out any benefit in earning (not likely!)
This is a nice result for the ever-growing industry of online and offline forums for assortative mating, particularly in this field of interest.
So here's the upshot for economic development organizations: support your local geek conventions!
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#6He has limited his data to the USA; but should we not also see increases in Europe and UK as well, given the similar shifts in society and the manner in which people choose their spouses?
If there were other factors that were found in the USA but not found in other countries (whatever that may be, environmental or otherwise) then there would be statistically significant divergence.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#7I might be missing something, but doesn't assortative mating in itself guarantee that certain hereditable characteristics would be more likely to flourish?
Also, I thought it was funny that one of the researchers cited (Simon Baron-Cohen) is a cousin of the Baron-Cohen you've probably heard from before, especially since I've long sensed a whiff of spectrum disorder in the whole Ali G/Borat schtick.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#8Interesting, but correlation does not imply causation. Yet, unfortunately, that is the first response many will have to reading this.
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#9Interesting that a highly transient society has managed to apparently reduce genetic diversity to an observable degree in such a short span of time.
Having recently rewatched Gattaca and falling in the Asperger range of ASD, I can't help but wonder if studies of this nature will nudge us closer to passive forms of eugenics. We're certainly within the realm of feasibility at this point...
Re: Childhood Autism and Assortative Mating
#10He has limited his data to the USA; but should we not also see increases in Europe and UK as well, given the similar shifts in society and the manner in which people choose their spouses? If there were other factors that were found in the USA but not found in other countries (whatever that may be, environmental or otherwise) then there would be statistically significant divergence.
In this article it appears that similar results were found in the Netherlands.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2089358-3,0...