Autism and Evolution
hms.harvard.edu
Autism and Evolution
1–10 of 91 posts
Re: Autism and Evolution
#2Similar: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160815064944.h... Schizophrenia emerged after humans diverged from Neanderthals
Re: Autism and Evolution
#3So DNA is mutating... and we believe its evolution ? Then why are certain groups seemingly evolving at different rates ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_anomaly
Food ? Environment ?
Re: Autism and Evolution
#4I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht...
Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future.
Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of environmental factors increasing with autism prevalence, which makes the likelihood of it being environmental stronger than something else.
http://images.medicaldaily.com/sites/medicaldaily.com/files/...
For example it took a long time to figure out that lead in gasoline could lead to cognitive decline. BPA and phtalates is another recent discovery, which cause hormone distruption.
What else do we have today that is yet to be figured out, and what is the likelihood that we have something similar brewing that we do not yet know about.
Re: Autism and Evolution
#5I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht... Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future. Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of envi…
I am not dismissing the idea that environmental causes may be at play... but be VERY VERY cautious when throwing around charts like that.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/glyphosate.asp
Correlation != Causation and not every scientist is an expert on Autism/Genetics/Biology.
"Even disregarding the sloppy mathematics, the claim's very basis (that glyphosate is the cause of a perceived increase in autism) is unsupported. No mention was made of how glyphosate was isolated and shown to be a cause (or even a factor) in some or any cases of autism in the article. No autism spikes near agricultural facilities were described, nor was any definitive causative link at all cited by the article (and presumably, Seneff) to back up the purported link between glyphosate and autism rates anywhere other than the imaginations of those making the claim. The single link of merit made within the article (to a USDA report) made absolutely no mention of autism at all but was misleadingly arranged to suggest a connection.
What the claim seemed to hinge on largely was a correlation/causation fallacy: Because [unclear activity involving glyphosate] occurred, a corresponding rise in autism diagnoses must be due to that unspecified issue with glyphosate. Claims of a similar nature have been dispelled with graphs like the following that show how difficult (or simple) it is to "prove" any one cause correlates with any one effect:"
Re: Autism and Evolution
#6I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht... Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future. Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of envi…
It doesn't need to be one or the other. Genetics can predispose somebody to be more vulnerable to certain environmental factors. They will not show any symptoms unless those environmental factors are present, but there's still genetics involved.
And of course there's this whole field called epigenetics that studies how the same genes can be expressed differently based on environmental factors.
Re: Autism and Evolution
#7I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht... Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future. Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of envi…
There are a lot of potential candidates... too many to be honest, and a lot of them are related to basic economic activities. History shows that environmental issues driven by economics aren't solved until an alternative comes along and is adopted; the problems of dead horses and horse dung in NYC streets were solved by... the automobile.
I'm put in mind of the recent paper posted on HN regarding magnetic nanoparticles being found in human brains. Unrelated to autism (probably) is the increasing study of prions and in general, maladaptive protein synthesis. What isn't known about these issues could fill volumes.
Re: Autism and Evolution
#8I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht... Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future. Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of envi…
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.
Re: Autism and Evolution
#9The article says 1-5% of the ASD cases they looked at were related to the "HARs" (human-accelerated regions). The most important thing to understand about autism is that it isn't a single condition, but an umbrella category with a bunch of conditions grouped into it.
It's a trait (trait cluster, really), analogous to intellectual disability or giftedness, rather than analogous to a condition with a single known cause like trisomy 21. See https://intellectualizing.net/2013/12/17/book-rethinking-aut... and https://intellectualizing.net/2015/06/04/why-it-matters-whet...
Once we understand that autism isn't a single condition, a lot of the ways the public (and researchers) talk about autism turn out to be kinda nonsense.
Re: Autism and Evolution
#10I don't quite buy that autism will be shown to be genetic. I think it's an environmental factor. The rate of increase in autism is pretty much exponential: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479022a/box/1.ht... Now that's a very scary chart if you start to project that curve into the future. Here's another one. Not saying this is the cause, but it is a cause for concern. We have many similar patterns of envi…
It is not prevalence that is growing exponentially, it is diagnosis.