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The "Autism Spectrum" Debate

Stella_Omega said:
By a nice coincidence, the spring edition of Ethos Journal of Psychological Anthropology is titled; "rethinking Autism, Rethinking Anthropology"

it brings together work from scholars of education, occupational science, anthro. Its goals are "to highlight the importance of rethinking research on this issue, away from the dominant biomedical focus to a more phenomenological and ethnographic stance that addresses experiences of living with autism," and to "rethink possibilities for social interaction and participation for people with autism."

It's nice to know that the discussion is happening!
Click to expand...

Even if I'm not sure what the discussion is really about. :rolleyes::confused::cool:
 
Petition

Okay. I've decided. We need to start a petition.

We'll title it:

Keep our Designation: Aspies for Aspergers!

Whadda think? :confused:
 
Evolution doesn't work that way......

voluptuary_manque said:
Correction, my dearest. We are indeed evolving biologically and it seems that we are evolving faster now than we did a hundred thousand years ago. The changes are at the chemical level, not the physiognomic but they are there. Consider the changes that have occurred in just the last 8 thousand or so years. Lactose tolerance, improved ability to assimilate grains, alcohol tolerance, hemoglobin and lung capacity increase in high altitude populations . . . the list is fascinating. And all of this has taken place since the development of agriculture. No, human evolution today is far from limited to culture.
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of the late Stephen J. Gould and a fan of Richard Dawkins. These two had several professional and public dust ups about just how evolution works. That said, their opinions on evolution in general were far more similar than they were different.

I think both of them would disagree with your statements above. The changes you describe are at the level of genetic expression, not at the level of genes themselves. Genes for lactose tolerance coding for the ability to make the enzyme lactose dehydrogenase, exist in all humans. Over time, the expression of those genes (actually making more of the enzyme), has increased by simple prolonged exposure to lactose. Genes that code for regulating the expression of other genes respond to the exposure. Living at altitude simply drives the body to make extra haemoglobin. It occurs as an adaption for anyone who decides to live at high altitude. If that person then decides to move to lower altitude, the haemoglobin level responds in kind. It has nothing to do with changes in the gene pool of humans. It's merely a personal adaptation we all can make. Individual adaptations in our physiology are not genetic adaptations and evolution acts on species, not individuals.

That said geneticists disagree over the amount of genetic change that has actually occurred. Since no one has access to human DNA from 100,000 years ago, the only tools geneticists have involve genetic drift. Due to humanities wanderlust and basic lust, whatever minuscule genetic differences that exist are rapidly being smoothed out.

According to Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium...

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/eldredge.pdf

...only isolated groups within a species tend to undergo genetic change due to local changes in their environment. (Admittedly a very loose explanation so read it for yourself.) Because humans groups are no longer isolated from each other, we are constantly mixing our genes and our brains allow us to deal with environmental changes, human genetic evolution on any significant scale is almost impossible.

Needless to say, other evolutionary biologists don't necessarily agree.
 
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stephen55 said:
I'm a big fan of the late Stephen J. Gould and a fan of Richard Dawkins. These two had several professional and public dust ups about just how evolution works. That said, there opinions on evolution in general were far more similar than they were different.

I think both of them would disagree with your statements above. The changes you describe are at the level of genetic expression, not at the level of genes themselves. Genes for lactose tolerance coding for the ability to make the enzyme lactose dehydrogenase, exist in all humans. Over time, the expression of those genes (actually making more of the enzyme), has increased by simple prolonged exposure to lactose. Genes that code for regulating the expression of other genes respond to the exposure. Living at altitude simply drives the body to make extra haemoglobin. It occurs as an adaption for anyone who decides to live at high altitude. If that person then decides to move to lower altitude, the haemoglobin level responds in kind. It has nothing to do with changes in the gene pool of humans. It's merely a personal adaptation we all can make. Individual adaptations in our physiology are not genetic adaptations and evolution acts on species, not individuals.

That said geneticists disagree over the amount of genetic change that has actually occurred. Since no one has access to human DNA from 100,000 years ago, the only tools geneticists have involve genetic drift. Due to humanities wanderlust and basic lust, whatever minuscule genetic differences that exist are rapidly being smoothed out.

According to Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium...

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/eldredge.pdf

...only isolated groups within a species tend to undergo genetic change due to local changes in their environment. (Admittedly a very loose explanation so read it for yourself.) Because humans groups are no longer isolated from each other, we are constantly mixing our genes and our brains allow us to deal with environmental changes, human genetic evolution on any significant scale is almost impossible.

Needless to say, other evolutionary biologists don't necessarily agree.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but Gould's information is hopelessly out of date now and Dawkins hasn't a clue. He simply attempted to substitute a concept for Gene for one of God. The man is no biologist, merely a member of the Oxford good-ol'-boys club. The other evolutionary biologists are dead on.
 
I mean...get with the program...

voluptuary_manque said:
I'm sorry but Gould's information is hopelessly out of date now and Dawkins hasn't a clue. He simply attempted to substitute a concept for Gene for one of God. The man is no biologist, merely a member of the Oxford good-ol'-boys club. The other evolutionary biologists are dead on.
Click to expand...

Bear, are you tossing aspersion on my favourite evolutionary biologist? (Gould) The only book he wrote that I haven't got is The Structure of Evolutionary Theory and it's on the way. I got it cheap at Amazon Marketplace.

That said, of course his information is out of date. He and Eldredge were talking about the fossil record. How much more out of date could that be?

As for Dawkins...he wrote a book titled The Blind Watchmaker. As if! Why would a blind person make a watch? It's not as if a blind person could tell the time from the non visible hands on the watch. So why bother?
 
Stella_Omega said:
By a nice coincidence, the spring edition of Ethos Journal of Psychological Anthropology is titled; "rethinking Autism, Rethinking Anthropology"

it brings together work from scholars of education, occupational science, anthro. Its goals are "to highlight the importance of rethinking research on this issue, away from the dominant biomedical focus to a more phenomenological and ethnographic stance that addresses experiences of living with autism," and to "rethink possibilities for social interaction and participation for people with autism."

It's nice to know that the discussion is happening!
Click to expand...
this discussion has been happening in the UK for quite some time now with people who identify as neurodiverse not only participating in research but also collaborating in it. It's slightly different from the aims above in that it's a bit more radical, so rather than aiming for normalization, the research is more emancipatory.
 
April is Autism Awareness Month!

Hey, not only do we have a symbol, but we've got a month! April is Autism Awareness month!

Um...does anyone else find the idea of an "awareness" month for Autistics funny?

Go on, you can laugh about it. I'm laughing. Also that they picked the "April Fool's" month--but maybe that was meant to be poetic. :cool:
 
A Ribbon!

We also have a ribbon to clip to our lapels!

http://www.healthnews.com/files/images/autism%20ribbon%20sized.jpg

Figures that the autistics would go for something complicated. Multiple colors and a jigsaw puzzle pattern :rolleyes: Yeah. We're complicated. I get it. :D

Well, hell. I'm feeling better about being designated as autistic as it comes with all this cool identity stuff...are there decoder rings, too? :cool:
 
Nose down, awkward brisk jerk of the hand from above the shoulder to down to the waist.
 
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