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Well, I think one issue is that evolution acts on base-pair mutations and not traits. So (to wildly make a possibility up) suppose that mutations X, Y, and Z ar
by dooglius 8y ago
Well, I think one issue is that evolution acts on base-pair mutations and not traits. So (to wildly make a possibility up) suppose that mutations X, Y, and Z are each individually beneficial, but having all of them at once gives you autism. Then the population probably converges on a distribution that has some nonzero probability of X, Y, and Z.
- keenmaster 8y agoThat’s another 100% plausible evolutionary explanation. Autism is caused by genes that correlate with intelligence, which is positive for evolutionary fitness. If you get a certain mixture of those genes, you get autism. That won’t stop the genes from propagating though.