2 ms·
In very few cases it is purely genetic, like these de novo cases they are finding, but the majority of cases are not. I want to throw this out there, not as so
by FollowingTheDao 4y ago
In very few cases it is purely genetic, like these de novo cases they are finding, but the majority of cases are not.
I want to throw this out there, not as something I believe, but as an idea to be discussed, that one factor in the rise of Autism might be the sudden rise in wealth of a new type of person (programmers, engineers, etc) which led to different mating patterns and a sudden change in the genetics of the children born to these couples. Or even just a change in how they raise the kids and what food they eat.
- MrPatan 4y agoLet's go back a bit and call it "the rise of the accountant". I don't think there's been rich programmers in significant numbers to for enough time to have moved the genetic needle all that much. But widen the category a bit and you'll find that the rewards for a relatively obsessive attention to detail and being comfortable with numbers have shifted in the past five centuries or so, from a one way trip to the monastery (if you were lucky) to a comfortable middle class life style, family included.
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoHA! I like that. But seriously, all it takes is one generation for Autism to appear if the genetics for it are present in the parents. These people who were "accountants" were always working for the rich, never rich themselves. By the way, my father was an accountant (Went to NYU when he was 16 back in 1951) and he later ended up working on some of the first office computers. And here I am, being told in my 50s that I am probably on the spectrum. My mother was from a poor coal mining family in PA and she ran away to NYC to find here way out of that life when she met my father.
- nfhshy68 4y agoMy dad is an accountant. I joke sometimes that I got my dad's Autism and my mum's ADHD. Dunno who gave me dyslexia though.