Aspergers and Neanderthals
Oct. 29th, 2007 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqThe site with the Aspy Quiz have an interesting hypothesis that Asperger's Syndrome may be an expression of Neanderthal genes in modern humans - that what we perceive as deficits is actually stuff adapted to a different species (i.e. they don't lack the ability to get non-verbal cues, they're just wired to get a different set of non-verbal cues).
I'm not really qualified to judge this theory. On the one hand it does sound plausible. On the other-hand it has a lot of conjecture of the humans-have-brown-hair-so-they-can-hide-in-coconut-trees-better type.
On the gripping hand, I can think of a lot of alternate hypotheses for some of the behaviors described. For example, they posit that Neanderthals had a more Bonobo-like sexual appetite and that is why there is a higher prevalence of odd sexual mores amongst the Europeans (and their descendants in North America and Australia). How they would know Neanderthals were like that to begin with I don't know. Also, Western liberal culture allows that and is a very recent phenomenon. I wouldn't expect that (liberal sexuality) in cultures that are more hidebound and traditional. You could test it by looking at populations that are not descended from Europeans, but are still western in their outlook, and seeing if they're like a bunch of circus freaks in the bedroom too. Sexually, are American Blacks more or less like their genetic ancestors or their current culture? How about the Japanese?
Finally, the author's assertion that the various "races" of humanity have different IQs is at best controversial and at worst out-and-out racist.
Is it a viable hypothesis? Meh. It needs a lot of work.
As an aside,I'm in the "Neanderthals where assimilated into modern Humanity's gene pool" camp myself, mostly because I think I have an above average number of those genes. (Not so much anymore, thanks to a little more research - Q 2007-10-31 11:10) That picture of the Neanderthal kid on the link above could well be me at eight-years old, except that I had a somewhat more Gaulish (i.e. big) nose. Certainly the kid's attention to hair-combing/cutting is the same as mine was at that age.
I'm not really qualified to judge this theory. On the one hand it does sound plausible. On the other-hand it has a lot of conjecture of the humans-have-brown-hair-so-they-can-hide-in-coconut-trees-better type.
On the gripping hand, I can think of a lot of alternate hypotheses for some of the behaviors described. For example, they posit that Neanderthals had a more Bonobo-like sexual appetite and that is why there is a higher prevalence of odd sexual mores amongst the Europeans (and their descendants in North America and Australia). How they would know Neanderthals were like that to begin with I don't know. Also, Western liberal culture allows that and is a very recent phenomenon. I wouldn't expect that (liberal sexuality) in cultures that are more hidebound and traditional. You could test it by looking at populations that are not descended from Europeans, but are still western in their outlook, and seeing if they're like a bunch of circus freaks in the bedroom too. Sexually, are American Blacks more or less like their genetic ancestors or their current culture? How about the Japanese?
Finally, the author's assertion that the various "races" of humanity have different IQs is at best controversial and at worst out-and-out racist.
Is it a viable hypothesis? Meh. It needs a lot of work.
As an aside,
