Politics and Science ally themselves in ways that are not useful to those seeking an answer to the causes of autism. Darwin wrote three books proposing three different theories of evolution. Darwin’s theory of natural selection we know best. Sexual selection is growing in influence. Pangenesis has been disappeared.
Pangenesis was Darwin’s attempt to understand how he observed the environment to influence evolution in a single generation. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was a French evolutionary theorist from earlier in Darwin’s century that pioneered the premise that the engine of evolution was the use and disuse of particular organs or features, and that the environment could influence changes. By late in Darwin’s life, evolutionary theory had polarized such that Larmarckian and natural selection paradigms were considered opponent frames of reference. Darwin, when describing his “Larmarckian” ideas when discussing pangenesis did not use Lamarck’s names or cite Lamarck’s followers.
Natural selection won the debate. Mendelian genetics in combination with a deep respect for the elegance of the natural selection solution suggested the Lamarckian solution was an unnecessary embellishment to an explanation of how evolution unfolds. The Lamarckian theories were never disproved. They just seemed unnecessary. It is rare you find Darwin’s Lamarckism discussed when his theories are reviewed.
What does this have to do with autism?
Darwin’s theory of natural selection is a theory that reflects a “might makes right” patrifocal societal interpretation of how human society unfolds. Natural selection supports a highly stratified view of how society most efficiently operates. In the West, it is believed by many that by encouraging “the survival of the fittest” a society stokes innovation with wealth tricking down to those with less useful gifts. We believe the horizontal cooperative interconnection between individuals and the influence of the environment are far less important regarding evolutionary processes than what it takes to reach procreation age and have progeny.
The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication is Darwin’s work exploring how he believes the environment influences evolution in a single generation. It is a work that suggests how autism can be explained.
All that’s stopping us from making the connection is the political allegiance to the concept that societal success is a function of individual survival. We in the West adore this myth. It obfuscates our ability to see autism as an evolutionary condition. Autism is not about natural selection.
I saw an article yesterday in The Canary Report that connects autism to environmental pollution. Several studies have been released lately connecting autism to various environmental effects including linoleum floors, rainy climes and cooler climates. The environment is being considered closely as effecting the autism. Only, we have no explanatory paradigm to evolutionarily connect the dots.
We might begin with how our beliefs influence what we can know. Our politics are dedicated to the drama of resource control with the savvy few controlling the less lucky many. Our science reflects this story line when it embraces theories that emphase struggle over cooperation. If autism is revealed to emerge as a result of both environmental and heredity factors, then perhaps we should explore the stories we tell ourselves that makes it so difficult to see how genes and the environment cooperate to achieve what we become.
Evolutionary developmental biology offers an epigenetic or heredity plus environment point of view. Recent discoveries in neuropsychology suggest that the environment influences hormone levels that in turn influence the rate and timing of maturational delay.
Autism is all about the rate and timing of maturational delay.
Maybe with a different way of looking at how society unfolds we’ll be able to interpret information that suggests that evolution and autism have little to do with stories and theories of competition.
