In The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention (2020), Baron-Cohen proposes the Systemizing Mechanism as an explanation for human progress through invention, from the first tools to the digital revolution.
Regarding the association between autism and family achievement in the field of engineering, is this controlling for the fact that those who have higher SES might also have a higher average parental age? While it is true that autism is heritable, it may also be epigenetic. The genes for autism may lie dormant or latent in a population, and only become expressed or activated due to late parental age. When the genes for autism remain dormant, they may express themselves in positive ways, but when they become expressed due to reproductive damage from parental aging, they are deleterious.
Autism is not simply a heightened level of testosterone, but also an atrophy of social functioning. Otherwise, a person on steroids would become autistic. Autism could also be thought of as sickle cell anemia, where certain expressions of a gene are positive, but other expressions are deleterious.
Good point. I had to look at multiple papers I have cited in that article. And indeed, I couldn't find where they said they accounted for father's age or parent age.
Regarding the association between autism and family achievement in the field of engineering, is this controlling for the fact that those who have higher SES might also have a higher average parental age? While it is true that autism is heritable, it may also be epigenetic. The genes for autism may lie dormant or latent in a population, and only become expressed or activated due to late parental age. When the genes for autism remain dormant, they may express themselves in positive ways, but when they become expressed due to reproductive damage from parental aging, they are deleterious.
Autism is not simply a heightened level of testosterone, but also an atrophy of social functioning. Otherwise, a person on steroids would become autistic. Autism could also be thought of as sickle cell anemia, where certain expressions of a gene are positive, but other expressions are deleterious.
Good point. I had to look at multiple papers I have cited in that article. And indeed, I couldn't find where they said they accounted for father's age or parent age.
Autism comes from one thing - to the best of my knowledge: Vaccine injuries.