By Randolph Nesse, MD. Thanks to Rob Henderson
Crespi has assembled evidence that excess dominance of paternal alleles may increase the risk of autism, while excess unopposed activity of maternal alleles may increase the risk of schizophrenia. This hypothesis predicts that babies born a bit heavier than average will have an increased risk of autism, and those born a bit lighter than average will have an increased risk of schizophrenia. Remarkably, a study of millions of people in Denmark confirmed the prediction.
Simon Baron-Cohen's theory that autism is a sort of "extremely male" brain is mentioned but not discussed much. As I had been thinking about him last week but forgotten him, it was good to get the reminder.
More recently, he has been amassing evidence that invention is linked to autism.
Rather strange comment/thread that showed up at Twitter that I thought you might find interesting:
ReplyDelete"Society will be healed when we finally learn to harness the power of male autism, our last hope for neutrality and best defense against the cult of “empathy”"
https://twitter.com/annakhachiyan/status/1583877748283490304
More than a little interesting! I have not much liked Hanania, even though Razib had him on for an interview and he wasn't too bad, just somewhat irritating and flat wrong on a couple of points. But this theory of his is quite remarkable. I will have to give him another try.
ReplyDeleteComing on top of the two different kinds of mating strategies and Theory of Mind and empathy vs coalitional cooperation for safety and prosperity (admittedly, often at horrible expense to opponents) this looks like the same thing from a 45-degree angle.