Could Assortative Mating Explain Autism? 286
clm1970 writes "Researcher Simon Baron-Cohen has put forth the theory that 'how we mate and marry' could explain the increase in rates of Autism Spectrum Disorders, particularly Asperger's. When two technically minded people marry and have children, so the provocative theory goes, they are more apt to produce a child who crosses the line into mild autism."
So (Score:5, Insightful)
So we should cause cheerleaders to date nerds, and football players fangirls? Maybe no one who can name all eleven doctors should be allowed to marry at all, but rather should be put full time to impregnating Olympic athletes?
I like the idea that Aspergers is associated directly with intelligence. I also like the whorish way that the paper's author plays with the concept of eugenics to get more hits.
I also like the way that the author tries to ignore environmental conditions such as increased urbanization and subsequent hyper-socialization.
Re:but... (Score:2, Insightful)
To break the slashdot-ism: if that were the case the first generation of geeks would never have had *any* offspring. Geeks take to coupling just like everything else they do, they either stumble at it, or become avid-amateurs until they succeed.
Re:but... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's only true during high school and college, strangely enough when the 6 digit salary starts rolling in your average geeks attractiveness coefficient increases by 2 orders of magnitude.....
Obviously I'm not suggesting correlation implies causation but never the less.
Re:Publicity whore for a "scientist" (Score:2, Insightful)
So he can only be regarded as a scientist if he puts forth ideas that check out. I don't think you understand how science works (Observe, theorize, test, repeat.) His contribution so far: We know some things that do not cause autism and we have more things to test.
Re:but... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's only true during high school and college, strangely enough when the 6 digit salary starts rolling in your average geeks attractiveness coefficient increases by 2 orders of magnitude.....
Obviously I'm not suggesting correlation implies causation but never the less.
To be honest, I think at some point geeks are put in a situation where they want to become social around that salary level. They enter the work force with jobs that accept them for who they are and a sort of Peterson Principle thing happens when they get promoted to senior guy. Their incompetent at the interfacing and mentoring thing, except they actually want to do them since they actually respect the more technical project managers, and care about showing the young-ins the ropes, so they learn to be competent at them. As a side effect of this, and also being older and more confidant because they care less about being awkward. As a nice side effect of all this, the ladies that are initially attracted to geeks for their money find their personalities worth sticking around for.