The problem Mike raises shows up in many different domains and is known as the tragedy of the commons.  Simply stated, tragedy of the commons is:

a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource even where it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.

The anecdote post references a story on washingtonpost.com discussing the Democratic primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the results of a study done by social psychologist W. Keith Campbell.  From the study:

… because the volunteers did not know whether their kindness would be reciprocated by others or exploited by competitors, people raced to cut as much timber as they could and quickly razed the forests to the ground. Groups with volunteers more willing to think about the collective good preserved their forests longer. But selfish people within these groups had a field day exploiting the altruists — and the forests perished anyway.

Campbell’s experiment is particularly relevant to politics, because he found that groups with a larger number of narcissists — people with an inflated sense of their own importance — tended to raze the forests much faster than groups in which people felt less self-important. Politics, unfortunately, happens to be a domain that self-selects people with an inflated sense of their own importance.

Political scientist Edella Schlager offers the following as a solution:

… the only way to prevent tragedies of the commons is to set up structures in advance that reward long-term thinking and punish short-term selfishness. This happens mostly among competitors who share long-term interests and have social relationships of trust: If you and I are Maine lobstermen, we are likely to agree to set up limits on the overall catch each year because we see our future, and our children’s future, inextricably linked. In the absence of trust and long-term relationships, the only way to prevent these tragedies is to have an outside regulatory agency step in to establish — and enforce — limits.

Sadly, many of the “competitors” in the autism community (communities?) don’t seem to think we share any long term interests, despite the fact that I’m sure we probably do.  Nor are there too many “social relationships of trust”; even here on the Hub there is a general undercurrent of mistrust between adults with autism and non-autistic parents, stemming I think from the lack of shared long term interests mentioned above.

On the other hand, it is easy for the Hub’s “competitors”, as exemplified by the folks at Age of Autism, to avoid the TOTC:  they speak with a single voice (“Vaccines are bad”, “Vaccines caused my kid’s autism”, “Neurodiversity believers are deluded and in denial”) and trust that everyone on “their side” will stay on message.  There are, of course, some more reasonable voices among the bio-med group, but it is the vocal (apparent) majority that makes the most noise.

Mike is on the right track with his proposed Alliance for Autism.  The first step is to figure out what our shared long term interests are, and from there work to build the trusting social relationships that we need to move forward.  Who knows, we might even find that we have some common ground with our “competitors” in what we want for our kids when they become adults.  Wouldn’t that be something.

I’ll kick it off with a couple of my own long term interests and goals:

• My son receives an education (from me, the schools, his peers) that allows him to participate in the world around him to the extent that he chooses to participate.
• The general public becomes more aware that adults with autism are adults first, that they have dreams, desires, and interests just like everyone else, and should be allowed and empowered to pursue those dreams, desires, and interests.
• A legal environment that enforces the above, when necessary, in the workplace and other areas where autism, and other disabilities, are treated with disdain and disrespect.

Which got me thinking: If Fischer were indeed autistic, how would his life – and the history of chess, among other things – have been different if he had been diagnosed when he was young? If he had been provided the treatment and services that are typically demanded today for Asperger’s diagnoses, would he have had the impact he did? Would he have been able to have that impact, or would that ability have been “treated” out of him?

You can extend this to any of the great minds that people sometimes say were probably autistic, like Newton, Einstein, Van Gogh. You could also look at those who have been diagnosed with Asperger’s as an adult and think back on how things may have been different, for them and their contributions, if they had been diagnosed younger.

There is no doubt (in my mind, anyway) that the increase in diagnoses of autism, especially Asperger’s, is due to a better understanding of what Asperger’s is and an increased desire of parents to understand why their kids are “different”. Many are being diagnosed now that might not have been diagnosed before, and demanding (and receiving) treatment they may not have received before.

I can’t help wondering what these individuals – and the world – may be missing out on because we want to catch and “fix” their differences early in life. We want to make life “easier” for these kids and their parents in the short term, but what is the impact to the long term? (This is kind of a different take on my earlier question, “What would a world without autism look like?“)

(Just to be clear, I’m not advocating not diagnosing children – or adults – if a diagnosis is warranted. I’m just asking the question because I think the answers, even if only hypothetical, can give us some insight into why we think the way we do about autism and why we do the things we do about autism.)

UPDATE: As I finished writing this, I saw Your Advice Requested: Next Steps for a Teen Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome? over at About.com. The questions I’ve asked in this post were a hypothetical to get you thinking about what impact a diagnosis and subsequent treatment would have had on an undiagnosed autistic. If you’ve had a chance to consider those questions, your thoughts on them should help you come up with an answer to Lisa’s question.

Autism is not a “you have it or you don’t” disorder, Todd said. Instead, it is a highly inheritable continuum of traits, much like height or high blood pressure. The cutoff for being tall or short or having high or low blood pressure is somewhat arbitrary, he said. So is the diagnosis of autism. The measure of autism is usually the inability to cope in the real world, said NYU’s Hollander.

“People can be different without having a pathology,” Hollander said. “It’s only a disorder if it causes stress or interferes with function.”

Reminiscent of a comment from Laurentius Rex on a recent post.

Something to consider.

But is this really a random process?

This thought occurred to me yesterday when I heard a teaser for yesterday‘s Talk of the Nation on NPR, on which they had a segment titled Genetically Engineering a ‘Perfect’ Baby. In the teaser, they played a quote from one of the guests in which he said something along the lines of:

We’ve been engaged in genetic engineering for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It happens every night in bars and clubs and every where around the world, when men and women ‘select’ the mate they want to help parent their child.

Which got me thinking: What if we (humans) have been engaged in a process of informal genetic engineering – maybe more appropriately referred to as selective breeding – over the past hundred years that has contributed to the increase in autism during that time, especially of the “high-functioning”, Asperger’s type of autism? I can hear many of you, even as I type this: What the hell are you talking about? And you can bet I’ve got my fire-suit on for all the flames that are sure to come my way. But I’m serious.

Consider this: Over the past 100 years or more, the engineers, scientists, mathematicians and other technically oriented people have become more important to the success and progress of our society. As these people’s importance has grown, so has their power and their desirability as a mate. As a result, these “geeks” have more opportunities to reproduce and further the survival of geek genes. When two geeks get together, especially if they are geeky in different ways, that is even more geekiness that passes down to their children.

Or, as a good friend once put it, “Geeks are breeding more now than they used to.” I apologize for the bluntness of the statement, or if it offends, but this is how she said it. (I’ve actually used that quote before, in an August 2005 post discussing the article Scientists begin to trace autism’s genetic roots in my hometown newspaper the St. Louis Post Dispatch.)

Does anyone know of any studies that address the non-randomness of mate selection and potential impact on genetic diversity, especially as it may relate to autism? I did a quick Google search, but didn’t really come up with much.

(Back on the subject of the Talk of the Nation segment, make sure you check it out. You can also join the conversation on the subject on their blog. Some very interesting comments so far.)

You might as well ask questions like, “What is the cause of introversion? Extroversion? Natural athletic ability?”

I can hear many people saying something along the lines of, “But those ‘conditions’ are normal.” Are they? I mean, in a statistical sense, are they really ‘normal’? I would say no.

If you look at the introvert/extrovert question, I would guess (yes, I’m guessing, no science here) the bell curve of this spectrum would have a few at either end and the rest (you guessed it) within two standard deviations of the mean. Same for athletic abilities.

If we look at autism in this way, as a spectrum across all people (and not just those we currently refer to as autistic), I propose that we might see something similar. On the left side of the bell curve, you would have those that are very non-autistic, the incredibly sociable communicative, etc etc. On the right side, you would have those that are very autistic (what we now simply call autistic). And in the middle, within two standard deviations, would be the vast majority of us showing our mix of autistic and non-autistic traits.

Rather, it is that some, in their zeal to promote public health may be erroneously accepting a level of adverse reaction risk that is too high (and possibly avoidable by reverting to a more conservative schedule)….

The obvious (to me) question from this is, “Given that the current vaccine schedule results in an unacceptably high risk of autism in vaccinated children, what level of risk is acceptable? If the current risk is 1-in-150 (which, I should note is actually the prevalence and not the odds of being autistic), what risk is acceptable? 1-in-500? 1-in-1000? 1-in 10,000? None?”

This question is really for those who believe that vaccines are to blame for autism, and is but one strand in a much more complex thread. Among other things, the risk of individuals becoming autistic would need to be weighed against the risk to the public at large of reducing vaccinations.

At the risk of retreading old ground, exactly where do you think the balancing point would be between protection of individuals from autism and protection of society from communicable diseases? (If you don’t think this is a valid question, by all means let me know. I’m interested in that possibility as well.)

If autism could be cured, and if we, as a society, chose to cure it, what would the world be like? How would it impact our lives, and the lives of our children (and descendants many generations down the line)?  What would society look like 50 years from now?  100 years from now, when autism (or autism-like traits) had stopped influencing things?

If you can, I’d also like to know what you think would actually be removed from individuals and society by curing autism, in terms of behaviors, (dis-)abilities, etc.  In other words, what do you consider part of autism, and what do you consider just different enough to be not autistic?

Obviously, I’m also interested to hear what those who don’t share this goal think would happen if autism were to be completely removed from the human condition. Is this something that we would, or should, want? Or would this be a case of, “be careful what you ask for, you just might get it”?