(Date Posted:11/07/2006 07:25:12)
Supertzar:
Thanks for the link to the article. I'd read it a long time ago, too, but had lost track of it. Thanks for the reminder so I can add it back into my bookmarks.
The National Autistic Society in the UK has an interesting write-up on the differences between males and females with autism.
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1049&a=3370
What I found especially interesting was that girls may be better at masking autism with their better verbal skills, which would then make them harder to diagnose. Perhaps there is a greater percentage of autistic girls than we realize. There are a few other hypotheses mentioned in there, too. It's fascinating stuff, and just shows how little we really understand about the brain as of yet. But there's been some amazing progress in the last 75 years or so.
Snakechic:
I'm not sure how what I wrote earlier led to me asserting male intelligence over female intelligence. I was specifically writing about the very exceptional ends of the intelligence spectrum, both the exceptionally brilliant and the exceptionally retarded. A greater percentage of men will be found at both of those extremes (say the top and bottom .01% or so), but outside of those extremes there isn't any real difference between men and women.
Females of most species will usually have a gestation period were they cannot mate, and sometimes a period after birth where they raise the offspring and do not mate. The males of those species are typically not under those types of restrictions and can continue mating during the female's gestation and in the offsprings' early life. The males at the very low ends of the spectrum do not have a chance to breed and are left out of the gene pool. The exceptionally gifted males have a greater chance to pass on their genes because they can mate with many more females, and the females cannot because of the time spent in gestating and nurturing the young.
{I've avoided personifying evolution so far, but in order to wrap this up somewhat quickly I'll have to do it.} So, in evolution's view, perhaps it is more important to have good females rather than exceptional females due to the times when they cannot breed, and roll the dice with the males since they can keep breeding, passing along their better Y chromosomes for better male offspring and their better X chromosomes for better female offspring.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Walkawayers.org
---
I judge all religions by how long I have to wait until they tell me about the spaceships.
|
