It's entirely possible. There seem to be a bunch of things that encourage it to develop, but no single trigger.
I'm not sure whether it's necessarily "damage" the way it's generally considered, though. I suspect that it's simply a natural variation in possible design. It may be an alternate mode that can be activated by bad enough conditions, and we're seeing more because conditions are pretty bad. Certainly I can see some big advantages it has over neurotypical design, but the difficulty handling new situations makes it hard to see as more advantageous in times of doom and chaos. Some design-activation switches are based on advantage (like color phases) while others just are (like temperature-based sex determination in reptiles). More input would be required to discern that level of detail. But the fact that autistic people are dramatically better than neurotypical people at certain things disproves the claim that it is purely a disability. *shrug* Most people can't seem to tell the difference between super-senses and distorted senses either, and file all sensory differences under sensory processing disorder.
Regarding the vaccine schedule, I find it dangerously overblown and the business practices reprehensible, but I'm dubious of the connection with autism. I have yet to find any studies on the topic not done either by people who think all vaccines are good and should be forced on the unwilling or by people think all vaccines are evil, which makes the body of available data largely useless. I am more inclined to suspect a connection with the skyrocketing rates of autoimmune disorders. I haven't seen the kind of studies that would need to be done to pursue that inquiry, for example, whether the rates differ across countries with more or less routine medical care.
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dancing_serpent
Well ...
Date: 2020-01-14 07:02 pm (UTC)I'm not sure whether it's necessarily "damage" the way it's generally considered, though. I suspect that it's simply a natural variation in possible design. It may be an alternate mode that can be activated by bad enough conditions, and we're seeing more because conditions are pretty bad. Certainly I can see some big advantages it has over neurotypical design, but the difficulty handling new situations makes it hard to see as more advantageous in times of doom and chaos. Some design-activation switches are based on advantage (like color phases) while others just are (like temperature-based sex determination in reptiles). More input would be required to discern that level of detail. But the fact that autistic people are dramatically better than neurotypical people at certain things disproves the claim that it is purely a disability. *shrug* Most people can't seem to tell the difference between super-senses and distorted senses either, and file all sensory differences under sensory processing disorder.
Regarding the vaccine schedule, I find it dangerously overblown and the business practices reprehensible, but I'm dubious of the connection with autism. I have yet to find any studies on the topic not done either by people who think all vaccines are good and should be forced on the unwilling or by people think all vaccines are evil, which makes the body of available data largely useless. I am more inclined to suspect a connection with the skyrocketing rates of autoimmune disorders. I haven't seen the kind of studies that would need to be done to pursue that inquiry, for example, whether the rates differ across countries with more or less routine medical care.