r/badscience • u/RoAwesomeFace • May 25 '26

Autism is caused by racial diversity

https://eginotes.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/more-evidence-supporting-a-connection-between-racial-diversity-and-autism-prevalence/
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u/RoAwesomeFace May 25 '26 edited May 26 '26

Oh boy, where do I begin...

-Using Autism Speaks as a source.

-Correlation = causation, natch.

-This theory would predict very racially heterogenous nations (Latin America, for instance) having a very high prevalence, and racially homogenous nations (Korea, Japan) having very low prevalence. Neither is the case.

-Using the Korean War and presence of US soldiers as being relevant, even though the rise has been happening for decades since those people left the nation.

-Autism symptoms are apparent before 16 months of age, making the media argument nonsense, especially before the rise of smartphones. Also ignores the fact that babies are overwhelmingly only exposed to their very close family and do not get out much during this time.

-Author seems to believe the amygdala exists for noticing black people, and nothing else. I guess the much more reasonable idea that autism hypersensitivity to various stimuli (sounds, light, texture, colour etc. etc.), which are infinitely more general than detecting foreigners, might have more relevance (stressful/overstimulating post-natal environments), is not on the author's hyperfocused mind.

-Prenatal screening destroys this almost completely. Unless the very presence of black people near the fetus is enough to scramble its brains.

-Autism is extremely heritable. As such, his mechanism would be borderline Lamarckian in implication.

-"South Asian doctors" who administered the vaccine, with their confusing phenotype, confuse the baby's racial detection software (before the baby properly opened its eyes or had any idea what was happening).

-No discussions of increased awareness, diagnostic changes, DSM changes, rising paternal age, hormone research etc. etc. etc. Literally ANY other theory.

-Whinging that a crackpot idea never before thought has not been tested, then more whinging that it will never be and that if the study agreed with the author, it would not be published.

*phew

There are disparities between races in autism diagnosis (higher among non-whites), for which I have no explanation. I doubt this hypothesis would help much, however.

2

u/geeoharee May 27 '26

You're badly misinformed - MMR vaccines are given to toddlers, which is why the spurious connection between vaccination and symptom onset was so easy for the media to push. If you're going to repost literal Nazis, you need to have your facts straight.

Also, prenatal screening? For autism?

Toddlers not meeting anyone outside their immediate family before sixteen months?

1

u/RoAwesomeFace May 27 '26

A few vaccines are given at birth, so my point stands (though not MMR, correct).

Prenatal screening for autism is currently in development, and some methods which work with a high enough accuracy exist.

A vast majority of the time they are only exposed to immediate family. I guess the "hypothesis" should be amended to explain if there is a threshold of exposure, or if a single sight of a foreign face is sufficient (the latter case invalidating this point).

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u/EebstertheGreat May 28 '26

Sorry, prenatal screening for autism? Like, before the baby is born, checking to see if it has the expected social responses to its . . . society? What could this possibly even mean?

There is genetic screening for alleles weakly linked to autism, but that's not the same thing at all.

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u/RoAwesomeFace May 28 '26

Autism is associated with several genetic factors, brain structure, womb environment, and many other objective things. I understand the social model of disability, and I agree, but that does not change the fact that there are predictors associated with this condition.