At the same time, it might be that it’s entirely genetic, we just don’t know the exact confluence of genes necessary to cause it — or there could be multiple combinations that cause it, given that autism appears to be a spectrum rather than a single state. Amish communities abstain from most of the environmental conditions we have in our industrialized world, but see the same levels of autism.

Zinc Avenger: I don’t give a crap what the scientific community says, your anecdotal evidence is good enough for me. I mean did you see the size of the facepalm I got from this video?

The latest round of studies of older fathers implicated a number of genes; but the penetrance is so low that I don’t think you can make a definitive statement. Plus, there seem to be an extraordinary number of genes implicated. I’ll bet more than a few of them are just statistical anomalies that won’t be confirmed.

My guess is that there is a “two-hit” hypothesis looming.

There was also research released just recently showing that overweight mothers had a 67% higher likelihood of having an autistic baby that normal weight mothers. So, that would be a developmental issue, not a genetic one.

But whatever is behind the rise in autism (other than the trend to dub any weird kid as being autistic), it’s clear that vaccines are not responsible.

Donald Trump is an idiot.

I suspect the major reason is that people want to blame someone more for the reason that “we can do something about it if it’s not genetic.” If it’s environmental, then you can remove the things causing the problem. If it’s genetic, it’s inborn, it’s something you can’t (easily) fix.

It’s kind of sad, that parents who think that way are most likely doing so because they want to “fix” their children, as if those with ASDs are “broken.”

I think there is also a lingering aspect of religion that exacerbates the situation as well in that people expect that bad things really only happen to people that have been bad. In a black and white world, there is no room for bad things to happen to truly good people.

After all, they are all complicated, requiring a level of patience & attention beyond that traditionally exhibited by people who are easily distracted by shiny things.

WHY do people still insist that it must have an external cause?

As for Trump being a ‘rebel’ ‘bad boy’ or whatever, he’s a rich jackass, which makes him about as far from truly counter-cultural as you can get. How rebellious can you be when you buy into the most establishment-friendly views of life and success out there?