Understanding autism is at the heart of this orchestral theory of evolution.  If this theory does explain how autism emerges and offers interventions that can improve the lives of those that feel inhibited by the condition, then there is the chance that several dozen conditions and diseases may be addressed by using the principles outlined in this work.  My premise is that autism is a condition that features male maturational delay and, in females, acceleration.  Social structure, neurological anomalies and endocrinological differences are all integral to autism and Asperger’s etiology.   By adjusting our theory of evolution to take into consideration how exactly maturation rates and timing are influenced by social structure and the environment, the causes of autism and the causes of a number of other conditions and diseases are possibly made clear.

Autism does not have just one cause.  Perhaps there are several different etiologies and autism will acquire several different names when the different causes are uncovered.  The particular evolutionary dynamic I describe in this work describes exactly how one kind of autism emerges, under what circumstances and in which kinds of families.  I focus on three specific causes of autism that are directly connected to an underlying evolutionary matrix, a collection of processes that influence physical and mental health in a number of areas.  Though I concentrate on autism, this work represents a new theory of medical etiology, removing natural selection from its present station as all that doctors know.  In its place, I offer a number of tools that have the potential to make medical diagnosis an evolutionary intervention.  Consider that if we understand that how we treat our bodies and what we are exposed to compel the evolutionary trajectory of progeny, with repercussions for both ourselves and our children, then understanding health becomes the same as how we choose to evolve.

There are three main variables that impact autism.  This blog discusses contemporary changes in social structure, environmental influences and the blending of two parents with no recent common forebears.

Social structure is huge.  Contemporary theorists have been blind to the effects of an emerging matrifocal society.  They are so focused on what seems the default convention, patrifocal social structure.  The mind blindness described by Baron-Cohen that offers a window to understanding autism serves as a societal metaphor when it comes to understanding that patrifocal social structure is but one of two primary social structure paradigms.  Blind to the emergence of the power of women in contemporary society, we don’t notice the repercussions of that change.  The delay of maturation in males is one such repercussion.  I describe specifically how this happens.

There are at least eight variables that influence levels of testosterone and estrogen, often changing those levels differently, if not in opposite fashions, in men and women.  Changing uterine testosterone levels impacts maturation rates, delaying or accelerating the lifelong maturation rates of progeny.  Adjusting estrogen levels has the potential to impact the timing of maturation processes, resulting in dramatically different neurological structure.  This work explores how changes in environmental variables influence autism, Asperger’s and other conditions.

Darwin noted that mated variants of the roc pigeon, bred separately in China and Europe over 2,000 years, created chicks that revealed features of their 2,000-year-old roc pigeon progenitor.  Modern breeders combine variants that are not closely related in order to create “hybrid vigor,” bringing forward some of the strength of ancestors.  If humans acquired facility with spoken language at about the same time we departed Africa, then mating ethnic persuasions that have had almost no contact over many thousands of years may produce children revealing features of their last common ancestor.  This may result in gifted progeny like Barack Obama.  It may also lead to children with difficulty speaking or who are unable to achieve split consciousness without the kind of guidance and stimuli that their ancestors received.

I am proposing that autism is a social condition that is impacted by the environment.  By understanding autism, not only can we grasp how humans evolved, but we can form a deeper understanding around what it is to be human.  If an understanding of consciousness is integral to understanding evolution, and if this orchestral theory of evolution satisfactorily defines the variables that have impact, then autism is a good place to begin as we seek a way to make this theory useful.

I expect that if this new theory I am presenting here is embraced by enough interested individuals, it will evolve to something different as the criteria that a theory be useful propels practitioners in new directions.  It is important that a theory be fun.  If it’s fun, then we have our unconscious invested and aboard.  With the unconscious as guide, the theory will change.  Consciousness is all about creation.

What I am calling “The Orchestral Theory of Evolution” is a feminine theory of evolution insofar as both sexes share the ability to inform change and both foundation hormones have profound impact.  “Feminine” suggests sharing and cooperation.  In the context of evolutionary theory, a feminine paradigm is a cooperative paradigm with both a male and female command of process.

Nevertheless, from our Western perspective, provide a woman any control in a hierarchical context where men have traditionally called the shots, and the female anomaly often receives negative attention.  Evolutionary theory traditionally focuses on the male.  Some exceptions with a focus on the female have emerged over the last 40 years, mostly from female theorists, but so long as our primary paradigm is Darwin’s theory of natural selection supporting survival of traits emerging in a random context, the female cooperative-and-sharing paradigm is framed in a male, competitive milieu.

Part of what is wholly new in what I am presenting is a balanced female/male perspective.  I place a heavy emphasis on the impact of those environmental and social structure influences that adjust levels of estrogen and testosterone, changing the rate and timing of an individual’s experience, ontogeny, societal change and species evolution.  Whereas the changing of rates, influenced by changing levels of testosterone, generates archetypal transformations, the changing of timing, managed by adjusting levels of estrogen, controls testosterone-informed rates of change.

In other words, this is a theory of evolution that suggests that the feminine governs the masculine rather than the other way around.

Whether timing governs rate or rate governs timing is really a nonuseful distinction.  They both influence each other, with biological and social systems offering feedback between the two that makes it difficult if not impossible to assign a beginning to any point within the system.  Still, it feels fun to congregate power in the hands of the cooperative polarity.

This feminine theory of evolution seeks to show how the neoteny/acceleration paradigm informs change at four scales (biology, society, ontogeny, biography), parsing out how changes in the timing of processes influence the rate of change.  For example, too little body fat and not enough estrogen at puberty will prolong puberty, with a number of repercussions.  This work hypothesizes that varying levels of estrogen in infants inform testosterone surges, which influence left hemispheric synapse pruning, thus impacting cerebral lateralization and degrees of split consciousness or self awareness, encouraging conditions featuring exaggerated maturational delay and acceleration, such as autism.  In other words, estrogen may manage the extreme maleness that Baron-Cohen suggests the autistic have too much of.

This work outlines the influence of estrogen on social structure.  Understanding social structure is integral to understanding both biological evolution and social evolution.

I also explore the relationship between estrogen and the dynamics of sexual selection, which is closely related to social structure.  Estrogen levels may be determining both the intensity of mate selection criteria (higher levels compelling a more determined choice) and the degree of focus on the young.  Estrogen not only decides which male features get passed to the next generation but may determine the likelihood of progeny survival by influencing how much attention is directed toward those progeny.

Is there a direct relationship between robust female sexual selection, with a compulsion to judge male features, and a deep desire to care for the young?  If estrogen levels inform one, are tendencies toward the other enhanced?

In a “feminine” theory of evolution, these are the kinds of questions I am asking.  If heterochrony is the study of the rates and timing of maturation, with testosterone levels impacting rate and estrogen levels controlling timing, then those environmental or social structure adjustments that influence levels of testosterone and estrogen determine the speed, timing, features and direction of evolution. Following these rate-and-timing pathways sends this work in several related directions.  One of the most interesting paths is the one where we need a woman to serve as guide.

Heterochronic theory, the study of the effects of rate and timing on maturation and development, takes the work of several late nineteenth century and early twentieth century theorists and packages that work into a sort of seamless whole. Stephen J. Gould in his Ontogeny and Phylogeny went far, codifying the various theorists’ predilections so that they made an overriding sense. I say “sort of” seamless whole because the actual endocrinological underpinnings of the dynamics were never explored.

Neoteny is the best known of the six heterochronic processes. Neoteny is the process whereby features of infants, embryos or the very young are, over the course of generations, prolonged to emerge in the adults of descendants. Acceleration is the opposite, whereby features of adult ancestors appear in the infants of descendants. For example, let’s say great great grandfather had a baritone voice, emerging at puberty. His son’s deeper voice may emerge just before puberty and his great grandson might have an unusually hoarse voice as a child. That would be an acceleration of a feature. These things normally take hundreds and thousands of generations, though they can be encouraged to occur in less than half a dozen. Wolves and foxes have been neotenized in a mere 20 years, acquiring dog-like characteristics.

Endocrinology is a new science even though we have been observing the effects of the gonadal hormones since the dawn of self awareness. That there might be an elegant correlation between specific hormones and the rate and timing of maturation has not been explored outside work done by biologists, followers of Matusa mostly, on amphibians and other nonmammal species. For over ten years, I’ve been exploring the repercussions of a theory of human evolution that considers that testosterone regulates the speed of maturation. This is a profoundly epigenetic theory, a theory that estimates that testosterone regulation occurs as a direct result of environmental factors that determine testosterone levels. Epigenetic theories are those theories that explore heredity/environment interactions that result in ontogenetic and eventually evolutionary change. It was unorthodox until recently to consider that genes are programmed to take into consideration environmental effects, and that the result of modifications will not only appear in the individual but in the individual’s descendants. So, we might see why it’s taken us a while to get to a place where testosterone could be even considered as a major force in evolution.

Chris Knight in his Blood Relations outlines the profound effect that social frames of reference have upon our ability to theorize. Thomas Kuhn alludes to the impact that shared social views have upon theorists’ frame of reference. Knight describes how hobbled we are in the West by a nonfeminist perspective. Kuhn suggests a sea change of societal perspectives would be necessary for the following to make sense.

Heterochronic theory’s changing rate and timing can be elegantly assigned to the effects of testosterone changing rates and estrogen controlling timing. Both hormones are associated with a host of related hormones, and there are circumstances where male and female hormones may transition to the other but, speaking generally, there are patterns that suggest that at a very real level, individual ontogeny, social evolution and human biological evolution are unfolding according to this very specific, two-variable dance.

Our commitment to Darwin’s theory of natural selection has made it difficult to note the effects of the environment upon evolution.

Our devotion to the idea that the behaviors of males in evolution are more important than the behaviors of females has made it almost impossible to observe that behind the scenes it has been the female controlling the timing of the process.

I wish we had a better word than “heterochronic” to describe the patterns. It would have been better if we had a name like “orchestral evolution.” Then it would make more sense when we assigned the position of conductor to a woman, she that decides the timing of the production.

There are several places where estrogen may be quietly stepping in and deciding exactly how things unfold by regulating the timing of those events. That may be occurring in no small way due to estrogen controlling the timing of testosterone’s effects.

• Fat levels at puberty, influencing estrogen levels, determine the timing of pubertal testosterone surges in both sexes. Individuals may experience delayed puberty if there is not enough fat on their bodies to propel the process.

• Estrogen levels in an infant and toddler may be influencing testosterone surges that determine cerebral synapse pruning. We don’t know what determines the timing of testosterone surges that result in the diminution of the right cerebral hemisphere. If it is a similar process to what determines the timing of testosterone surges in puberty, then estrogen levels may not only be controlling cerebral lateralization but may be heavily influencing language production, conditions such as autism and numerous other human features and conditions.

• Estrogen levels in a mother’s womb may be deciding (along with testosterone) which social structure the child will be inclined to ally with. I’ve described four social structures, two matrifocal and two patrifocal. Estrogen levels are a key determinant of social structure proclivity.

• Estrogen levels may be determining both the intensity of mate selection criteria (higher levels compelling a more determined choice) and the degree of focus on the young. Estrogen not only decides which male features get passed to the next generation but determines the likelihood of progeny survival by how much attention is directed toward the young. Consider that in female infanticide it is almost always the mother that kills the infant.

• Estrogen may offer the placating option when combat is being considered. Estrogen can control whether a battle occurs or not.

Darwin’s theory of sexual selection or female choice may be but the suggestion of a vast network of relationships determined by estrogen levels. Darwin was familiar with the work of contemporaries, Neo-Lamarckians, who focused on the orthogenetic tendency of features to evolve in particular trajectories. We can see those patterns now as part of the larger pattern of Gould’s heterochronic theory paradigm. It is possible that Darwin’s theory of natural selection and his theory of sexual selection can be allied in a heterochronic theory of evolution that places testosterone as the prime mover of rates of maturation and estrogen as the queen of timing. Interestingly enough, Darwin’s third theory, pangenesis, revealed orthogenetic insights. Darwin even hypothesized “gemmules,” or particles, that would flow through the bloodstream, carrying information regarding the environment to the places in one’s body that controlled evolutionary change.

In other words, Darwin had all the puzzle pieces. But, he was exploring these ideas in a time when society embraced only the idea that might is right, environment be damned and women control little of what occurs.

To seriously consider that testosterone may control the rate of evolution, estrogen the timing, we might have to go back 150 years. The answer to our origins may be in the origins of evolutionary theory.

There seems to me to be tantalizing answers to riddles in human evolution in the various papers discussing corpus callosum structure in different kinds of human beings.  There are papers that support the conclusion that larger corpus callosums, or corpus callosums with larger sections, appear in left-handed people, women, those with two cerebral hemispheres that are the same size, musicians, the autistic and those that stutter.

“Theoretical speculation in humans (S. F Witelson,  Psychoneuroendocrinology 16 (1991) 131-153) and empirical findings in animals (R. H. Fitch, P. E. Cowell, L. M. Schrott, V. H. Denenberg, Int. J. Dev. Neurosci. 9 (1991) 35-38) suggest that testosterone (T) may play a significant role in the development of the corpus callosum (CC).  However, there are currently no empirical studies directly relating T concentrations to callosal morphology in humans.  The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between free T concentrations as determined by radioimmunoassay, and the mid-sagittal area of the corpus callosum, as determined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).  Subjects were 68 young adult (20-35 years), neurologically normal, right-handed males.  All subjects underwent MRI and provided two samples of saliva for radioimmunoassay of T and cortisol.  Anatomical regions of interest included total brain volume, left and right hemisphere volume and regional areas of the CC.  CC regions were defined using two different measurement techniques, each dividing the CC into six sub-sections.  Anatomical measurements were performed blind with respect to the hormone levels of subjects.  A significant positive correlation between T concentration and cross-sectional area of the posterior body of the CC was found.  This finding was consistent across the two measurement techniques and was not attributable to individual differences in total brain volume.  All correlations between cortisol and CC sub-regions were non-significant.  The results of this study are consistent with the notion that T, at an earlier stage in development, may play a significant role in modulating cortical/callosal architecture in humans.”  (Moffat, S. D, Hampson, E., Wickett, J. C., Vernon, P. A., Lee, D. H. (1997) Testosterone is correlated with regional morphology of the human corpus callosum.  Brain Res 767 (2):297)

I would be curious to know whether there is a difference in corpus callosum size between modern humans and matrifocal aboriginals, if musicians and artists have larger corpus callosums and if there is a general trend in growing corpus callosum size that would correlate with matrifocal trends in contemporary society.

“The size of the midsagittal area of the human corpus callosum obtained from postmortem measurement varied with tested hand preference.  The corpus callosum, the main fiber tract connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, was larger by about 0.75 square centimeters, or 11 percent, in left-handed and ambidextrous people than in those with consistent right-hand preference.  The difference was present in both the anterior and posterior halves, but not in the region of the splenium itself.  This callosal morphology, which varied with hand preference, may also be related to individual differences in the pattern of hemispheric functional specialization.  The greater bihemispheric representation of cognitive functions in left- and mixed-handers may be associated with greater anatomical connection between the hemispheres.  The naturally occurring regressive events in neurogenesis, such as neuronal cell death and axonal elimination, may be factors in the individual differences in brain morphology and in functional lateralization.  Specifically, right-handers may be those with more extensive early elimination of neural components.”  (Witelson, S.F. (1985) The brain connection:  the corpus callosum is larger in left-handers.  Science 229: p. 665)

I have a vague memory of a paper that suggested that after sampling several groups of children immersed in music, researchers found that those children playing and composing the most exhibited thicker corpus callosums.  It was implied that this brain structure could grow thicker through lives lived in specific ways.  I’m not sure I remember that right; it seems such a radical conclusion.  This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin notes studies concluding that musicians have larger corpus callosums (Wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_callosum#cite_note-Levitin-5).

“Mixed-handers showed significantly larger callosal areas for all measures except for posterior fifth…” (Witelson, S. F. (1985)  The brain connection:  the corpus callosum is larger in left-handers.  Science 229: p. 666)

Regarding autism, I’ve hypothesized that the autistic brain is an ancient brain primed for aesthetic manipulation/appreciation with a larger brain size and larger hemispheric bridge having evolved as a sexually selected device for wowing potential mates.  This is closely related to the Geoffrey Miller thesis, see The Mating Mind.  Lately I’ve been playing with the idea that in addition to a mother’s testosterone levels informing the maturation rates of her children, her estrogen levels in combination with her children’s estrogen levels may be informing the timing of testosterone surges that prune right hemispheric growth in infants and small children.  Not unlike how fat levels in a preteen girl can influence the timing of pubertal onset, perhaps similar factors are affecting the timing of infant cerebral lateralization.  I ask myself what might be influencing the size of corpus callosum development.  Assuming it is a combination of degrees of cerebral lateralization (with left and right hemispheres differing in size) and corpus callosum size that together are influenced by changes in maturation rates and timing, then what exactly are the levers of change that are responsible for their moderated forms?  How might the rate and timing of testosterone and estrogen be involved?

I have a related question.  Let’s assume an autistic brain is a healthy brain, a brain anachronistically located in modern times with perhaps inappropriate environmental conditions making it difficult to operate as it naturally would.  Would modulating the environment to nudge the autistic brain to acquire the features of the modern asymmetrical modern brain with a smaller corpus callosum be an appropriate intervention, if it worked?  This might be, for example, an intervention that lowers a mother’s testosterone levels while increasing the male infant’s estrogen levels, hypothetically accelerating his maturation rate while encouraging the beginning of synapse pruning.

Personally, this idea gives me the creeps.  We need to find out what the autistic brain demands and provide the appropriate environment.

Still, is the size of the corpus callosum influenced by estrogen levels?  Is the timing of its growth triggered by body fat or estrogen?

Does music or rhythm influence corpus callosum size, and if so, might music and rhythm prove integral to the autistic brain?

With girls, estrogen levels that are too low will delay the first estrous cycle or stop it if already underway.  Introducing a high-fat diet to a girl nearing puberty can add on fat that sparks the transition to adulthood.

With girls, high fat encourages puberty.  It would seem that Western high-fat diets might be responsible for the drop in puberty by four years over the last 100 years.

A question arises.  Is the same dynamic engaged for boys?  Do thin boys introduced to high-fat diets also experience a push into puberty?

This dynamic suggests a number of questions.

To what degree have high and low-fat diets influenced human evolution?  If low fat delays puberty and results in more brain growth, might this be because more synapses are useful for finding more fat?

When there is more fat in diets and puberty rates drop, for a woman there is a greater number of children produced over a single lifetime.  Less fat in diet, fewer children produced.  This seems like an evolutionary process.

Do thin males with less fat have less estrogen, reach puberty later, have bigger brains and exhibit more neotenous features?

Should autistic males be on extremely low-fat diets so that they reach puberty later, thus allowing more time for their brains to mature?

Is the degree of brain synapse pruning that occurs in infancy related to the estrogen levels in the mother or the child?  High mother testosterone levels encourage higher rates of autism, which may be directly related to less pervasive synapse pruning.  Is it possible that a high mother estrogen level results in low male baby estrogen levels that prolong or diminish the testosterone prunings?

In other words, the Simon Baron-Cohen research regarding mother testosterone levels and autism may be related to mother estrogen levels.  If low estrogen at puberty translates to delayed puberty, delayed testosterone surges and increased brain growth, then the same process may be engaged during the first testosterone surges that compel a diminution of the right cerebral hemisphere during infancy.  Low estrogen levels as an embryo, infant and toddler may have a direct impact on cerebral lateralization and synapse production.

Noting the thesis outlined in detail in the “Introduction to the Theory of Waves,” we can see that a mother with high testosterone (T) births sons with low testosterone (t) and daughters with high T.  Low t moms birth high T sons and low t daughters.

I’ve hypothesized a similar dynamic for estrogen.  Mom E = son e and daughter E.  Mom e = son E and daughter e.

Regarding our applying tentative puberty dynamics to early childhood synapse pruning and equating puberty with infant testosterone surges, the proper diet for the son or daughter for a mom TE would be low fat if you did not want to encourage pruning, high fat if you did.  Would a high-fat infant diet for a mom with TE encourage the child to be less likely autistic?  Or, if the male child is predisposed toward having two hemispheres the same size with a predilection toward autism (because he is the son of a TE mother), will the high-fat diet, propelling an earlier and/or greater testosterone surge, result in an increased likelihood of autism?

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the theory that higher estrogen diets encourage testosterone surges.  Is this even true?

It appeared that hidden beneath the just-so story was a theory, which, if brought to light, could help make useful predictions and illuminate unrecognized relationships. From the beginning, the theory drew information from three different disciplines: anthropology, evolutionary biology and neuropsychology; yet, because these three disciplines did not share a common language, it became my goal to show that they were indeed studying an identical process. Evolutionary biology’s heterochronic theory explored the long-term effects of changing maturation rates, while anthropological explorations of human social structure examined the repercussions that one or more generation’s mate choice has on society. Researchers in the field of neuropsychology largely neglected to acknowledge the evolutionary implications of their discoveries, which could elucidate the parallels between the environment’s influence on uterine hormone levels and the distribution of handedness across a society. It became clear to me that all three subdisciplines were describing the dynamic of sexual selection and how sexual selection’s influence on maturation rates impacts human evolution. There seemed limited opportunities for the practitioners of each discipline to feel moved by potential synergies with their academic neighbors. However, in order to further understand human evolution, there seems a need to speak the basic languages of these three subdisciplines.

This work seeks to transcend the academic language barrier by emphasizing common patterns and ideas shared by all three subdisciplines.

This introduction to the Theory of Waves begins with an overview of four hypothetical, yet fundamental, social structures (two matrifocal and two patrifocal) and outlines the hormonal constellation of the individuals who comprise those four basic prototypes. There exists an elegant dynamic that compels and maintains these four balances. This dynamic, as explained below, can be maintained or propelled at three different levels of two overlapping hormonal paradigms.

Below, I discuss the impact this dynamic has on understanding ethnic variation, disease and condition etiology. For example, I reframe female infanticide as a socially engineered form of sexual selection. The hormonal constellations that arise as a result of this selection process produce a low prevalence of female breast cancer in Asian societies.

Having investigated related theories, I offer several reasons why neuropsychological studies have produced such inconsistent results. This theory, the Theory of Waves, ends by making a number of predictions that concentrate on autism. These predictions provide an opportunity for members of the academic community to prove this story wrong. It has been by matching up anomalies across disciplines and by discovering melodies using the black keys on a piano that this theory has come together.

I believe that understanding neoteny (the prolongation of ancestor infant features into the adults of descendants) is integral to understanding the process of becoming human. Central to understanding neoteny is understanding early play behavior. Experiencing this theory as it has come together over the last ten years has felt like deep play, frequently crossing the line to the reverential. Let the following concepts play across your mind like music. Email me if this theory strikes a chord with your own experiences, or if it harmonizes with your own understanding.

…

In this model, or theory, which I’ve been calling the Theory of Waves, there are eight varieties of humans, four male and four female. These eight types of humans feature specific characteristics, or tendencies. Each type of human can be influenced by other types, and each is susceptible to specific features in the environment. Environmental influences can compel the progeny of these types of humans to transform into other types of humans. These environmental influences compel evolutionary currents, which can provoke a significant transformation within a single generation. More often, however, these transformations occur over the course of centuries or longer.

Similar to Watson and Crick’s double helix, a larger body is created from an assembly of component parts. In this case, societies are made up of eight types of human beings, each of whom represents one of the eight potential combinations derived from the hormonal extremes. The hormonal extremes form a structure that serves as a template for a majority of the individuals within a society. The majority of individuals within a society will exhibit some basic features associated with these hormonal extremes, yet they will exhibit these extremes to less of a degree than the eight prototype humans.

Imagine that the eight basic artist colors (purple, red, blue, yellow, orange, green, black and white) are all being blended in specific ways to paint the character of a society. Or, consider that instead of the two planets Mars and Venus, which represent the classic male/female dichotomy, there are eight planets—four female and four male—which together comprise a pantheon of eight gods and goddesses.

Female Constellations
High testosterone, high estrogen (F TE)
High testosterone, low estrogen (F Te)
Low testosterone, high estrogen (F tE)
Low testosterone, low estrogen (F te)

Male Constellations
High testosterone, high estrogen (M TE)
High testosterone, low estrogen (M Te)
Low testosterone, high estrogen (M tE)
Low testosterone, low estrogen (M te)

As in the double helix, there are natural complementary pairings. In this framework, opposite sexes are not only drawn to each other based on sexual attraction, but they are also drawn to each other based on the attraction to their complementary opposite hormonal counterparts.

Female te/Male TE
Female tE/Male Te
Female Te/Male tE
Female TE/Male te

The complementary counterparts naturally ally themselves into patrifocal and matrifocal social structures. There exist two variations within each.

F te/M TE Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te Classic Matrifocal

Conventional Patrifocal: Domineering, caring and discriminating men who choose cooperative women.

Warrior Patrifocal: Domineering men who choose cooperative, caring and discriminating women.

Contemporary Matrifocal: Commanding women who choose creative, cooperative, caring and discriminating men.

Classic Matrifocal: Commanding, caring and discriminating women who choose creative and cooperative men.

These fundamental paradigms are flexile and have an ability to transform from one societal prototype into another over time. The human hormone thresholds can vary over time and can control the speed and direction of evolution. The thresholds can be influenced at three locations within two interlocking cycles, or feedback loops, as described below.

Mother’s testosterone level > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > mother’s testosterone level.

Mother’s estrogen level > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > mother’s estrogen level.

The environment can intervene at any of the three levels of these two loops by influencing both maturation rates and timing (via testosterone) or by influencing the intensity of mate selection criteria (via estrogen).

Level 1: A mother’s uterine hormonal levels are impacted by environmental influences, which in turn affect the child’s maturation and development. The hormonal levels of the mother influence the overall disposition of the social structure by predisposing certain tendencies of the progeny.
Level 2: The environment, through a variety of specific hormone-influencing prompts, impacts a person in society, thereby shifting social structure proclivities.
Level 3: Shifts in social structure influence mate selection criteria, which alter evolutionary trajectories.

Changes may occur at the level of the womb, individual ontogeny and/or at the level of society. The relationship among these three environmentally susceptible locations creates an interactive system, which directs evolutionary trajectory.

…

Central to this model are the environmental impact points, which compel the transformation of a society and our species. In a woman’s womb, testosterone levels decide her children’s testosterone levels (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987) and their maturation rates and social structure proclivity. Females (F) with high testosterone (T) give birth to high-testosterone (T) females and low-testosterone (t) males. F T = F T or M t. The reverse is true for low-testosterone females. Low-testosterone females give birth to low-testosterone females and high-testosterone males. F t = F t or M T. This is how societal prototypes are created and maintained and how the complementary opposite foundation of this thesis emerges.

This may be feeling rather dense. Bear with me. I will define some terms.

“Neoteny” refers to the prolonging of infant features over many generations so that eventually they appear in the adults of the descendants. For example, chimpanzee-like progenitor features, such as having a large head relative to body size, small chin, large eyes, upward stature, curiosity and affection, are all characteristics that over time manifest in the physiology and psychology of adults. Acceleration reverses the evolutionary trajectory, whereby processes featured by ancestor adults condense or withdraw over time and appear earlier in development in the characteristics of children as well as in the infants of future descendants.

Heterochronic dynamics (Gould, 1977) of evolution (i.e., neoteny and acceleration) are embedded in social structure and lead to the very specific mating of neotenous males with accelerated females in matrifocal social structures and accelerated males marrying neotenous females in patrifocal social structures. There is a direct connection between womb conditions, maturation rate directions (neoteny and acceleration) and social structure.

The net result is that not only are males and females mating with their hormonal complementary opposites, but also that societies are evolving with males and females trending evolutionarily in opposite directions by continuing selection for opposite proclivities in opposite sexes. It is conceivable that in human beings there exists a dynamic that demands eventual flipping of social structures, perhaps over periods as long as hundreds of thousands of years or as short as 6,000 years (Gimbutas, 1991). This provides an opportunity for the sexes to realign. It is also possible that this “flipping” is constantly occurring within different lineages in a society, which are taking turns performing the role of the hormonal outliers, or eight prototype humans.

Whereas the influence of a mother’s testosterone levels on her progeny has been established (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987), this model hypothesizes that the mother’s estrogen levels influence her children via an identical dynamic, which encourages and reinforces the sexually selected focus on partner choice and discrimination, as well as caring and care giving. In this case, the estrogen levels within a woman’s womb determine her children’s estrogen levels, their tendencies toward evaluation of nuance and their compulsion to care. A female (F) with high estrogen (E) gives birth to high-estrogen females and low-estrogen (e) males. F E = F E or M e. The reverse is true for low-estrogen females. F e = F e or M E. This is how estrogen-related societal prototypes are created and maintained. This dynamic also contributes to the complementary opposite foundation of this thesis.

Whether a male or female has high or low estrogen levels does not contribute to maturation rates. This makes it possible to have high or low-estrogen males and females in any social structure. Maturation rates inform heterochronic tendencies and social structure proclivities. Nevertheless, estrogen confers discrimination, an attention to detail that can exaggerate the proclivity of a social structure. In addition, estrogen focuses on the features of a child, attracting those with high estrogen toward individuals who exhibit childlike features. Assign high estrogen to a female with high testosterone and you achieve Classic Matrifocal social structure with commanding females prone to choosing cooperative males with neotenous, or child-like, characteristics. Assign high estrogen to a male and you get either a Scandinavian Contemporary Matrifocal paradigm (Eisler, 2007) with both sexes exhibiting neoteny in a matrifocal context, or you get an Asian Conventional Patrifocal paradigm with males who are focused on mating with females displaying highly neotenous features. When pairing high estrogen with high testosterone, you get an exaggerated intensity of sexual selection, not unlike Fisher’s runaway sexual selection (Fisher, 1930), which results in a powerful focus on neoteny. F TE = Matrifocal selection for neotenous males. M TE = Patrifocal selection for neotenous females.

The particular way that testosterone and estrogen align with individuals within a society compels both social structure and particular physical features of individuals. These two hormones, which influence heterochronic trajectories, also influence personality features, disease and condition proclivities, societal characteristics and even such societal mysteries as female infanticide.

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Another way to view this is by noting that at the extremes, a society displays the highest and lowest hormonal thresholds. These thresholds exist in those with bodies and minds most impacted by the battle between somatic function and behaviors, which are both required for survival. Those at the hormonal extremes are at the front lines of what a body can easily survive. When the environment changes, the extremes are put under more intense distress as the societal balanced polymorphism (the established balance of social structures within a society) is pushed in a specific direction. The majority of society, which exists in the center of this spectrum and which also has a heterozygote advantage (Annett, 2002), are compelled to drift left or right, matrifocal or patrifocal, over the course of several generations. Those at the margins are under the most intense duress.

Even in a society characterized by one of the four foundation social structures, one or more of the other social structures are integrally involved. Assimilated within a society are representative individuals, couples and subcultures, who act as social structure opposites to the established paradigm. In this way, these couples and subcultures also contribute to the balanced polymorphism. Though we in the West have been living in patrifocal social structures, matrifocal elements are integrated within the larger society and occupy the “left” end of the spectrum. American society displays a combination of all four social structures. Together, all four of these form a balance that is changing, particularly now.

There are a number of repercussions, or implications, of this basic model, and details are explored below. The etiologies for a number of physical and mental diseases and conditions are suggested by understanding the eight human prototypes as hormonal outliers that exist on a continuum within social structures and are held in balance so that they create a heterozygote advantage. Those whose hormonal constellations exist at the center are not burdened by hormonal extremes. The engine behind human evolution can be examined in detail so that one may offer a number of predictions. This work will concentrate on conditions characterized by maturational delay and acceleration, and it will focus particularly on autism. The reader will be able to infer by this example how the principles in this Theory of Waves can be applied to a number of diseases and conditions.

Neuroscientists will recognize at the core of this thesis a variation of the Geschwind and Galaburda (1987) hypothesis that connects hormones, handedness, lateralization and debilitations. Evolutionary developmental biologists familiar with nineteenth century principles of heterochrony (the study of the effects of changing maturation and development rates and timing) will find heterochronic processes (Gould, 1977) manifesting in neuropsychological studies of the endocrine system (specifically, testosterone and estrogen). These evolutionary biologists will also recognize how sexual hormones influence maturation rates and timing (Hall, Person & Muller, 2004). Anthropologists will be able to observe the impact of social structure—and the forms of sexual selection that drive social structure (such as female sexual selection and female infanticide)—on how societies transform and our species evolves. Studies of human social structures are integrally tied to both the evolutionary biological principle of heterochrony and neuropsychological processes driven by testosterone and estrogen.

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For example, I’m hypothesizing that in highly patrifocal hierarchical Asian societies, originally organized in ways that demanded large-scale cooperation in order to manage irrigation works spanning for hundreds of miles, males need to be high in testosterone relative to females, while simultaneously being low testosterone relative to other males. This would be necessary in order to better facilitate cooperation within a highly combative hierarchical and patrifocal society requiring male/male collaboration. In this hypothesis, I shift down both estrogen and testosterone levels to accommodate lower testosterone levels for males in a patrifocal society with cooperative undertones. A relatively high-estrogen Asian male is suggested by the highly aesthetic and visually discriminating Asian culture. Relatively low female estrogen level is implied by ubiquitous female infanticide. To fit this model, Asian females would have to exhibit the lowest recorded female estrogen levels. This would mean the normally low Conventional Patrifocal female estrogen would have to be shifted lower in order to accommodate Asian male patrifocal cooperation. And, indeed, studies support anomalously low female Asian estrogen levels (Diamond, 1986).

Female infanticide may be integrated into an understanding of patrifocal social structure—particularly the Conventional Patrifocal social structure of hierarchical Asian social structures, which exhibit long-term stability. When the number of females in the procreation pool is reduced, far fewer males are able to have children. A heavy emphasis is placed on the ideal male, the non-ideal males procreating far less. The result is a continuing selection of highly patrifocal traits in the male population. Because of this, left spectrum and older genotype features that accompany matrifocal social structure do not easily emerge. This would include left-handedness, an attraction to innovation and spontaneous creativity. Instead, status, hierarchy and tradition would be highly valued, as is the case with traditional Asian culture. Female infanticide is a powerful sexual selection tool providing long-term stability to Conventional Patrifocal societies. Very low incidence of autism would also be expected, as I will explain shortly.

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With individuals congregating around the eight hormonal paradigms, we’d expect that many diseases, disorders and conditions would be assigned to those located at the extremes, or outlying positions of the balanced polymorphism. For example, Asian females with very low estrogen should have low rates of breast cancer, while matrifocal societies with high estrogen should exhibit high rates of breast cancer. One would expect the same pattern with prostate cancer. We’d expect to see relatively few cases of prostate cancer in Asian patrifocal societies but high rates of prostate cancer in patrifocal societies that exhibit little cooperation. In Contemporary Matrifocal Scandinavia, one would expect very low rates of prostate cancer, yet relatively high rates of male breast cancer. Social structures compel hormonal tendencies, suggesting disease and condition etiology.

For conditions like autism, Asperger’s, stuttering and phonetic dyslexia, we’d expect to see the four matrifocal categories trending toward these conditions, with a possible emphasis on M te and F TE if Classic Matrifocal is how we primarily evolved (see below). Autism, Asperger’s, stuttering and phonetic dyslexia are often accompanied by male maturational delay, which is a marker of matrifocal societies. Matrifocal societies feature low-testosterone males and high-testosterone females.

There is the possibility that certain mental conditions will trend toward these same hormonal extremes. I would estimate that borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, based upon their association with families exhibiting left-handers and maturational delay, will fit the same matrifocal profiles, again with a likely Classic Matrifocal emphasis.

Diseases and conditions may have multiple etiologies depending on the particular symptoms they are associated with. For example, Marian Annett and colleagues noted two types of dyslexia. She observed phonetic dyslexia trending toward the extreme left end of the balanced polymorphism and visual dyslexia trending toward the extreme right (Annett, Eglinton & Smythe, 1996).

Schizophrenia may display two radically different etiologies, which would appear in both patrifocal and matrifocal cultures. These two different etiologies would be based upon the hypothesis that hemispheric differentiation and corpus callosum size vary according to two extremes (Coger & Serafetinides, 1990). One etiology is reinforced by facility with language (Crow, 1995; Crow, Done & Sacker, 1996) and is accompanied by a surge in patrifocal social structures, while the other displays a familial and social structure identical to the familial and social structure of autism, characterized by matrifocal origins.

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I am hypothesizing a five-step evolutionary continuum that begins with natural selection but then moves to sexual selection. In this continuum, animals focus on particular patterns when they choose a mate. Step three begins with crossing a bridge over to human sexual selection, where adept practitioners of novel pattern creation are selected as procreation partners by mates with sensitivity to these nuances (Miller, 2000). The fourth step is taken when novelty itself becomes desirable outside the partner selection process, and society is thus compelled to embrace in its productions countless nuances of the new. In the fifth stage, awareness of the creation process itself becomes a target experience.

1) natural selection
2) sexual selection (selecting for pattern when seeking a mate)
3) human sexual selection (selection for novel pattern when seeking a mate)
4) art and culture (selecting for novel pattern outside of mate selection)
5) awareness of the selection or creative process

Integrated into the sequence established above is the longer-term dynamic of humans, who evolved from random-handed non-speech users (Annett, 2002) with two equally large cerebral hemispheres and a wide corpus callosum (Witelson, 1991).

I hypothesize that step 3 of this sequence is compelled by long-term male maturational delay and reinforced by sexual selection in a matrifocal context, where child-like features attract more focus (Gould, 1977). Classic Matrifocal was likely our social structure at this stage (Knight, 1991). Stage 4 suggests a shift toward patrifocal social structure as well as a decrease in brain size (Wiercinski, 1979), culminating in the Warrior Patrifocal. This sequence suggests that Classic Matrifocal and Warrior Matrifocal preceded Contemporary Matrifocal as well as Conventional Patrifocal, with the possible emergence of Contemporary and Conventional in the last 5,000 years.

Deep societal change can occur quickly when there is a change in hormonal constellations. Sudden shifts can occur from matrifocal to patrifocal, or patrifocal to matrifocal. For example, if a matrifocal society is highly stressed over time by patrifocal incursions, the ideal male mate may shift from one displaying cooperative tendencies to a male who is quick to fight. Formerly highly valued aesthetic-oriented males may then find themselves outside the pool of highly valued potential mates. In mere generations, physiological, hormonal and neuropsychological transformations can occur.

Migrating populations exposed to changes in sunlight (Geschwind and Galburda, 1987) show radical fluctuations in social structure, which impacts evolution over time. Sunlight impacts the pineal gland, which directly influences the testosterone levels within the individuals of a population (Geschwind and Galburda, 1987). A variety of specific diseases and conditions acquired by the eight prototype hormonal outliers will emerge among these migrating peoples, including autism. In addition, changing diet can exaggerate hormonal changes.

A radical change in diet, such as an increase in high quality fats and nutrients, could raise a female’s estrogen and testosterone levels and lower a male’s testosterone levels (Ahluwalia, Jackson, Jones, Williams, Mamidanna & Rajguru, 1981). These changes in hormonal levels would compel a shift in social structure toward the direction of female choice. Females would then seek mates that were cooperators rather than warriors. Sudden dietary changes that drastically reduce access to high fat foods could compel a hormonal shift toward a patrifocal social structure. These hormonal shifts would be further accentuated if combative situations emerged. This is the variation of the Kuzawa (2007) thesis, which proposes that uterine environments can influence adult physiology. My Theory of Waves thesis suggests that the parent’s hormonal shifts can adjust a progeny’s hormonal constellations and shift a society’s hormonal spectrum in a particular direction, depending on environmental pressures. Such hormonal shifts thus result in modifications of social structure.

Eight environmental variables influence testosterone, including light (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987), diet (Schmidt, Wijga, Von Zur Muhlen, Brabant & Wagner, 1997), body fat (Ross, Bernstein, Judd, Hanisch, Pike & Henderson, 1986; Glass, Swerdloff, Bray, Dahms & Atkinson, 1977), alcohol and drugs (Castilla-Garcia, Santolaria-Fernandez, Gonzalez-Reimers, Bastita-Lopez, Gonzalez-Garcia, Jorge-Hernandez & Hernandez-Nieto, 1987; Ahluwalia, Clark, Westney, Smith, James, & Rajguru, 1992), tobacco (MacMahon, Trichopoulos, Cole & Brown, 1982; Barrett-Connor & Khaw, 1987), touch, physical activity (MacConnie, Barkan, Lampman, Schork, & Beitins, 1986; Morville, Pesquies, Guezennec, Serrurier & Guignard, 1979) and stress (James, 1986). Estrogen has been far less studied, but diet has been repeatedly shown to dramatically influence estrogen levels (Ahluwalia, et al., 1981).

We can view evolution as both a dynamic and static process that is driven by social structure, environmental influences, maturation rate modifications and hormonal changes. The evolutionary developmental biological view, or the heterochronic perspective, offers a dynamic frame. Annett’s (2002) modern UK society is characterized by a balanced polymorphism, which exhibits an evenly balanced static spectrum view of left and right-handed individuals. On the far left side of this spectrum exist the extreme left-handed, as well as the random-handed, and on the far right side of this spectrum exist the extreme right-handed. Most people in a society exist somewhere in the middle. This spectrum of individuals is aligned along a gradated curve and offers a static snapshot of our society in the process of transition. The older anomalously dominant (both cerebral hemispheres close to the same size) matrifocal prototype is stationed at the left side and balances those with cerebral asymmetry designed for speech facility, the patrifocal prototype, on the right. Annett’s Right Shift Theory (Annett, 1985) argues that cerebral asymmetry with language proclivity offers a heterozygote advantage that allows the moderate right-handed to occupy the center of society. This Theory of Waves integrates social structure, maturation rates and a long-term evolutionary arc into Annett’s static snapshot in time.

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Four major barriers prevent the easy appraisal of the natural hormonal levels that characterize the eight human prototypes.

Assays that fail to measure the variations of handedness with the degree of sensitivity established by Annett’s peg tests obstruct new insight and obscure potentially valuable observation. Annett’s work concluded that humans evolved as a random-handed species, which transitioned to right-handed when brains became lateralized for speech. Her peg tests measure degrees of right and random-handedness and are integral for establishing a locus related to social structure, disease/condition proclivity and maturation rate propensity. It is essential that different studies, particularly studies across cultures, compare apples to apples and use Annett’s protocols when measuring handedness.

It would be useful if Annett’s techniques were required to measure handedness around the world, quickly. Dietary changes within patrifocal societies may be skewing results dramatically. Aboriginal societies with a matrifocal foundation have almost completely disappeared. There are very few tools available to measure variations in societal balanced polymorphisms. Annett’s peg tests seem to measure the effects of testosterone and some indirect effects of estrogen fairly well.

The eight environmental variables noted above profoundly impact the hormone levels of males and females in a variety of contexts. To effectively measure the natural hormonal thresholds in ontogeny at any point, one must have an understanding of how that person’s hormonal levels are being influenced and altered by external variables. Adult hormone levels are dramatically impacted by a variety of factors. Existing studies show wild variation in results because these studies ignore influential variables. One study that measured testosterone levels neglected to take into consideration the time of day that levels were tested. In addition, the effects of stress cannot be underestimated. For example, measuring the testosterone levels of an autistic child in an institutional setting does little to provide an idea of that child’s base hormonal threshold, particularly if that child is on a standard institutional diet. Diet has been shown to have an effect on the symptoms of autism (Hjiej, Doyen, Couprie, Kaye & Contejean, 2008).

Some diseases and conditions appear at both ends of the left/right spectrum and occupy multiple poles of both matrifocal and patrifocal social structure. Annett approached dyslexia etiologies from a new perspective and established a protocol, which discovered that handedness congregated at both the extreme left and right ends of the spectrum. Diseases and conditions with more than one etiology often confound studies and frustrate attempts to discover patterns in social structure, handedness, hormonal constellations and ethnicity. It may seem that a disease such as schizophrenia, or a condition such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, does not always associate with a specific social structure or prototype predilection when more than one etiology is potentially in play.

Lastly, the season in which an individual is born affects the maturational delay and acceleration of that individual. Season of birth can thus help polarize a society’s social structure to either end of the spectrum. The effects of pineal-influenced testosterone levels may not merely be influencing those who live in migrating populations but also those who live in relative climatic extremes. When individuals within a society congregate at the hormonal extremes, vacating the balanced polymorphistic middle where those with the heterozygote advantage reside, it becomes nearly impossible to form conclusions about a society normally based on a seamless arc, or balance. In other words, climate and migration patterns influence the variables we’ve been noting.

These four conditions that inhibit high quality information regarding hormone levels—inconsistent handedness studies, untracked environmental variables, multiple pole disease/condition etiologies and season of birth effects—are primary reasons that the Geschwind/Galaburda hypothesis drew mixed support.

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Norman Geschwind and his colleagues suggested that a number of diseases and conditions tend to align with specific handedness and cerebral lateralization tendencies. Geschwind believed that the random-handed (often left-handers) and the anomalously dominant, both of whom exhibit cerebral hemispheres near the same size, were evolutionary derivations. I agree with Annett (2002) that the random-handed and anomalously dominant are our evolutionary forebears, but I’ve added that these ancestral genotypes are matrifocal in origin.

Approaching Geschwind and Galaburda’s (1987) thesis with a heterochronic/social structure perspective gives one the ability to hypothesize the etiologies of a host of diseases and conditions as well as suggest a relationship between handedness, hormonal associations, social structure, lateralization, ethnicity and environmental variables.

These are some of the diseases and conditions noted in the literature (mostly from Geschwind and Galaburda, 1987) that offer correlations with some of the variables addressed in this model: alcoholism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, asthma, ataxia telangiectasia, atopic syndrome, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, benign intracranial hypertension, bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, breast cancer, congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), cluster headaches, celiac disease, conduct disorder, congenital heart disease, dementia, depression, diabetes, Down’s syndrome, dyslexia, dystrophia myotonica, endometriosis, epilepsy, gastrointestinal issues, harelip, heart disease, Huntington’s disease, immune disorders, hyperkinetic syndrome, Kartagener syndrome, Klinefelter syndrome, Klippel-Feil syndrome, lupus erythematosus, migraine headaches, mital valve prolapse, narcissistic personality disorder, obesity, obsessive compulsive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, osteoporosis, ovarian cysts, Parkinson’s disease, phobias, pilonidal sinus, polycystic ovary syndrome, prostate cancer, schizophrenia, scoliosis, spina bifida, stuttering, temporal lobe epilepsy, thyroid disorders, torticollis, Tourette’s syndrome, Turner syndrome and twinning. Cross reference these variables with handedness, social structure, maturation rates, ethnicity, family of origin, cerebral dominance and hormonal levels. All of these conditions offer opportunities to observe the relationships of these conditions and diseases to the eight human prototypes.

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The predictions below focus specifically on issues of relative maturation rates with an emphasis on autism and related conditions.

1) Autistic males, from families of left-handers, will have lower testosterone than the norm, and autistic females will have higher testosterone. The mothers will have high testosterone (Baron-Cohen, Lutchmaya & Knickmeyer, 2004) and quite possibly high estrogen. If we evolved primarily from high F TE, M te, then autistic males will have low estrogen, and autistic females will have high estrogen. (In any study of autism, those with familial male maturation delay tendencies, or families of left-handers, need to be evaluated separately from those possibly traumatized by an environmental effect.)

2) Larger penis and testicle size will be associated with autistic, ambidextrous males and the familial left-handed. Left-handed males and autistics will produce more sperm. (This is based on the large testicle matrifocal bonobo sexual egalitarian paradigm vs. the small testicles patrifocal gorilla harem paradigm.) If larger testicles and increased sperm production are associated with low-testosterone, promiscuous social-structure males, then the two variables will be related in the sense that higher-testosterone males will have smaller testicles or lower sperm production.

3) Autistic males will exhibit more neotenous characteristics, while autistic females should show less neoteny than their contemporaries.

4) The children of parents of widely different ethnicities, separated by tens of thousands of years from common ancestry, will reveal characteristics of their last common progenitor and increased incidence of autism and left-handedness. (Maturational delay progenitor feature emergences will be far more common in matrifocal social structure families.)

5) Neoteny has dental correlations, with smaller teeth being characteristic of the neotenous smaller jaw. Learning that teeth have grown smaller over millions of years, researchers will find that they have actually grown larger in males over the last few tens of thousands of years as patrifocal social structure has taken hold. Ontologically, the teeth of males from older mothers should be smaller than the teeth of males of first-born, young mothers. The reverse should be true for females. In a large family, the male’s teeth will erupt later and later, the female’s earlier and earlier.

6) Because a mother’s testosterone level rises with her age and because she has children across the whole arc of her reproductive years, we might observe a display of personality and physiological features in her children that would roughly reproduce human evolution over a span of eons. An older mother should more frequently have male children with maturational delay, female children with accelerated maturation and increased prevalence of autism in both sexes. Autistic children born to young mothers will more likely come with less frequency from families of left-handers, trauma being a likely cause.

7) Obese mothers (overweight women exhibit increased testosterone and estrogen levels), particularly those who are older, should show high incidence of autism in their children, particularly in migrating populations moving from equatorial regions to northern climates. Equatorial peoples transplanted to northern climates will display higher percentages of maturational-delayed male children, and maturational-accelerated females, including autistics, with the births congregating in certain seasons.

8) If the low-testosterone males and high-testosterone females are late born, and high-testosterone males and low-testosterone females are the oldest children in a family or the first born, then first-borns will mate with first-borns and late-borns will mate with late-borns a higher percentage of the time than would occur by chance.

9) Hypothesizing that social structure has political correlates, it would be likely that in a politically conservative family, if liberals were to emerge, it would be among the youngest sons and daughters. One would also expect a higher incidence of divorce or serial monogamy with youngest children (reflecting matrifocal values).

10) Conditions that display maturational delay, such as autism, Asperger’s and stuttering, will appear more often in males with longer limbs and smaller teeth than in others in their family of origin. This would suggest that the youngest males would also be the tallest. (Longer limbs and smaller teeth are neotenous features.)

11) Eating healthfully (the caveman diet) brings puberty later and provides a longer time for the brain to grow. Putting autistic children on such a late-puberty-enhancing diet may enhance their ability to connect. When puberty or progenesis in humans is dropped to a younger age by several years, it has neurological and cognitive repercussions. In addition to a possible increase in depression and bi-polar disorder, there is the potential for a general curtailment of the final stages of cognitive development.

12) Societal periods of innovation will be preceded by periods of romance, revealing changes in the selection criteria by which females pick their mates or by a widening of the selection criteria for the ideal male. Shifts toward increases in the variety of acceptable features in the procreation population will result in increases in cultural and technical variation. For example, if female infanticide is a tool used for patrifocal cultural stability, decreases in female infanticide over time within a culture will correlate with increases in societal and economic variation. These changes will result in matrifocal societal surges, increases in left-handedness and increases in autism.

13) If rhythm and dance were the aesthetics driving human evolution through rituals of sexual selection, then the sound and feeling of nonstop rhythm may be necessary to encourage the development of an autistic child. Rhythmic environmental triggers may be essential to the healthy growth of maturational-delayed children. By implication, comparing congenitally deaf left and right-handers may reveal an unusually high number of autistics in the left-handed group.

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I am hypothesizing that evolution is driven by this hormonal ebbing and flowing, or waxing and waning. Mother’s testosterone levels > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory. Mother’s estrogen levels > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory. These two currents are inextricably intertwined, yet they follow established patterns, not unlike the double helix. Changes in hormone levels, influenced by the environment, impact ontogeny while we are in the womb, when we are children and after we’ve become grown-ups.

I call this the Theory of Waves to suggest the surge of features that travel ontogenetically back and forth from conception to adulthood and adulthood to conception over generations, with the direction of features often opposite between the sexes. Darwin proposed three different theories of evolution. This model in some ways integrates his three models (natural selection, sexual selection and Lamarckian selection, or pangenesis) and seeks to show patterns common to evolutionary biology (heterochronic theory), anthropology (social structure) and neuropsychology (sexual hormone endocrinology and Annett’s balanced polymorphism), all three of which describe ways that human beings may have evolved and may still be evolving.

Clearly, an adjustment (Matsuda, 1987) of Watson and Crick’s (1953) Central Dogma is occurring in several places in this thesis. Let me urge the reader to approach this work playfully while still rummaging for something useful in these conjectures. Most of all, perhaps, this thesis is suggesting that neoteny is central to being human. I believe that by playing with evolution we may discover who we are.

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The introduction to this piece was modified on 3/8/09

For more details regarding this theory, visit http://www.neoteny.org/?cat=28

For more details regarding this theory and autism, visit http://www.neoteny.org/?cat=29

In previous pieces, I’ve noted these effects on Jewish and American Black populations, with a skewing of populations toward the extremes of maturational delay and acceleration evidenced by a number of diseases and disorders characterized by these hormonal extremes. I would predict that both these populations would evidence higher percentages of autism and left-handedness, perhaps higher in places like Milwaukee and Minnesota than Houston and Miami. In just the way the Somalis in Minneapolis and St. Paul are exhibiting higher rates of autism, I would suggest that this Somali population would exhibit higher rates of left-handedness.

Another population influenced by these processes are the Latino immigrants from South and Central America. Studies could be conducted tracing the effects of sunlight on the pineal by noting the country of origins of Latino individuals, their proximity to the equator and how far north those individuals have traveled.

There are several issues.

First, how often do these people return to their country of origin? The more frequent their returns and the longer their stays, the less influenced they will be by the testosterone pineal effect.

Second, conceiving and bearing their children in Seattle vs. San Diego will likely influence the mother’s testosterone levels in different ways. I would predict that Seattle Latinos have higher incidence of left-handedness, autism and other symptoms related to these issues, such as allergies.

Third, there may be father effects. Recent age-of-father studies suggest older males are more likely to sire autistic children. This may be related to a father’s testosterone levels dropping with age. If the father’s testosterone levels at the time of sperm creation influence the testosterone levels and maturation rates of his children, then where the children are conceived (how far north or south) may influence the children’s maturational disposition.

Fourth, not all indigenous South and Central American populations share the same social structure tendencies. Egalitarian communities such as Mayan peoples with matrifocal tendencies exhibit male maturational delay and female maturational acceleration unlike some South American tribes with the opposite disposition. Individuals from matrifocal communities are more vulnerable to testosterone pineal effects than their patrifocal counterparts.

Fifth, if an indigenous American or Latino woman or man mates with a Black, Asian or White, the progeny may reveal features or characteristics of the last common ancestor, a not uncommon effect. This, in combination with testosterone pineal influences, may in combination further thrust children toward male maturational delay, female maturational acceleration and autism.

Sixth, it is possible that there will be multigenerational echo effects. Second-generation Latinos marrying and then conceiving children at the same time of the year as they themselves were conceived may further boost the influence of seasonal testosterone-pineal effects. Whereas the first generation may not have exhibited effects of extreme maturational delay or acceleration, a second or later generation may show those influences, particularly if other environmental testosterone-influencing variables are in play, for example, if the mother smokes.

Seventh, there are many environmental effects influencing testosterone levels in males and females. A Latino mom eating an American high-fat diet, unfamiliar to her before her migration, can dramatically increase testosterone and estrogen levels, influencing her children’s uterine environment.

In the way that we observe Blacks and Jews impacted by changes in geography, we are likely to see the same variables influencing Latino populations. The fact that there is often frequent travel back to the country of origin will mitigate the testosterone-pineal effect. Other influences noted above may exaggerate them. Just as there have been dramatic increases in allergies for Blacks and Jews, watch for such symptoms appearing in Latinos. Other maladies influenced by testosterone levels are also in play, such as prostate cancer. Autism is not the only condition influenced by testosterone levels.

These are the effects that we can observe by tracing the paths of immigrants in the Americas. What of South-to-North immigrant routines in other parts of the world? We’d hypothesize immigrants from India to the U. K. To manifest these effects, there are populations of southern peoples in Scandinavia. What have those communities been experiencing?

There are three primary genetic pools in Africa. One genetic source is believed to have resulted in literally all other humans that have distributed themselves about the world since the diaspora of 50,000–80,000 years ago. The other two are far smaller, located in central and east/central Africa. All three are relatively ancient compared to the many other ethnicities across the planet.

Darwin observed, while breeding pigeons, that when two widely divergent threads or strains mate or blend, having had no genetic contact for a prolonged period of time, the progeny often reveals traits of the last common ancestor. For example, Chinese pigeons were bred in isolation from European pigeons for more than 2,000 years. When cross-bred, they revealed features of the Roc pigeon, ancestor to both derivations.

Breeders would sometimes observe a surge of archaic features that would offer robust health to strains long separated from their origins. Sometimes individuals would emerge that seemed an echo from the past, less useful for their purposes.

American Blacks in large measure are a mix of African Blacks and a variety of other European and indigenous American ethnicities. This mixture has resulted in an American population infused with the neurological and physiological repercussions of the emergence of features of ancient archetypes in the present day. At an extreme, many American Blacks have been burdened by learning disabilities as they seek to navigate written languages, while at the same time they are gifted by a facility with speech and dance.

There are negatives and plusses in this mixed genetic landscape. There may be those carrying very old prespeech genetics, carrying facility communicating in gesture and song, with neurologies demanding constant rhythm and touch. They are not born into an environment mirroring those demands. These may be some of the children that become autistic.

Profoundly complicating the implications of crossed genetics is the impact of seasons on genetics cued to equatorial light patterns. Peoples living near the equator are used to 30% testosterone fluctuations responding to diurnal (daily) light cycles. Taken from their geographic origins to a land with seasons, the pineal gland interprets winter as night, summer as day, resulting in testosterone thresholds that last months instead of hours. There are a number of implications. One area of impact is the mother’s uterine testosterone, changing according to the season, modifying the maturation rates of her children according to their season of birth. A mother’s testosterone level regulates progeny testosterone levels and maturation rates. The result is children skewing toward the maturational extremes, with higher and lower testosterone thresholds than the standard societal distribution. The result is both maturational-delayed males and maturational-accelerated females (susceptible to autism, learning disabilities and specific medical maladies) and maturational-accelerated males and maturational-delayed females (susceptible to a different variety of medical maladies and different learning disabilities).

Marian Annett hypothesized two different types of dyslexia based on two different kinds of neurologies. One set had difficulty with phonology, the other side was challenged by being able to visually represent language. I would predict that the American Black population would display both these forms of dyslexia at higher rates than other populations based upon the varying thresholds of mothers’ uterine testosterone levels. I would also predict strong opposite season-of-birth correlations.

Mixing formerly separated genetic populations and exposing equatorial populations to changing seasons are two ways to both compel challenges and offer gifts. Pushed to hormonal extremes with unconventional metabolic and maturation rates, individuals both suffer and transcend. The astonishing number of gifted black athletes and orators has much to do with impacts noted above. Barack Obama is just one example of the gifted, lanky, left-handed, brilliant communicator, the classic maturational-delayed male. Perhaps with increased funding in education, many more will be able to take advantage of the unique biological circumstances that have resulted in the Black American.

F te/M TE Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te Classic Matrifocal

F te/M TE means low-testosterone & estrogen female, high-testosterone & estrogen male. Domineering, caring, discriminating men choosing cooperative women.

F tE/M Te means low-testosterone, high-estrogen female, high-testosterone, low-estrogen male. Domineering men choosing cooperative, caring, discriminating women.

F Te/M tE means high-testosterone, low-estrogen female, low-testosterone, high-estrogen male. Commanding women choosing creative, cooperative, caring, discriminating men.

F TE/M te means high-testosterone & estrogen female, low-testosterone & estrogen male. Commanding, caring, discriminating women choosing creative, cooperative, aloof men.

We have noted that Marian Annett observed a balanced polymorphism of gradations between random-handed and strong right-handed individuals within a society. We might conclude that just as there is a hypothesized random-handed prototype human and a strong right-handed prototype human, with some people fitting those exact prototypes, most folks in our four-pole hypothesis will appear along the mixed characteristics curve in between the extremes. We might also conclude that Annett’s charts are plotting our a four-pole hypothesis with her handedness evaluations parsing out the matrifocal/patrifocal split, but Annett is unable to break out our hypothetical estrogen influence in the process, with estrogen not evidencing itself in maturation-rate influenced features.

Nevertheless, we now have two complementing dynamics acting as the engine behind social change and evolution, pushing and pulling individuals closer and farther away from these four-poles over a period of generations.

Mother’s testosterone levels > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

Mother’s estrogen levels > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > evolutionary trajectory.

I hypothesize two feedback loops. Mother’s testosterone level > progeny maturation rate > social structure proclivity > mother’s testosterone level. Mother’s estrogen level > progeny ability to exercise aesthetic discrimination and caring behavior > social structure proclivity > Mother’s estrogen level. The environment can intervene at all three levels of both loops by either influencing maturation rates and timing (via testosterone) or by influencing the intensity of mate selection criteria (via estrogen), thus modifying the trajectory of social and human evolution.

How would the influence of estrogen be evaluated if indeed Annett’s tests are successfully discovering the degree that testosterone influences maturation rates, evidencing itself in extremes of anomalous dominance vs. strong right-handedness?

Consider the emerging consensus that the mother’s testosterone level has influence on the likelihood of autism in her children. It is the estimation of this site’s thesis that matrifocal social structure’s high-testosterone mothers are the evolutionary force behind the increase in autism. High-testosterone mothers create low-testosterone males, high-testosterone females. We are hypothesizing that this, in combination with other testosterone-influencing variables, often leads to autism. Consider that there are two kinds of high-testosterone mothers: high estrogen and low estrogen. This would be our Classic Matrifocal (high E) and Contemporary Matrifocal (low e) prototypes. Are there four types of autism groups based upon a mother with these two different high-testosterone hormonal constellations?

Male tE
Male te
Female Te
Female TE

How would we evaluate the groups? Stress increases testosterone levels, making the direct measuring of testosterone a difficult way to form a conclusion. Autistic children often live in highly stressed environments, to say nothing of the existential dissonance they no doubt experience because they are often unable to integrate with society. Are there different enough infant hormone thresholds of these four hormone prototypes that very early evaluations would form a clue?

If genetic, not trauma-based, autism has these four etiological foundations, then how do we best evaluate if this is the case?

And, if we evolved primarily via one of the two matrifocal social structures, F TE/M te (Classic Matrifocal), then autistic children should primarily exhibit Female TE and Male te.

In other essays on this website (i.e., Evolutionary Theory, Neuropsychology and Autism), I have described the integral connection between heterochronic theory and the neuropsychological patterns observed by Geschwind and Galaburda, developed by Annett and Baron-Cohen. Heterochronic theory describes how species evolve when influenced by changes in the rate of timing of maturation and development. Neoteny is one of six heterochronic patterns, the prolongation or lifting of infant or embryonic features from ancient ancestors into the features of adult descendants, resulting in the slowing down of maturation, with features of early ontogeny appearing later in ontogeny over generations. One does not just mature slower. Features of the infant manifest in the adult. Acceleration is the reverse of neoteny, with the features of adult ancestors appearing in the infant or embryonic features of descendants.

Darwin discovered sexual selection. He did not intuit the close connection between sexual selection and social structure in human evolution though he observed a relationship between the two. It seems that Victorian prejudices prevented him from seriously considering that human evolution was heavily influenced by female sexual selection or matristic, female-centered societies. Ironically, Wallace shared few of Darwin’s prejudices that women and aboriginals were lower than white Western academics, yet Wallace rejected sexual selection. If Wallace had embraced the theory, perhaps he’d have had the insights that several of his contemporaries experienced, that female sexual selection may have been integral to human evolution. Wallace chose instead to believe that divine intervention was responsible for language, society and culture.

Among those Western intellectuals that considered that the human female may have been central to how we evolved were Marx and Engels. Anthropologist Chris Knight, in his Blood Relations, observes how this has resulted in the fracturing of Western theorizing of human evolution.

For 150 years these three disciplines, neuropsychology, evolutionary biology and anthropology, have evolved in separate directions, occasionally exchanging idea memes but mostly conducting their work in separate journals describing seemingly unrelated theories with different descriptive nomenclatures.

I’ve suggested that by observing the influence of social structure on the heterochronic patterns of neoteny and acceleration, various neurological, physiological, psychological and hormonal patterns emerge in descendants over time. Anthropology, evolutionary biology and neuropsychology are three names for whether the patterns are observed in a society at a particular time, in society over time or in an individual within that society. These three disciplines are parsing out the scale and timing of experience. Engineering has one language to describe the almost 100-year evolution of the auto, general auto design and the products of specific auto manufacturers. It would be useful if we had a single language for human beings.

A potentially useful language is the language that lovers speak, the evocations of testosterone and estrogen. A mother’s testosterone levels at six weeks before birth decide the testosterone levels and maturation rates of her children. A high-testosterone mother births high-testosterone daughters and low-testosterone sons. A low-testosterone mother gives birth to low-testosterone daughters and high-testosterone sons. The environment influences those testosterone levels, adjusting the testosterone levels in her children. If the mother mates with a male from a genetic line long separated from hers (i.e., an American Indian mating with a Jew), the progeny may display hormonal constellations or maturational trajectories that are ancient. If a very high-testosterone woman is attracted to a very low-testosterone man, the children’s maturation may be vulnerable to environmental influences exaggerating the mother’s testosterone levels even further.

The mother’s womb is the place where the scale and timing of experience converge. A society’s social structure is informed by the testosterone levels and maturation speed that her children emerge with. High-testosterone (T) females mating with low-testosterone (t) males form matrifocal, matristic or partnership societies. Low t females pairing with high T males create patrifocal, patristic or male domination societies.

Social structure changes over time. Evolution reflects those changes. These changes manifest in specific features of individuals within those societies, including dispositions for particular diseases, conditions and disorders informed by their particular hormonal tendencies driven by social structure.

Estrogen has been studied far less than testosterone. Not unlike observing a baseball game by watching only what occurs at first base and right field, understanding the impact of estrogen in this dynamic, intuiting the rules of the game but being only able to observe part of the game, is a challenge. Nevertheless, like Geschwind and Galaburda in 1987, I’d like to make some tentative hypotheses and see if some of the patterns that they observed twenty years ago make more sense from this new point of view. I’d like to see how many of the rules of baseball we can infer by watching a fraction of the game.

Let’s imagine that not only testosterone levels are set at a particular time in the woman’s womb. Let’s estimate that estrogen levels in the mother decide the estrogen levels in her children, operating with a similar dynamic. This is a big leap, but the implications in social structure (anthropology) and evolution (evolutionary biology) are perhaps useful.

Imagine that a mother with high estrogen (E) gives birth to a low (e) estrogen son and a high E daughter. A low e mother gives birth to a low e daughter and a high E son. Estrogen confers caring and caregiving, along with a tendency to make aesthetic evaluations or judgments, as in sexual selection. Estrogen compels caring and a biological aesthetic.

Consider that just as testosterone propels maturational trajectories, resulting in changes in evolution, societies and the features of individuals, changes in estrogen result in similar profound modifications in evolution, society and individual characteristics. These changes are more difficult to see when everyone’s eyes in a patrifocal society are on the ball clearing a fence in left field. Still, there are 18 players in the game. It’s not all about the batter and the pitcher.

Perhaps it was the catcher that told the pitcher to throw a fast ball.

It may not be obvious that estrogen is calling signals in biological and societal evolution, but the possibility might make many patterns clear.

Consider the following…..

F te/M TE Conventional Patrifocal
F tE/M Te Warrior Patrifocal
F Te/M tE Contemporary Matrifocal
F TE/M te Classic Matrifocal

F te/M TE means low-testosterone & estrogen females, high-testosterone & estrogen male.

F tE/M Te means low-testosterone, high-estrogen female, high-testosterone, low-estrogen male.

F Te/M tE means high-testosterone, low-estrogen female, low-testosterone, high-estrogen male.

F TE/M te means high-testosterone & estrogen female, low-testosterone & estrogen male.

These are the outliers. The work of Marian Annett and her Right Shift Theory suggest that perhaps most people are in middle zones, not exhibiting particularly high or low levels of either hormone. Still, we are hypothesizing that societies will tend to lean powerfully in a matrifocal or patrifocal direction, evidencing populations with tendencies to fall into one or two of the four quadrants. All societies will exhibit examples of all four quadrants. I am hypothesizing that one or two of the four will be emphasized.

Because the mother’s testosterone levels always propel the two sexes in opposite directions (maturational delayed vs. maturational accelerated), we are hypothesizing that mother’s estrogen levels fashion her children’s exhibition of estrogen in opposite directions.

Domineering, caring, discriminating men choose cooperative women (F te/M TE).

Domineering men choose cooperative, caring, discriminating women (F tE/M Te).

Commanding women choose creative, cooperative, caring, discriminating men (F Te/M tE).

Commanding, caring, discriminating women choose creative, cooperative, aloof men (F TE/M te).

Marian Annett’s hypothesis of a balanced polymorphism or a society evidencing a seamless gradation between two outlier or extreme populations seems a reasonable way to view the patterns we are hypothesizing here. We would hypothesize that different societies will evidence varying balanced polymorphisms depending on their social structure proclivities. Specific hormonal constellations will become reinforced by womb conditions.

Deep changes in a society can occur quickly when there is a change in hormonal constellations. There can be sudden shifts from matrifocal to patrifocal or patrifocal to matrifocal. For example, if a matrifocal society is highly stressed over time by patrifocal incursions, the ideal male mate may shift from one displaying cooperative tendencies to a male quick to fight. Formerly highly valued aesthetic-oriented males may find themselves outside the pool of highly valued potential partners. In mere generations, physiological, hormonal and neuropsychological transformations may occur.

Nomadic populations exposed to changes in light (light influencing the pineal gland, which moderates testosterone levels) may experience radical fluctuations in a society’s social structure, impacting evolution over time.

Radical changes in diet manifesting in large amounts of high quality fats and nutrients might raise a female’s estrogen and testosterone levels, compelling a shift in social structure in the direction of female choice, with females choosing cooperators over warriors.

Hypothesizing both estrogen and testosterone as players in the transformation of species, societies and individuals, we might be able to infer rules in the game of life too subtle when we choose to only notice the behaviors of males. Details describing the power of women go unremarked when viewed from the elevated position of disciplines that do not play ball with one another. Consider that when we are able to see the whole playing field and are able to view all players, we notice that half of them are females and that the catcher, with mask withdrawn, is a woman.

It takes at least two to play a game. It’s time we recognize that the females are always players.

(Thanks to Riane Eisler’s The Real Wealth of Nations for inspiring the conclusions that I came to in this piece.)