Um, aren't the Jedi a bunch of "selfless" theocratic do-gooders and defenders of a "democratic" Republic who want to outlaw scientific research into immortality (i.e. the dark side)? That whole StarWars analogy is a can of worms, sorry I opened it...
And the increase in autism has a lot to do with detection rates. It's like a percentage by which the number of cars has increased from the year 1900 to 2000 - just as cars have hardly been invented back then, autism was hardly ever diagnosed, only a handful of doctors knew what that was. All mental illnesses were lobbed together, and infanticide / murder of "defective children" was more common than most people would like to believe...