Randolph M. Nesse

Potentially very interesting but somehow fall short. The book shows its age (1996), is ultimately rather speculative, at best a set of proposals for future research, . The surprise is that it’s taken well over 100 years before medicine has even begun to think about the implications of Evolutionary theory. Surprising, given that Darwin‘s own dad was a doctor. The best takeaways for me: that many of the symptoms of illness are actually the body's protection and not the direct effect of the show more invader. Coughs and fevers are prime examples Treatments that simply repress symptoms may well be misguided.
What is the current state of research in this area ? show less

This is a well written book that takes a look at why people get sick from an evolutionary perspective. This book is easy enough to understand without requiring a medical/biology degree, but not so simplified that it assumes the readers are have the attention span of a gnat and the intelligence of an amoeba. This is a meat and potatoes type of book compared to the bowl full of lettuce books that seem to be common in the popular science genre these days.

I do however wish the authors would show more update this book to include any additional information discovered/hypothesized in the last 20 years, but what they cover is still relevant and very interesting. show less

A really excellent, if slightly outdated, resource on the Darwinistic underpinings of our responses to disease. By far the best part of the book was the table categorizing disease responses (protective v. quirks v. secondary purpose). The book may have been made slightly stronger if it stuck more strictly to the topic of disease; however, as an introduction to the rigorous scientific ideas behind Darwinism, it was made richer by the discussions of pregnancy, foodstuffs, kin altruism and show more selfish gene phenomena. Thoroughly enjoyable, although not much new for the already versed reader. show less

Excellent introduction to Darwinian medicine, with good examples of how an evolutionary perspective adds to our understanding of the origins of disease. While medicine usually focus on the "proximate causes" of disease (such as viral or bacterial agents, or inflammatory processes), we can learn much from also examining the "ultimate" or evolution-derived causes, which would include our genetic inheritance formed by mutation and natural selection, and especially by mismatches between our show more current resource-rich environments and the "environment of evolutionary adaptation" of our paleolithic ancestors.

Note that while the Kindle edition is (c) 2012, the book was published in 1996 and has not been revised. show less