The Skeptical Adaptationist

Short answers to big questions

2009-05-03T20:20:00.015+02:00

John Brockman's Edge World Question Center has been an inspiration.Below are some of the questions posed in recent years, and my answers. 1998What is the most important invention in the past two thousand years?...and why?Text is special1999What is today's most unreported story?Is the Market on Prozac? (This was reported in hundreds of news sources just before the crash. The idea has been

Nature-Nurture, No Nonsense

2008-10-03T23:30:00.005+02:00

As often noted, it is senseless to ask whether a trait is caused more by genes or more by environment. Like the length and width of a rectangle, both genes and environment are essential to the development of any trait. However, if the task is to explain variations in a trait, then the same analogy holds--the area of the rectangle changes only if its width or length (or both) changes.

Why Constructive Engagement is Rare

2008-07-29T07:48:00.001+02:00

Constructive engagement is rare, not just in political seasons, not just in our society, but always and everywhere, for good evolutionary reasons. Understanding those reasons gives us a fighting chance to avoid useless fighting and begin constructive engagement.By constructive engagement, I mean people trying as hard as they can to express their own ideas clearly, to understand other people’s

On reading Schopenhauer in Berlin

2008-07-28T21:59:00.004+02:00

I have spent much of this year trying to understand why natural selection shaped a capacity for low mood. The evolutionary perspective is new, but the core idea is ancient—despair comes from unsatisfied desires. Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was preoccupied with the connection between desires and despair. Like many aging philosophers, he wrote a late essay giving advice on how to live: The Wisdom of

Evolutionary pharmacogenomics

2008-05-15T10:33:00.001+02:00

Articles about evolution and medicine are spread so widely over the scientific landscape that no matter how much you read, you know you are missing things. The pleasure on finding them is, however, like finding a diamond in the sand. Such is the case with evolutionary pharmacogenomics (a phrase that turns up not one hit on Goggle!). At our seminar yesterday, Mark Thomas put us onto work by Daniel

No genes for schizophrenia--What gives?

2008-05-15T10:30:00.000+02:00

Ten years ago, most of us paying attention were exhilarated about the prospects for psychiatric genetics. Heritability is high for many disorders--80% of the variation in vulnerability to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be attributed to genetic variations. We thought we would soon find the responsible abnormal genes, and this would quickly reveal the biochemical defects that cause these

Balancing selection--no answer for schizophrenia

2008-05-15T10:29:00.000+02:00

Many have asked why genes that cause such a serious disease persist, and a number of evolutionary hypotheses have been inspired by the kind of balancing selection that explains the persistence of genes that cause sickle cell disease. A new article by Adriaens debunks such hypotheses. He offers a nice review of studies about the reproductive success of people with schizophrenia, although I think

Why are humans such lousy dog trainers?

2008-05-02T10:27:00.001+02:00

Training Lucy has taught me so much. Mostly it has taught me what a lousy dog trainer I am. I started off confident that my knowledge of psychology and learning theory would make me a superior dog trainer. Besides, humans have been training dogs for thousands of years, and, we have had a few hundred thousand years to learn how to influence each other. So, it shouldn't be hard to train an eager,

Can we ever be sure about what happened long ago?

2008-02-22T08:32:00.001+01:00

Often when I lecture about evolutionary biology, a member of the audience will say, "You don't have a time machine, so you can never be sure about what happened long ago, this is all this speculation."Well, it is hard work, and often no experiment can conclusively differentiate the hypotheses. However, sometimes one can be as sure as sure can be.Paleontologists have long recognized a major

Ten Ways to Apply Evolution in Medicine

2008-02-02T06:35:00.000+01:00

I have always found it somewhat confusing that evolutionary principles can be applied to medicine in so many ways. From the start of my work with George Williams, it has seemed clear that our attempts to ask why natural selection left the body vulnerable to so many diseases are fundamentally different from applications of population genetics or phylogenetic trees. Finally, in preparing an article

Welcome, Skeptical Adaptationists

2008-01-31T08:39:00.000+01:00

Adaptations shaped by natural selection are so interesting because fascination with function gave our ancestors selective advantages. The mechanism works overtime, seeing functions where they don’t exist. And, not surprisingly given human nature, this has created critics who are skeptical about all adaptationism. This blog should help to connect skeptical adaptationists everywhere as we work