Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
Research Professor of Life Sciences, and Founding Director (2014-2019), The Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University
Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan
Founding President: The International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health
nesse@umich.edu @RandyNesse on Twitter and FaceBook
How to frame and test an evolutionary hypothesis about a disease.
Diseases are not traits shaped by selection so they do not have direct evolutionary explanations. But traits that make a species vulnerable to disease need evolutionary explanation, and several may be needed!
New Resources
Nesse, RM (1984) An evolutionary perspective on psychiatry. (a new posting of my first article about evolutionary psychiatry)
Book Review: Problems of Living: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychiatry and Cognitive-Affective Science by Dan Stein.
Evolutionary Psychiatry 40 minute 2021 talk for Abertay University (talk starts at 3 minutes).
Evolutionary Medicine Needs Engineering Expertise a 2021 article for NAE Perspectives about control theory & disease.
Why is group selection still such a problem? BBS, 1994 and sadly still relevant.
Why Bad feelings are usually normal but useless. Video of a 12 min talk for HBES 2021.
Podcast on evolutionary psychiatry with Renee Garfinkel for the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Twitter threads on evolution and psychiatry
Video of 52 Living Ideas MeetUp discussion about Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, 2021
Video of Grand Rounds, Tufts University Department of Psychiatry, 2021
Podcast Varför mår vi så dåligt? (in English) with the Stockholm psychiatrist/author/podcaster Åsa Nilsonne about evolution and desire.
Psychology Today adaptation of book chapter on psychiatric genetics.
Lecture on Evolutionary Psychiatry for a class at Oxford University
Article on Tacit Creationism in Emotions Research Video now posted.
Podcast from the Jordan Harbinger show
Podcast by Thoughts on Record about how evolutionary thinking can help psychotherapists
Video from 2020 Grand Rounds at the U Arizona Department of Psychiatry
The Economist "Books of the Year" Buy on Amazon
This book will surely change the face of medicine -- and deservedly so. —Robin Dunbar
This is a wise, accessible, highly readable exploration of an issue that goes to the heart of human existence. —Robert Sapolsky
A bold book that would have made Darwin proud. Cutting-edge and compassionate at the same time —Lee Dugatkin
It is no exaggeration to say that he opens the door to a new paradigm in thinking about human beings and their conflicted lives. —Michael Ruse
A provocative book full of intriguing explanations about human nature in all its strengths and weaknesses. —Carl Zimmer
Someday nearly all psychiatry will be identified as evolutionary psychiatry. If so, Randolph Nesse’s book should be seen as the field’s founding document. — David Barash in The Wall Street Journal
Recent
Click here for a list of articles by topic
Here is a link to most articles in a web folder
Nesse & Schulkin: An evolutionary medicine perspective on pain and its disorders. PhilTransRS B, 2019
Nesse & Natterson-Horowitz: Evolutionary Medicine, a great way to teach biology, 2019
Nesse, Stein: How evolutionary psychiatry can advance psychopharmacology, 2019
Nesse, Dawkins: Evolutionary Medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2019
Grunspan, et al., Core Concepts of Evolutionary Medicine, 2017
Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric research and practice, 2017
Nesse Anorexia: A Perverse Effect of Trying to Control the Starvation Response BBS 2017
Nesse, Finch, Nunn: Evolution, Sleep, & Alzheimer's Disease, 2017
Thomas, Nesse, et al. Evolutionary Ecology of Organs, Trends in Cancer, 2016
Social selection is a powerful explanation for prosociality. BBS, 2016
Hauser, Nesse, Schwarz: Lay Theories of Health and Illness, 2016
Fried & Nesse: Depression sum scores don't add up. BMC Med 2015
A general ''Theory of Emotion'' is neither necessary nor possible, Emotion Review, 2014
Fried & Nesse: Depression is more than the sum of its parts, Psy Med, 2013
Aktipis & Nesse: Evolutionary foundations for cancer biology, Evolutionary Applications, 2013.
Nesse, et al. Evolutionary Molecular Medicine, J Mol Medicine, 2012
Nesse & Stein: Towards a genuinely medical model for psychiatric nosology, BMC Medicine, 2012
Antolin, et al. Evolution and medicine in undergraduate education: A prescription for all biology students, Evolution, 2012
Natural selection is simple, but the systems It shapes are unimaginably complex, EDGE, 2012
Nesse & Jackson: Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric diagnosis, 2011
Ten questions for evolutionary studies of disease vulnerability, Evol Apps, 2011
Why has natural selection left us so vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders? Can J Psychiatry, 2011
Evolutionary perspectives in health and medicine, PNAS, 2010
Highly Cited
Click here for a list of articles by topic
Here is a link to most articles in a web folder
Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, 1995.
Nesse, Dawkins: Evolutionary Medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2019
Natural selection and the regulation of defensive responses-Smoke Detector Principle 2005.
What good is feeling bad? The evolutionary utility of psychic pain, 1991.
Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric research and practice, 2018
Why has natural selection left us so vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders?, 2011
Time for truly biological psychiatry, Brit. J. Psychiatry, 2009
Explaining depression: Neuroscience is not enough, evolution is essential, 2009
Evolution, emotions and emotional disorders, American Psychologist, 2009
Runaway social selection for displays of partner value and altruism, Biological Theory, 2007
The Great opportunity: Evolutionary applications to medicine and public health, Applied Evolution, 2008
