Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
- Foundation 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
Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry
This book explains why natural selection can't eliminate mental disorders...and how evolutionary biology can provide psychiatry with the scientific foundation that has been missing.
One of The Economist's Books of the Year for 2019
“This book sets out to show how evolution underpins (or should underpin) psychiatry. In doing so, it will surely change the face of medicine -- and deservedly so.” —Robin Dunbar
Recent
Simplify Podcast about why painful emotions persist, 2019
Video of a Nov 2019 talk on why disease genes persist
Nesse: Core Principles for Evolutionary Medicine, 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
Tinbergen's Four Questions, EMPH, 2019
The Smoke Detector Principle, EMPH, 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
Five Evolutionary Principles for Understanding Cancer, 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
Evolutionary psychology and mental health. 2015
Will computers ever evolve to be as wonderful as dogs?
How Stupid Not to Have Thought of That!
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
Natural selection is simple, but the systems It shapes are unimaginably complex, EDGE, 2012
Evolution: A basic science for medicine, 2012
Nesse & Jackson: Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric diagnosis, 2011
Ten questions for evolutionary studies of disease vulnerability, Evol Apps, 2011
Nesse & Foxman: Evolution of sexually transmitted diseases, NYAS, 2011
Nesse & Dawkins: Evolutionary medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2010
Evolutionary perspectives in health and medicine, PNAS, 2010
Highly Cited
An evolutionary perspective on psychiatry, 1984
What good is feeling bad? The evolutionary utility of psychic pain, 1991.
The dawn of Darwinian medicine, 1991
Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, 1995.
What is Evolutionary Medicine?
Making evolution a basic science for medicine, PNAS, 2009
Cliff-edged fitness functions and schizophrenia, 2004
How to Test an Evolutionary Hypothesis, 2011
Tinbergen's Four Questions Organized, TREE, 2013
The Smoke Detector Principle, EMPH, 2018
Core Concepts of Evolutionary Medicine, 2017
Evolutionary explanations of emotions, 1990
Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric research and practice, 2018
Evolutionary psychology and mental health. 2015
Why has natural selection left us so vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders?, 2011
Nesse & Foxman: Evolution of sexually transmitted diseases, NYAS, 2011
Nesse & Dawkins: Evolutionary medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2010
Social selection and the origins of culture, 2010
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
Evolution: Medicine's most basic science, Lancet, 2008
Runaway social selection for displays of partner value and altruism, Biological Theory, 2007
