Recent Articles

Evolutionary Psychiatry, chapter in Tasman's Psychiatry, Nesse and Stein, 2023 (more on cancer here)

Why do mental disorders persist? Evolutionary foundations for psychiatry. 2022 Chapter in Evolutionary Psychiatry

Nesse (2022) Social Situations Shape Social Emotions that Benefit Genes

Tacit Creationism articles

Why is group selection still such a problem? BBS, 1994 and sadly still relevant. 

Psychology Today adaptation of book chapter on psychiatric genetics. 

Nesse, RM (1984) An evolutionary perspective on psychiatry.  (a new posting of my first article about evolutionary medicine)

Anxiety disorders in evolutionary perspective. 2022 Chapter in Evolutionary Psychiatry

Evolutionary Medicine Needs Engineering Expertise a 2021 article for NAE Perspectives about control theory & disease.

Twitter threads on evolution and psychiatry

Book Review: Problems of Living: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychiatry and Cognitive Affective Science by Dan Stein 2022. 

Nesse & Schulkin:  An evolutionary medicine perspective on pain and its disorders. PhilTransRS B, 2019

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

Nesse, R. M.  The Puzzle of the Unbalanced Mind, (Cliff-edged fitness functions), 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

Evolution and Stress, 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

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

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

Why has natural selection left us so vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders? Can J Psychiatry, 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

Social selection and the origins of culture, 2010