Evolution and Human Health: Using Evolutionary Medicine to Teach Biology
Human health is often only taught from the perspective of cellular and physiological mechanisms. The case studies below analyze complex human health conditions from an interdisciplinary perspective, with an emphasis on the integration of evolutionary principles.
Evolutionary Medicine
When trying to understand and treat human health, most of modern medicine focuses on examining underlying biological mechanisms such as genetics, cellular mechanisms, anatomy, and physiology. Although this mechanism-focused perspective has led to the development of effective treatments such as drugs, vaccines, and surgeries, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. Also known as Darwinian medicine, evolutionary medicine applies modern evolutionary theory to the field of human health and disease. In doing so, not only can we learn about how the biological mechanisms that underlie human health work, but we can also begin to learn about why humans remain vulnerable to certain diseases and disorders in the first place. This is a relatively recent perspective, largely pioneered by George Williams and Randolph Nesse in their 1991 paper, The Dawn of Darwinian Medicine, and their follow-up 1996 classic, Why We Get Sick. The purpose of our evolutionary medicine cases is to provide students with examples of biological systems related to human health in order to promote integrative biological thinking. Cases focused on human health are also inherently interesting to many students and can help highlight how evolutionary theory can be applied to human biology. Below are short abstracts of each evolutionary medicine case along with links to PowerPoint slides, question guides, games and sims, and videos to support each case.