Randolph Nesse
@randynesse.bsky.social
A founder of evolutionary medicine now trying to help psychiatry find its missing foundation in evolutionary biology.
This Nov. 6 Symposium in London will be a milestone for evolutionary psychiatry. My talk title is: "Why all psychiatry is not based on evolutionary biology...yet". But I don't yet know how to explain the outrageous absence of evolutionary biology in psychiatry. 🧪 www.rcpsych.ac.uk/events/confe...
8th International Evolutionary Psychiatry SIG Symposium
Detail page.
rcpsych.ac.uk
Overprescribing and the "Do Something Imperative" substack.com/@randynesse/...
Overprescribing and the "Do Something Imperative"
The intense situation where decisions are made
substack.com
In preparing my keynote address for this week's NIH NIDDK meeting, I am inspired by Robert Chevalier's articles on evolutionary nephrology. I look forward to talking with attendees about how evolutionary medicine can advance research. @isemph @NIDDKgov scholar.google.com/citations?hl...
This is the last week to submit an abstract for the 11th annual meeting of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health in Kiel Germany in July. This is a small friendly meeting and your talk or poster or discussion plan will be welcome. And you will be welcome! isemph.org
What is the best article you read in 2025 about evolutionary medicine? Please let @evmed.bsky.social know by filling out the simple form linked on the site. The deadline is March 15. isemph.org/Omenn-Prize @tricem.bsky.social @evmed.bsky.social
My new essay on the role of runaway positive feedback in causing disease. 🧪 @evmed.bsky.social @tricem.bsky.social @umehap.bsky.social @umichmedicalschool.bsky.social www.nessays.com/p/runaway-po...
Runaway positive feedback and disease
Vicious cycles are everywhere once you recognize them
nessays.com
Evolution, Medicine and Public Health has just started its 14th year. All publications from 2025 are listed with links at the EvMedReview.com substack post. Interesting reading! 🧪 @evmed.bsky.social @evmedasu.bsky.social @tricem.bsky.social www.evmedreview.com/p/evolution-...
Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health: All articles published in 2025
EMPH is an open access Oxford University Press journal sponsored by the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health
evmedreview.com
Thanks, Daniela for helping people to realize that bad feelings can have meaning and provide useful motivations! But as your work shows, they can also be normal but useless. Or they can be products of a failing control system. Individualized assessment is essential.
Daniela Sieff PhD@danielasieff.bsky.social · 8mo agoWhat if your “bad” feelings aren’t bad at all, but evolution’s way of protecting you? Shame, anxiety, and sadness may hurt - but they can also heal. @randynesse.bsky.social has written about this in his brilliant book: “Good Reasons for Feeling Bad.” #DanielaSieff #ShameHealing #TraumaHealing
Turns out all the Friend of Darwin award winners this year are experts in evolutionary medicine! I will be curious to hear what we all have to say at the Dec 4,6 PM ET event at us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Friend of Darwin and Friend of the Planet Celebration. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
Join us as we celebrate NCSE's 2025 Friend of Darwin and Friend of the Planet awardees. This online event is free and will include a Q&A after brief comments from the winners. This year's Friend of D...
us02web.zoom.us
National Center for Science Education@ncse.bsky.social · 9mo agoJoin us virtually on 12/4 at 6 ET as we celebrate our 2025 Friend of Darwin and Friend of the Planet recipients. Register in advance for a link - us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #CelebrateScience #ScienceSky #ClimateSky
The ClubEvMed on Dec 2 at Noon ET on this new book will be interesting! Laurence Hurst will kick it off, David Haig will comment, and I will MC a lively discussion. @evmed.bsky.social @umehap.bsky.social @tricem.bsky.social @evmedasu.bsky.social Register now! duke.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Why can't we find specific genes and brain abnormalities that cause and define specific mood disorders? It is because, like heart and renal failure, mood disorders are failure modes of control systems that can have diverse causes. 🧪 @evmed.bsky.social www.nessays.com/p/mood-disor...
I will give 2 talks on evolutionary psychiatry in Tokyo on Sept 24 mentalhealth-unit.jp/plugin/blogs... and 1 in Kyoto on the 25th. ashbi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ja/event/eve... I look forward to meeting Japanese colleagues. @evmed.bsky.social @humbehevosoc.bsky.social 🧪 @evolmtg.bsky.social @evol
Not perfectly clear about epistasis? The illustrations and formulas in my new Nessay should help. 🧪 @umehap.bsky.social @evmed.bsky.social @vscooper.micropopbio.org @ent3c.bsky.social @arvidagren.bsky.social @carlbergstrom.com @eikofried.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/randynes...
How amazing and wonderful that all 3 winners of this year's @ncse.bsky.social Friend of Darwin Award ncse.ngo/friend-darwi... are evolutionary medicine researchers! Katie Hinde @mammalssuck.bsky.social was one of the first faculty I recruited for the @cemasu.bsky.social at ASU.
Here is my Substack essay commenting on an article that reports a research project on foraging theory and ADHD that I have long wanted to see...but whose conclusion–that ADHD is an adaptation–seems to me to be inconsistent with evolutionary theory. www.nessays.com/p/adhd-is-no...
ADHD is not an adaptation
But foraging theory is crucial for understanding it
nessays.com
300 characters is often only a good start. For longer essays on evolutionary medicine, psychiatry, and more, visit my new Substack at Nessays.com.
Nessays | Randolph Nesse | Substack
Randy Nesse's Essays on why evolution left us vulnerable to sickness, suffering, and simplistic thinking. Click to read Nessays, by Randolph Nesse, a Substack publication. Launched 3 days ago.
nessays.com
@awaisaftab.bsky.social is doing so much to help make psychiatry sensible. The questions he posed about #EvolutionaryPsychiatry helped me to get a better grasp of my own field! See the full version on his substack www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/why-did-ev...
Why Did Evolution Leave Us Vulnerable to Mental Disorders? A Q&A with Randolph Nesse
“Individuals with disorders often have advantages, but that does not make the disorder an adaptation.”
psychiatrymargins.com
Awais Aftab@awaisaftab.bsky.social · last yr.“our notion of health cannot be reduced to some notion of “evolutionary design” and just because a mechanism is doing what it has evolved to do doesn’t mean that it is good for our well-being, and we can have good clinical reasons to intervene on it”
The essay by @awaisaftab.bsky.social does a fine job of describing how cliff-edge fitness functions may explain vulnerability to some diseases. For an accessible Psychology Today article on the topic, see the link below. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
(PDF) The Puzzle of the Unbalanced Mind
PDF | Why do genes for mental disorders persist? This article argues it is because traits with a cliff-edged fitness function are shaped to a... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Rese...
researchgate.net
Awais Aftab@awaisaftab.bsky.social · last yr.Schizophrenia Is the Price We Pay for Minds Poised Near the Edge of a Cliff A post discussing @randynesse.bsky.social ‘s hypothesis of cliff-edged fitness functions and the evolution of schizophrenia www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/schizophre...
A recent article about autism cites experts who say that its high heritability means that environmental factors are unimportant. That is a fundamental mistake. Environmental changes that influence entire populations can make previously neutral alleles deleterious.🧪 www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
What Do We Know About the Causes of Autism?
Scientists who have dedicated their careers to studying autism remain highly skeptical that a definitive answer to what causes autism can be reached within a few short months — if at all.
medscape.com
An engineer, an educator, and an evolutionary biologist walk into a bar...(well, actually, we talked at @evmed.bsky.social meetings); today, 3 years later, our plans for a new bridge between engineering and medicine are published in @pnasnexus.org! academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Explanations for failures in designed and evolved systems
Abstract. Engineers have long studied the origins of design features that make machines prone to failure, but biologists have only recently begun investiga
academic.oup.com
Guru Madhavan@bioengineergm.bsky.social · last yr.⚠️ Explanations for failures in designed and evolved systems. 🚫 🔓Read here in @pnasnexus.org : academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar... 🔍 @randynesse.bsky.social, Jay Labov, and I compare body and machine vulnerabilities such as design deficiencies, corrupted plans, assembly variations, and trade-offs. ⚖️
Here is an insightful essay by Rob Kurzban on the pressure to produce novel counterintuitive articles to get attention in academia. We need a name for false ones that spread fast. Perhaps "#MemeArticles" is catchy enough to spread fast.
The best 2024 article about evolution, medicine and public health will win the $5000 Omenn Prize. Nominate an article now. It is easy. And the winner-and all of us- will REALLY appreciate it! isemph.org/Omenn-Prize 🧪E. #EvMed @evmed.bsky.social @tricem.bsky.social @sse-evolution.bsky.social
#TacitCreationism is pervasive and problematic. Dan Stein and I explain why, and why it matters, in our just-published article. 1/3 @evmed.bsky.social @umehap.bsky.social ky.social @eikofried.bsky.social @carlbergstrom.com onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Really interesting ClubEvMed discussion with Dr. Paul Turke on Evolutionary Pediatrics on Wednesday at noon ET. Based on his new book Bringing Up Baby. All welcome. A great group! Free. Join us! @evmed.bsky.social 🧪 #evmed duke.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Club Ev Med: Bringing Up Baby. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Club Ev Med: Bringing Up Baby. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
duke.zoom.us
Some questions resist resolution. -Mind vs. body -Nature vs. nurture -Free will vs. determinism -Group selection vs. gene level selection. Why? I think it is because they get entangled in the cognitive and emotional hooks of our evolved minds. 1/5
Gems from pages 28-29 in Richard Lewontin’s 1974 book “The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change” It is a common myth of science that scientists collect evidence about some issue and then by logic and "intuition" form what seems to them the most reasonable interpretation of the facts. /4
The chaos from Washington in the last week has made travel planning impossible for many scientists, so the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health meeting is allowing submission of talk abstracts until Feb 28. 🧪 #EvMed @evmed.bsky.social @evmed.bsky.social evmed.org
