Randolph Nesse

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

Runaway positive feedback and disease Vicious cycles are everywhere once you recognize them

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...

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

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-...

The gene ➔ trait path traverses a tangled bank Severely limiting the power of genetic predictions

open.substack.com/pub/randynes...

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.

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...

The article was wonderfully circumspect, but you must have hypotheses about what happened to the skulls. No sign of any anywhere? It must have been a big effort to dispose of them, unless they were roasted…or something.

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...

Ten Failure Mode for Mood Control Systems

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

Epistasis illustrated

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...

Ah, a badly designed system! But why is it badly designed? Which of the following possibilities are likely suspects?
(from my new article on the origins of failure in bodies and machines.)

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

@ncse.bsky.social has fought advocates for ignorance and antiscience for decades. Its work is more important than ever now, as the threat of a new dark age looms ever larger. I have written about objectivity being selected against, but I never dreamed there would be organized opposition to science.

Antonis Rokas is organizing the 10th annual meeting of the @evmed.bsky.social International Society for Evolution, Medicine , and Public Health meeting at Vanderbilt where he directs the University’s Evolutionary Studies Initiative. bsky.app/profile/evol...

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.

I am a psychiatrist.

ADHD is not an adaptation But foraging theory is crucial for understanding it

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...

The Body is not a Machine This post is adapted from my 2016 essay that inspired the 2025 PNAS Nexus article with Guru Madhavan and Jay Labov on the origins of failure in bodies and machines.

The Body is not a Machine open.substack.com/pub/randynes...

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.

300 characters is often only a good start.
For longer essays on evolutionary medicine, psychiatry, and more, visit my new Substack at 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...

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/...

I am skeptical about claims that autism rates are climbing fast, and even more skeptical that there are specific environmental causes. But someone needs to educate geneticists who think that the high heritability of a trait means that environmental factors are unimportant. @medscape.com

Myopia is an example. It is rare in cultures where people live mostly outdoors and reading is rare, but in modern societies it is common and the variation in risk results mostly from genetic variation.
@evmed.bsky.social @ibg.colorado.edu @genetics-gsa.bsky.social @autismsocietync.bsky.social

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.

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/...

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

Design failures like this are everywhere. They need to be studied systematically. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

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...

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

Randolph Nesse Randolph M. Nesse, MDnesse@umich.edu@RandyNesse@RandyNesse.bsky.social See you at ISEMPH2025 July 5-10, Nashville, TN

Failure to recognize that bodies are not machines causes serious problems...Thinking that genes and emotions each have specific functions is a fundamental misunderstanding
Much more in the article.
randolphnesse.com/articles/emo...
@bioengineergm.bsky.social
@evmedf.bsky.social randolphnesse.com