Randolph M. Nesse

Randolph M. Nesse*, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he is also Research Professor at the Institute of Social Research and Director of the University’s Evolution and Human Adaptation Program.  His early work on the origins of senescence and the neuroendocrinology of anxiety soon led to a fascination with evolution.  Nesse collaborated with George Williams on several early works in Darwinian medicine, including “The dawn of Darwinian medicine” (1991) and the book Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (1995), now available in many languages.  More recently he edited /Evolution and the Capacity for Commitment/ (2001) which examines, from multiple dimensions, the relationship between natural selection and the nature of commitment and moral capacities.

Dr. Nesse’s primary current research focus is on how natural selection shaped the capacity for high and low moods and the mechanisms that regulate mood and anxiety. His work emphasizes the utility of negative emotions in certain situations, and how a signal detection analysis (the “smoke detector principle”) can help to explain why anxiety and other aversive emotions are, like fever and pain, expressed so often when they do not seem necessary. He is particularly interested in the utility of low mood in disengaging effort from unreachable goals, and whether inability to give up large unattainable goals might help to explain the prevalence of depression.  This proves valuable in his work as a practicing physician specializing in psychiatry, a field that is just beginning to recognize the utility of the well-developed evolutionary principles that are the foundation for the study of animal behavior. His account of /Is the Market on Prozac/, was cited by Edge.org as one of the most important underreported stories of 2005, and addresses the psychology involved with the high levels of societal consumption of mood stabilizing drugs.  Closely related is his work on genes that influence vulnerability to mood disorders.  Also related, but less closely is his most recent work on how social selection for relationship partners can shape capacities for altruism, empathy, and complex sociality.

Dr. Nesse has taken on the mission of publicizing the diverse additional contributions evolution could make to medicine if doctors learned evolutionary biology as a basic medical science, and the ways this can improve human health. This has involved extensive writing, lecturing and helping to organize the growing Evolution and Medicine community.  He is especially eager to make contact with physicians who share these interests.  His website at http://nesse.us has many useful materials, including a link to http://EvolutionAndMedicine.org.