Hutnan Ethology Bulletin
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Hutnan Ethology Bulletin VOLUME 14, ISSUE 4 ISSN 0739-2036 DECEMBER 1999 © 1999 The International Society for Human Ethology OUR BODIES ARE FR: So although the mice were suffering from the smell of cats, this suffering is actually IMPERFECT, useful to them. RN: Exactly. One of the main ideas I have FOR GOOD REASONS pursued is that natural selection has shaped the capacities for emotions. Negative emotions are just as useful as the positive ones. So Interview of Randolph N esse anxiety and boredom and jealousy and anger and low moodare all in their place. The temptation for doctors or psychologists is to By Frans Roes assume that if someone feels bad, that there is Lauriergracht 127-ll something wrong with them. That either their 1016 RKAmsterdam brain is not working right, or their cognitions tel. (3120) 6259399 are not working right, or something like that. [email protected] But in fact, if you take an evolutionary view, it is very likely that a whole lot of suffering is Randolph Nesse is a physician and just normal mechanisms working, usually in psychiatrist who used to be frustrated with situations that are not very favourable to us. psychiatry's lack of theoretical foundation. In ObViously, if you are experiencing pain, it is not 1985 at a meeting of a group that later a good situation, because your tissue is being d.eveloped into the 'Human Behavior and damaged. You have got to get out of that Evolution Society', he met and discovered. situation. But the pain is not the problem, the share interests with George Williams. Their problem is whatever is damaging your tissue. cooperation resulted in several publications, Likewise, if you are feeling anxious or low, among them Why We Get Sick, The New probably bad things are going on in your life. Science of Darwinian Medicine (1995). The You should try to stop them. And if you stop following interview took place inTucson,Iune 7, them justby blocking that emotion with a drug, 1997. that might not be the best thing. But I would like to stress that there shouldn't be any FR: There is a story in your book about mice clinical recommendation that comes out of that hate the smell of cats. What is it about? Darwinian medicine directly. Darwinian medicine should lead us to research-projects we RN: I think we use that story to illustrate the never thought of before. benefits of fever. The mice did not like the smell of cats, and therefore they got a drug 00 FR: You write that medical professionals have they were not bothered so much by that smell. often been asking the kind of questions you are They felt better in the short run, but then they asking. What kind of questions are these, and died, because a cat obviously would eat them. why are your answers different from the ones We compare that to someone whose normal they gave? fever was blocked by doctors who block a defence without thinking about it. Human Ethology Bulletin, 14(4), 1999 2 Editorial Staff RN: If George Williams and I have contributed anything to this field, it is a very small change Editor in perspective that has fairly large implications. Ever since Darwin people have Peter LaFreniere talked about the evolution of disease. This is a 362 Little Hall mistake. Diseases don't evolve, but the body's Department ofPsychology vulnerabilities that lead to diseases, they are University of Maine a product of natural selection. What we are Orono, ME 04469 USA encouraging people to do is to try to understand tel. 1-207-581-2044 why the body is not better. Why can't natural fax 1-207-581-6128 selection make the body better? People used to e-mail: [email protected] say "Well, natural selection just isn't that good". That might not be the right answer. CurrentLiterature Editor Some people imagine that George and I are saying that the body is perfect, because natural JohanvanderDennen selection is such a strongforce, but we are saying Center for Peace and Conflict Studies the exact opposite: The body is imperfect, -for University of Groningen good reasons. And that is not an idea that is Gude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 5/9 very comrnonarnongmedical researchers yet. 9712 EA Groningen,TheNetherlands tel. 31-50-3635649 FR: So why are there so many complaints about fax 31-50-3635635; e-mail: how ourbodies function? [email protected] RN: We list several categories of explanations. Chief Book Review Editor One of them is that what seems to be a disease, is often a defence. So fever, cough, nausea, pain, Thomas R. Alley vomiting, diarrhoea, anxiety, low mood - those Department of Psychology are not problems, those are responses to Clemson University problems. Fever decreases the ability of Brackett Hall bacteria to reproduce. Even cold-blooded Clemson. SC 29634-1511, USA animals go to warmer places when they get a tel. 1-864-656-4974 bacterial infection, in order to kill off those fax 1-864-656-0358 bacteria. e-mail: [email protected]. When people go to the doctor they usually Associate Book Review Editor complain about these defences. They complain of fever, nausea or pain, fatigue or vomiting, Colleen Schaffner and about half of the medical practice is 1 Mendip Close blocking those defences. The next question is: Halewood Well, if all these defences are so great for us, Liverpool L261XU how can doctors get away with blocking them England all the time? I think there are two answers. tel: 44-151-475-0393 One is what George and I call the 'smoke e-mail: [email protected] detector principle'. That is, the defence is cheap, vomiting for instance only costs you a Call for Associate Book Review Editors: couple of hundred calories. Vomiting is really essential if youare about to die, or if you have We are seeking one additional international any chance of dying from a toxin that is scholar. for help organizing and editing reviews circulating in your system. So if there is any Those interested in this position should send chance of a toxin in your stomach, you should their CV and current research interests to the vomit. Likewise for fever. If there is much of editor orbookreview editor. any chance that there is a bacteria in your Human Ethology Bulletin, 14(4), 1999 3 system that might be damaging it, it is in your reproductive pay-off. Therefore men who do best interest to increase yourbody-temperature. more competitive things, and devote fewer resources to for instance defending against FR: So often your body-temperature is raised infection, have a reproductive advantage over while you could get healthy without raising menwho live longer. it? Another quote: Some current medical research RN: That's right. We fake aspmn and we seems a bit like trying to understand a clock's usually get better anyway, just as fast, without malfunctioning by analysing all its gears, having to go through a fever. The other reason without daring to ask about their functions. why doctors usually get away with blocking defences is that the body has redundant The distinction between proximate mechanisms. There are other mechanisms that explanations and evolutionary explanations is clothe same thing, it is not just high fever that very simple, very profound and very kills bacteria. So that is another reason why misunderstood. A proximate explanation is how we can get away with blocking fever. something works, it is what the mechanisms This has the biggest implications I think for are like, how the gears are connected, how the newdrugsthat are being invented for regulating chemicals work, how development works from human emotions. Already we are getting pretty DNA to shaping the whole organism. An good at blocking low mood. And I ask myself evolutionary explanation explains why' the the question: What is going to happen in the DNA has the exact sequence of amino-acids next ten to twenty years if we develop all kindS that it does, in tum, why the organism is the of new drugs to block low mood and anxiety way it is. And that has to be framed in terms of safely without addiction? How should we use how a certain trait gives a selective those drugs? We have been thinking about advantage. This all soundsvery technical; it is those emotions as abnormal, and I am trying to much easier to do it with examples. The one I help people to see that these emotions as useful use a lot in lectures is: Why do polar bears have in certain circumstances. On the other hand, white furs? The proximate explanation is that given what I just said about the smoke detector the polar bears' body doesn't make pigment for principle and the redundancy principle, it the fur. The evolutionary explanation is that might well be that a high proportion of white polar bears catch more seals than brown emotional suffering that people experience, is ones. completely unnecessary. FR: A major cause of disease is infection. The FR: You write that survival is of no consequence accepted view is that hosts and parasites will in and of itself. Is the body not designed to slowly evolve to some cooperative state. Wha t survive? is yourcomment? RN: You get a very different view on medicine RN: We are all taught this at school, and even and disease once you start taking the many microbiologists until the last couple of evolutionary perspective. Survival is just one years still imagined it to be like that.