Book Review

While much of evolutionary psychology seeks to understand why human behavior is adaptive, this book is concerned with the extent to which we are not well-adapted to our current environment. Ill health in most cases represents some actual or potential loss of evolutionary fitness. However, as the authors of this book point out, we have evolved to maximize reproduction rather than survival, and this is sometimes at the cost of our short-term health. Evolutionary medicine seeks to understand sickness in evolutionary terms. This discipline has seen tremendous growth in the last 20 years. It is now part of the curriculum of many medical schools and there are numerous university courses. There is even an evolutionary medicine module developed by the National Institutes of Health for high schools. Evolutionary medicine has an odd status. In an ultimate sense, nothing makes sense in medicine except in the light of evolution. However, a practicing physician may seldom need to directly apply evolutionary reasoning in their diagnoses. For example, the current epidemic of obesity in the US may ultimately derive from the fact that our Pleistocene ancestors were at a selective advantage when eating ad lib. However, this fact does not necessarily guide the treatment of the condition. The evolution of antibiotic resistance is perhaps the one exception. It is important t