Does Darwinian Medicine Foster Interdisciplinary Integration of Medicine and Evolutionary Biology?

One of the goals formulated by proponents of Darwinian medicine is to integrate medicine and evolutionary biology by integrating proximate and ultimate explanations. In this paper I discuss the so-called old friends hypothesis as an example of an explanation generated under the framework of Darwinian medicine. My analysis shows that Darwinian medicine does not integrate medicine and evolutionary biology in any strong sense but merely incorporates evolutionary concepts into medicine. I also show that backward-looking explanations in Darwinian medicine are not integrated proximate-and-ultimate explanations but functional explanations with that include reference to evolutionary concepts. Nevertheless, explanations in Darwinian medicine have heuristic roles as they contribute to conceptual change in medical research and tie pieces of knowledge from different fields of medical research together. I argue that Darwinian medicine is an interfield that fosters cross-disciplinary exchange between evolutionary biologists and medical researchers and practitioners based on division of labour and separation rather than unity