One way that the legacy of Darwinian Evolution has influenced science in society is via the development of Darwinian medicine. Darwinian medicine or evolutionary medicine is a field that came about as a way to \u201c[apply] principles of evolutionary adaptation and natural selection to the study of disease\u201d (Ewald, 2018). What makes this field of medicine stand out in comparison to, perhaps, other fields is its specific emphasis on the idea that \u201ca full understanding of medical problems requires an understanding of why states of disease exist\u201d (Ewald, 2018). It guides us to ask questions like, \u201cWhy the body is not better designed [to avoid disease in general]?\u201d (Nesse, 2001). Darwinian evolution has reimagined medicine in a way that is unique and begs us to approach health in different way. One could argue that Darwinian medicine is more inclusive. While traditional medicine usually approaches health in a more individualistic way, Darwinian medicine moves beyond that. Instead of asking \u201cwhy one person becomes obese and another does not\u201d, it encourages us to ask \u201cwhy are our bodies designed so that most of us eat too much and exercise too little?\u201d (Nesse, 2001). This removes the blame that some people may face for being obese or ill in any other way. It frames disease as an evolutionary byproduct and it seeks to find ways to cure or avoid illness, as such.<\/p>\n
One disease in which Darwinian medicine has prevailed is cancer. In the eyes of Darwinian medicine, \u201cvulnerability to cancer is \u2026 a consequence of the \u2018design\u2019 limitations, compromises and trade-offs that characterize evolutionary processes\u201d (Greaves, 2007). As we all know, one of the main issues with cancer is that it cannot be cured my antibiotics. One of the main treatments for cancer is chemotherapy. Even then, chemotherapy is not a cure. It is one of the only treatments we have but it usually does not get rid of the cancer in an individual. The aggressiveness of cancer makes it so that cancer cells are resistant even to the vicious treatment of chemotherapy. Darwinian medicine applies the theory of natural selection as an explanation for this resistance. It views \u201cthe hugely problematic development of resistance to \u2026 cancer chemotherapeutics \u2026 [as] an inevitable consequence of genetic diversity and selective pressure\u201d (Greaves, 2007). Furthermore, under this view of medicine, we are implored to see the \u201cadaptive evolution of [tumor] clones \u2026 [as] driven by the formation of new environmental niches\u201d and as having \u201chuge implications for screening, prognosis, and therapy\u201d (Fredrich et. al, 2019; Greaves, 2007). Considering this view, has enormous implications to what drugs, therapies, and treatments we develop for cancer in the future. As a matter of fact, it might lead us to \u201cfocus efforts on prophylactic hormonal or immunological intervention\u201d (Greaves, 2007). Approaching cancer from an evolutionary standpoint can provide science and society with \u201cnew insights into gene culture co-evolution\u201d and, potentially, \u201cbridge many of the dichotomous approaches\u201d that are currently used when we try to understand major public health problems associated with cancer (Purushotham & Sullivan, 2010). If \u201ctrans-disciplinary collaborations\u201d occurred between cancer researchers and evolutionary biologists, we would probably see many more advancements in our overall understanding of cancer as a society (Purushotham & Sullivan, 2010).<\/p>\n
References<\/p>\n
Ewald, P. W. (2018, September 05). Darwinian Medicine: Evolutionary Approaches to Disease. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1002\/9781118924396.wbiea1862<\/p>\n
Fredrich, T., Rieger, H., Chignola, R., & Milotti, E. (2019). Fine-grained simulations of the microenvironment of vascularized tumours. Science Reports,<\/em> 9<\/em>, 11698. doi:10.1101\/661603<\/p>\n Greaves, M. (2007). Darwinian medicine: A case for cancer. Nature Reviews Cancer,<\/em> 7<\/em>(3), 213-221. doi:10.1038\/nrc2071<\/p>\n Nesse, R. M. (2001). How is Darwinian medicine useful? Western Journal of Medicine,<\/em> 174<\/em>(5), 358-360. doi:10.1136\/ewjm.174.5.358<\/p>\n Purushotham, A. D., & Sullivan, R. (2010). Darwin, medicine and cancer. Annals of Oncology,<\/em> 21<\/em>(2), 199-203. doi:10.1093\/annonc\/mdp537<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One way that the legacy of Darwinian Evolution has influenced science in society is via the development of Darwinian medicine. Darwinian medicine or evolutionary medicine … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9814,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[470387],"tags":[473579,534433,107405],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9814"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5477,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions\/5477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/st112a-fall20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}