Vintage Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine

Learned quite a lot Very clear and engaging throughoutful

This is by any standard a very important book. It stresses the impact which evolutionary biology should have on medical progress. It challenges head-on long ingrained medical treatments of symptoms, which in fact are a part of the body's defenses against illnesses. It explains the beneficial effects, among others, of fever, vomiting, low iron levels, pain, cough, diarrhea, fear, anxiety or panic. The basis of the book is Darwin's theory of natural selection which explains the functional design of all organisms. Natural selection involves no plan, no goal, no direction, only `selfish genes' (R. Dawkins). Survival of the latter depends on their reproductive success, not on perfect design, health or (sexual) satisfaction. The role of chance ensures that the future course of evolution is unpredictable. The authors see six categories of evolutionary explanations of diseases: defenses (ex. fever, emotions); infections (ex. by bacteria); novel environments (ex. artificial light, agriculture instead of hunting-gathering); genes (ex. mutations); design compromises (ex. walking upright predisposes man to back problems); evolutionary legacies (ex. food passes through a tube in front of our windpipe). The book contains also a serious warning: New breeds of disease-resistant plants should be treated very cautiously. Why has, until now, the medical profession not taken advantage of the help from evolutionary biology? Opposition to the idea of evolution (ex. by religion) has minimized in general education the impact of Darwin's contribution to the understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. This book is a must read for all those who want to understand who we really are and how and why we live.

Este libro dá una visión muy interesante y con un punto de vista distinto de por qué efermamos. A pesar de estar bien, es difícil de leer, a veces resulta un poco farrogoso, pero es realmente interesante.

This is an interesting and useful book. It should have an Indian print copy to reduce cost so that more people can read the book.

The book is slightly outdated now in terms of its examples and theories, but it's still informative and an interesting read. The book itself was great quality considering that it was second had.