Evolutionary Approaches to Health Issues and Behaviors Across the Life Course

Health-related research is broad, diverse, and fragmented theoretically, methodologically, and across disciplines. The understanding and improvement of human health would be accelerated by establishing a universal and deep framework integrating varied undertakings. This framework is evolutionary theory, the most powerful explanatory system in the life sciences and the only framework that can unify knowledge in otherwise disparate fields of human research. Darwinian medicine has already made considerable progress in the practical understanding of human physiology and other areas informing medical care. Within evolutionary theory, life history theory in particular holds the promise of promoting understanding of variation in behavioral patterns related to health and why they vary consistent with environmental conditions. This chapter describes the current state of research exemplifying an evolutionary approach to health-related psychology and behavior and outlines directions for future research and intervention efforts.

The Role of Evolutionary Studies in Education for Sustainable Development

Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) examines the emergence and persistence of complex adaptive systems, including human social-ecological systems. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to empower students with the skills to develop and sustain human social-ecological systems that reflect the shared values of our species. The aims of EvoS and ESD have clear overlaps, and yet these two fields remain as distant islands of thought with few academic bridges between them. This chapter explores the connections between EvoS and ESD from historical, theoretical, and applied perspectives and presents the value of an integrated approach. The authors argue the strengths of this approach include its cumulative evidence base from wide-ranging disciplines, its explanatory power, and its overall simplicity.

Integrating Evolutionary Thinking into Medical Education and Curricula

Evolutionary medicine takes a functional and contextual approach to understanding health and disease. The approach is applicable to all health disciplines and can be used to better understand a wide range of medical concerns. This chapter’s goal is to outline possible areas of medicine in which evolutionary and ecological logic and principles can make important contributions and to then discuss how one may begin to train the next generation of scholars and clinicians to generate and apply new knowledge. Such an approach has the potential to be genuinely transformative, but an impediment to success is a the field of medicine’s proximate explanatory orientation for thinking about health and disease, training clinicians and researchers, and conducting research. The authors propose a change model and utilization of a Tinbergen-esque approach to revolutionize biomedical research.

From Genetic Evolution to Engineering Optimization

This chapter focuses on one of the main members of the evolutionary algorithms class called genetic algorithms (GAs). GAs mimic the process of sexual reproduction and survival of the fittest in nature. The process begins by coding the design parameters into a chromosome-like structure to form an individual member. Next, a prespecified number of individual members are generated with different genetic contents to form a population. For each member of the population, a measure of its fitness or success is calculated. The members “most fit” in the population are then allowed to mate and reproduce, to have children. The children create a new and better generation of population, and the process repeats until an optimum solution or solutions are produced. This chapter illustrates how GAs are used to solve the following two problems: electronic circuit design problem and music composition.

Evolution, Religion, and Other Meaning Systems

Religions puzzle the scientific imagination for two reasons: First, why do people believe in the existence of supernatural agents, despite the absence of empirical evidence? Second, why do religious beliefs cause people to behave in ways that seem so costly, such as the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son to his God? Evolutionists who study religion are faced with the same puzzle, but they have made more progress than traditional religious scholars because evolutionary theory is designed to answer questions about the presence and absence of functional organization. The most important insight to emerge from evolutionary theory, however, is that the study of religions must be nested within the more general study of meaning systems, defined as sets of beliefs and practices that receive environmental information as input and result in action as output. Almost everything that holds for religions (including adaptive fictions) also holds for other meaning systems.

The New Human Science

All prior attempts to understand human origins, behavior, and history have led to paradoxes and dilemmas, highly resistant to resolution. This chapter reviews specific cases of failures to resolve these apparent paradoxes and dilemmas in human evolution and the social sciences. The authors argue that these failures are rooted in confusing proximate with ultimate causation. They further argue that a sound theory of human origins, behavior, and history (social coercion theory) can help to understand the human condition scientifically; specifically, this theory argues that all the unique properties of humans emerge from the unprecedented human social evolution, driven, in turn by the evolution of cost-effective coercive management of conflicts of interest. Finally, the authors argue that social coercion theory yields the first general theory of history, economics, and politics, which provides an approach to problems within the social sciences while armed with a grasp of ultimate causation. Consequently, formerly intractable scientific questions and social concerns become manageable and solvable.

Evolutionary Studies in Higher Education

The field of Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) stands at a significant junction. On one hand, the field has demonstrated the ability to serve as a model for a truly interdisciplinary approach to higher education. That said, evolutionary approaches outside certain areas of biology proper have been often met with skepticism and academic mistrust. In 3 discrete sections, this chapter seeks to demonstrate that EvoS provides a powerful academic framework that effectively integrates many academic areas and enhances educational outcomes in these areas. Further, the chapter seeks to demonstrate the broad reach of EvoS in terms of student success, partly by summarizing outcomes of a recent National Science Foundation grant. The final section addresses controversies in the field of EvoS. This section seeks to show how developing a sophisticated understanding of the different facets of these issues may serve a conciliatory and progressive role in the future.

The Evolutionary Studies Program

The Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Seminar Series at New Paltz is accompanied by an exciting, interdisciplinary class (Evolutionary Studies 301 [Evolutionary Studies Seminar or Evolutionary Studies Capstone]). This class surrounds New Paltz’s award-winning EvoS Seminar Series, which includes speakers from a variety of intellectual backgrounds—all with a focus on the applications of evolutionary principles. In the delivery of the course, graduate student teaching assistants help guide undergraduate students along their intellectual journey. This chapter tells the story of EvoS at New Paltz from the perspective of these evolutionary docents. Recent graduates and teaching assistants provide a unique perspective on the program. The 2016 series is highlighted.

Building an Evolutionary Studies Program at a Small Liberal Arts College

Since the very nature of an Evolutionary Studies program is interdisciplinary, it stands to reason that building such a program at any institution would entail the involvement of several disciplines across the curriculum. The fewer faculty members, course offerings, and resources at small liberal arts colleges can pose as obstacles in the development of such a program. However, by reaching out to the few faculty members teaching evolutionary studies, the first step of its development began. From there, both the involvement of other disciplines and a heightened student, faculty, and administrative awareness was needed. Instrumental components in building this program have included speaker events, student participation at evolutionary conferences and workshops, student involvement in research, and the development of new courses and a minor degree. This chapter discusses the successes and barriers in developing an interdisciplinary Evolutionary Studies program at a small liberal arts college.

Our Evolutionary Underpinnings

Evolution is a topic that continues to spark political, social, and educational debates around the United States. Despite widespread agreement among scientists as to the legitimacy and value of research and understanding of evolution, the public forum is still characterized by contention, mistrust, and misinformation. In the 150 years post-Darwin, and now more than 90 years after the Scopes trial, it appears that little progress has been made in ensuring all students come into college with an acceptable understanding of evolution, evolutionary mechanisms, and evolutionary theory. This chapter demonstrates where we have been and looks to the future to ensure that all students understand evolution and, by virtue of such, how scientific knowledge comes to. The authors discuss a possible pathway to that end, with the focus being not on beliefs but on understandings and the importance of accessible, accurate science education for all.