Randolph M. Nesse, MD
nesse@umich.edu
@RandyNesse
@RandyNesse.bsky.social
See you at ISEMPH2025 July 5-10, Nashville, TN
Fields: Evolutionary medicine and evolutionary psychiatry
Goal: To understand why natural selection left us us vulnerable to disease
New book on evolutionary psychiatry Order a copy
New article on evolutionary psychiatry
Research Professor of Life Sciences, and Founding Director (2014-2019), The Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University; Professor Emeritus, Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan; Founding President, The International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health
What is evolutionary medicine? Darwinian medicine IS Evolutionary medicine.
Core Principles for Evolutionary Medicine, 2019
Why do mental disorders persist? Book chapter, 2022
**Evolutionary psychiatry: foundations, progress and challenges, World Psychiatry, 2023**
How to frame and test evolutionary hypotheses about a disease 2 p. version
Tacit Creationism Evolutionary psychiatry
Diseases do not have direct evolutionary explanations. They are not adaptations shaped by natural selection. However, traits that make a species vulnerable to disease need evolutionary explanations, and several may be needed.
New Resources
Why do anxiety and depression exist? KeepTalking video podcast with Dan Riley, 2024.
Foreward to Cancer through the Lens of Evolution and Ecology, Somarelli & Johnson (Eds.), 2024 (more on cancer here)
Four short-form videos from the Great Minds series produced by the Korean Educational Broadcasting Service in 2023
Evolutionary psychiatry: eating disorders, schizophrenia, OCD, stigma and treatment.
Evolutionary Psychiatry, a video with slides followed by discussion with the UK Darwin Club, 2023.
Why depression exists: Panel discussion on Television Ontario, The Agenda, with Steve Palin, 2023
Evolutionary psychiatry: foundations, progress and challenges, World Psychiatry, 2023
See also the related editorial by Jerry Wakefield.
Why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety, two hours of audio on the 80,000 hours podcast, with Robert Wiblin, 2024. Video version also now available
Why aging exists at all, video of a 1 hour lecture for the Arizona Senior Academy, 2024 (audio comes in at 1:45)
Is anxiety inherited? Happy Habit podcast # 362 with Mathieu Norry, 2023.
The future of evolutionary medicine, keynote for a 90 minute 2023 Frontiers Forum with 6 speakers.
Emotional Disorders, a 2023 audio podcast on "The Thinking Mind" with psychiatrist Alex Curmi.
Can Evolution Explain Human Emotions? 2023 Modern Wisdom Podcast 542 with Chris Williamson
Talks on Evolutionary Medicine at University of Milano-Bicocca, June 2023, talk starts at 15:30
The Saad Truth vIdeo podcast 2023
Why depression exists: Panel discussion on Television Ontario, The Agenda, with Steve Palin, 2023
A six minute YouTube video about the Smoke Detector Principle
Good (Evolutionary) Reasons for Bad Feelings 2022 Nature Nurture Video Podcast
Why do mental disorders persist? Evolving Psychiatry 2022 video podcast (17 min.)
The Evolution of Anxiety Evolving Psychiatry 2022 video podcast (16 min.)
Why Relationships Exist: Evolutionary Foundations for Psychotherapy 2022 video
Tacit creationism in emotion research, ClubEvMed, 2020
Evolutionary Psychiatry, chapter in Tasman's Psychiatry, Nesse and Stein, 2023.
The body is not a machine, an update of a 2016 essay that is even more relevant now.
Is anxiety inherited? Happy Habit podcast # 362 with Mathieu Norry, 2023.
The future of evolutionary medicine, keynote for a 90 minute 2023 Frontiers Forum with 6 speakers.
Emotional Disorders, a 2023 audio podcast on "The Thinking Mind" with psychiatrist Alex Curmi.
Can Evolution Explain Human Emotions? 2023 Modern Wisdom Podcast 542 with Chris Williamson
Talks on Evolutionary Medicine at University of Milano-Bicocca, June 2023 (my talk starts at 15:30)
The Saad Truth vIdeo podcast 2023
A six minute YouTube video about the Smoke Detector Principle
Nature Nurture Video Podcast 2022 on Good (Evolutionary) Reasons for Bad Feelings
Anxiety disorders in evolutionary perspective. 2022 Chapter in Evolutionary Psychiatry
Why do mental disorders persist? Evolving Psychiatry 2022 video podcast (17 min.)
The Evolution of Anxiety Evolving Psychiatry 2022 video podcast (16 min.)
Why Relationships Exist: Evolutionary Foundations for Psychotherapy
Video of a 2022 talk for the World Psychiatry Association
Baba Brinkman's rap video on emotions. And his 2022 rap on control systems and medicine.
Evolutionary Psychiatry A narrated slideshow on HSTalks (not open access)
Nesse (2022) Social Situations Shape Social Emotions that Benefit Genes
Why hasn't natural selection eliminated mental disorders: a talk for The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland
Evolutionary Psychiatry 40 minute 2021 talk for Abertay University (talk starts at 3 minutes).
Evolutionary Medicine Needs Engineering Expertise a 2021 article for NAE Perspectives about control theory & disease.
Why is group selection still such a problem? BBS, 1994 and sadly still relevant.
Why Bad feelings are usually normal but useless. Video of a 12 min talk for HBES 2021.
Podcast on evolutionary psychiatry with Renee Garfinkel for the 2021 Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Twitter threads on evolution and psychiatry
Video of 52 Living Ideas MeetUp discussion about Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, 2021
Video of Grand Rounds, Tufts University Department of Psychiatry, 2021
Podcast Varför mår vi så dåligt? (in English) with the Stockholm psychiatrist/author/podcaster Åsa Nilsonne about evolution and desire.
Psychology Today adaptation of book chapter on psychiatric genetics.
Lecture on Evolutionary Psychiatry for a 2021 class at Oxford University
Article on Tacit Creationism in Emotions Research Video now posted.
Podcast from the Jordan Harbinger show
Podcast by Thoughts on Record about how evolutionary thinking can help psychotherapists
Video from 2020 Grand Rounds at the U Arizona Department of Psychiatry
Buy on Amazon Full Book Information Here
The Economist "Books of the Year"
This book will surely change the face of medicine -- and deservedly so. —Robin Dunbar
This is a wise, accessible, highly readable exploration of an issue that goes to the heart of human existence. —Robert Sapolsky
A bold book that would have made Darwin proud. Cutting-edge and compassionate at the same time —Lee Dugatkin
It is no exaggeration to say that he opens the door to a new paradigm in thinking about human beings and their conflicted lives. —Michael Ruse
A provocative book full of intriguing explanations about human nature in all its strengths and weaknesses. —Carl Zimmer
Someday nearly all psychiatry will be identified as evolutionary psychiatry. If so, Randolph Nesse’s book should be seen as the field’s founding document. — David Barash in The Wall Street Journal
Recent
A list of articles organized by topic
A link to most articles in a web folder
Nesse & Natterson-Horowitz: Evolutionary Medicine, a great way to teach biology, 2019
Nesse, Stein: How evolutionary psychiatry can advance psychopharmacology, 2019
Nesse, Dawkins: Evolutionary Medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2019
Grunspan, et al., Core Concepts of Evolutionary Medicine, 2017
Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric research and practice, 2017
Nesse Anorexia: A Perverse Effect of Trying to Control the Starvation Response BBS 2017
Nesse, Finch, Nunn: Evolution, Sleep, & Alzheimer's Disease, 2017
Thomas, Nesse, et al. Evolutionary Ecology of Organs, Trends in Cancer, 2016
Social selection is a powerful explanation for prosociality. BBS, 2016
Hauser, Nesse, Schwarz: Lay Theories of Health and Illness, 2016
Fried & Nesse: Depression sum scores don't add up. BMC Med 2015
A general ''Theory of Emotion'' is neither necessary nor possible, Emotion Review, 2014
Fried & Nesse: Depression is more than the sum of its parts, Psy Med, 2013
Aktipis & Nesse: Evolutionary foundations for cancer biology, Evolutionary Applications, 2013.
Nesse, et al. Evolutionary Molecular Medicine, J Mol Medicine, 2012
Nesse & Stein: Towards a genuinely medical model for psychiatric nosology, BMC Medicine, 2012
Natural selection is simple, but the systems It shapes are unimaginably complex, EDGE, 2012
Nesse & Jackson: Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric diagnosis, 2011
Ten questions for evolutionary studies of disease vulnerability, Evol Apps, 2011
Evolutionary perspectives in health and medicine, PNAS, 2010
Highly Cited
Click here for a list of articles by topic
Here is a link to most articles in a web folder
Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, 1995.
Nesse, Dawkins: Evolutionary Medicine chapter in Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 2019
Natural selection and the regulation of defensive responses-Smoke Detector Principle 2005.
What good is feeling bad? The evolutionary utility of psychic pain, 1991.
Evolutionary foundations for psychiatric research and practice, 2018
Why has natural selection left us so vulnerable to anxiety and mood disorders?, 2011
Time for truly biological psychiatry, Brit. J. Psychiatry, 2009
Explaining depression: Neuroscience is not enough, evolution is essential, 2009
Evolution, emotions and emotional disorders, American Psychologist, 2009
Runaway social selection for displays of partner value and altruism, Biological Theory, 2007
