Lecture 1 Flashcards
What are proximate answers?
Traditional health sciences and biology
HOW: mechanisms
What are ultimate answers?
Ecology and Evolution
WHY: origin and function
What is evolutionary medicine?
Theoretical frameworks of ecology and evolution applied to the study of health and disease
What is human ecology
The study of humans as a mammalian species that attempts to achieve its BASIC BIOLOGICAL GOALS while it interacts with its ECOLOGICAL CONTEXT
What are basic biological goals?
survival and reproduction
Why are survival and reproduction basic biological goals
because differences in survival and reproduction lead to evolution
What is evolution
A change in the genetic makeup of a pop between cohorts
How does evolution occur
- natural selection
- genetic drift
- gene flow
Why does natural selection happen
- individuals in a species vary
- some variation linked to genetic differences
- some linked to differences in survival and reproduction
- consequence of differences among individuals in their ability to survive and reproduce in a given ecological context
Why is social darwinism wrong
because natural selection is a process, it isn’t necessarily good or bad, just organisms adapting to their environment, change the environment and organisms that were well adapted for another fail
What kind of traits can NS affect
- only genetically heritable traits
What is heritability
from 0 to 1, 0 representing resemblance between two individuals chosen at random
Can traits associated with health and disease be linked to survival and reproduction… could any of these traits been favoured/disfavoured by natural selection?
of course
yes
does ns lead to perfection
no
What are some limits of NS
- favours reproductive success, not comfort or happiness
- some genes may be associated with both costs and benefits
- we compete with pathogens which have shorter life spans
