Exploring The Biological Meaning Of Exploring The Biological Meaning Of Disease And HealthDisease And Health

For a full transcript of the presentation,for which these slides were an accompaniment,

please visit:

https://sites.google.com/site/sjlewis55/presentations/vienna2003

Exploringthe Biological Meaning

ofDisease and Health

Stephen Lewis

‘In the last quarter of the 20th Century we have been witnessing an intense discussion on the nature of health … and disease and on the meaning of these … basic notions of medicine.’

Sadegh-Zadeh, K. (2000)

Exploringthe Biological Meaning

ofDisease and Health

Evolutionary Medicine is “the enterprise of trying to find evolutionary explanations for vulnerabilities to disease”

(Nesse)

What is Evolutionary Medicine trying to find evolutionary explanations for vulnerabilities to?

‘In the last quarter of the 20th Century we have been witnessing an intense discussion on the nature of health … and disease and on the meaning of these … basic notions of medicine.’

Sadegh-Zadeh, K. (2000)

‘In the last quarter of the 20th Century we have been witnessing an intense discussion on the nature of health … and disease and on the meaning of these … basic notions of medicine. The discussion seems to have ended up a blind alley, however.’

Sadegh-Zadeh, K. (2000)

Health and Disease as a continuum

Disease Health

‘Pathology’

‘Experience’

(+, +)(-, +)

(+, -)(-, -)

+ : Presence, - : Absence

Baconian (or Inductive)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Galilean (or Critical)

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Aristotelian (or Demonstrative)

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Kantian (or Deductive)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Kantian (or Deductive)

Experimentation

• Based on the idea:

Let’s see what happens if we take a different view• Consists of:

Experiments in which we examine the consequences of varying [our] axioms or presuppositions

Evolution is fundamental to understanding Biology

therefore

Evolutionary Biology is a basic science for Medicine

Biology is the basic science for Medicine

Shanidar 1

Paracelsus (1493-1541)

van Helmont (1579-1644)

Hippocrates (c460-380 BC)

Linnaeus (Carl von Linné (1707-1778))Systema Naturae (System of Nature) – 1735Genera Morborum (Types of Diseases) - 1763

Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689)

William Cullen (1710-1790)

Philippe Pinel (1745-1826)

J.L. Schoenlein (1793-1864)

Boissier de Sauvages (1706-1767)

François Xavier Bichat (1771-1802)

Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771)

John Brown (1735-1788)

William Cullen (1710-1790)

Claude Bernard (1813-1878)

Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902)

François-Joseph-Victor Broussais (1772-1838)

Robert Koch (1843-1910)

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

Max Delbrück (1906-1981)

Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

Leçons sur les Phénomènes de la Vie Communs aux Animaux et aux Végètaux

(Claude Bernard – 1878)

5 general characteristics of living beings

• Organization• Generation• Nutrition• Development• Susceptibility to disease and death

A Philosophy of Life

• Evolution

• Existence

Evolutionary medicine is

‘[the pursuit of] how evolutionary theory can sharpen the efficacy of medical practice’.

Fabrega, H. (1997)

By exploring the biological meaning of disease and health,

By exploring the biological meaning of disease and health, within an evolutionary context

By exploring the biological meaning of disease and health, within an evolutionary context and as part of human existence,

By exploring the biological meaning of disease and health, within an evolutionary context and as part of human existence, we may be able to develop a philosophy of ‘life’.

Exploring The Biological Meaning Of Exploring The Biological Meaning Of Disease And HealthDisease And Health

For a full transcript of the presentation,for which these slides were an accompaniment,

please visit:

https://sites.google.com/site/sjlewis55/presentations/vienna2003