exploring the biological meaning of disease and health
TRANSCRIPT
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