In a recent blog post (http://evmed.asu.edu/blog/evolutionary-medicine-top-ten-questions), Randy Nesse suggests that the presentations and discussions at the second annual conference of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (ISEMPH) were
“… instigated 25 years ago as George Williams and I discussed and grappled with how evolution could be useful for medicine, and what to call the enterprise.”
In her chapter (Bentley, 2016) introducing the just published book, “Evolutionary Thinking in Medicine: from Research to Policy and Practice,” the author acknowledges activity that can be considered evolutionary medicine in the years prior to 1991 but confines it to before roughly 1940. Following the end of World War II, Professor Bentley finds little to no evidence of significant work in the field until the 1990s. Unfortunately, these claims disregard substantial numbers of evolution-related studies that either influenced fundamental understanding of human health and disease or affected medical practice. (more…)