Gadagkar, R More Fun Than Fun: When Natural Selection Makes Us Less Fit. UNSPECIFIED.
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Gadagkar - 2022 - More Fun Than Fun - When Natural Selection Makes Us Less Fit.pdf - Published Version Download (469kB) | Preview |
Abstract
‘Survival of the fittest’ willy-nilly implies a perfect body that is incompatible with a body with “a thousand flaws and frailties that make it vulnerable to disease”. Indeed, ‘survival of the fittest’ – a phrase originally used by Herbert Spencer and later somewhat uncritically adopted by Darwin – is rather misleading. We now understand that natural selection maximises the ability of organisms to leave behind copies of their genes in the bodies of future generations. Our bodies are both “extraordinarily precise and unbelievably slipshod”, yet this is what we should expect as products of evolution by natural selection. An emerging discipline, evolutionary medicine, provides several explanations to this and shows how to use their wisdom in preventing and treating disease.
| Item Type: | Other |
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| Additional Information: | The copyright of the article belongs to the Author(s). |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Oct 2022 08:54 |
| Last Modified: | 28 Oct 2022 08:54 |
| URI: | https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/77747 |
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