The Importance of Evolution
In My Research of Infectious Diseases
|
Simultaneously to recognizing the mechanisms of life, it was recognized that humans like all life were distinctly different from other matter. Life was active, self regulating and out of equilibrium with its environment. Life was very different from inanimate matter although built from the same fundamental material. Darwin captured the fundamental property of life in the concept of evolution through natural selection. How Darwin’s concept applies to medicine remains incompletely understood even today. Much of my research in medicine about infectious diseases aims to extend Darwinian thinking to medicine, in particular as it relates to microbes, how they cause disease and how the body responds to microbial invasion.
Studying microbes led me to an understanding of the natural origins of life on earth. Studying the human body’s response to infection led me to understanding the immune system and how to develop vaccines. Studying the spread of infections in communities of people lead me to understanding epidemics and how to manage and prevent them. My research used Darwinian thinking to explore these problems. My understanding of medicine differs from that of many other physicians. I take a broad, integrative point of view and share the same perspective as the Roman playwright Terrence, who noted: “Nothing that is human is alien to me”. I see medicine as being at the crossroads of the humanities and sciences, all of which are integral to learning about and practicing medicine. I believe that the future of medicine lies with a deeper integration of the humanities with evolutionary biology, and that medicine will increasingly become part of all of our lives both as individuals and in communities. Medicine will be part of a set of institutions that will shape an emerging humanistic civilization. Click here to view a video outlining how I conceive evolutionary medicine and its applications to infectious disease research. |
Emergence of
|
Emergence of
|
The Tree of Life
|
Click on images to expand
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species
Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species