Evolutionary Studies Quotes

“All biological and artificial mechanisms -no matter how well designed- are vulnerable to malfunctions, failures, and breakdowns. Even if developmental processes are canalized against perturbations, they can deviate from their target phenotype as random events and disturbances accumulate over time.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“Mutation load has been proposed as a likely explanation for the persistence of common, heritable, and harmfulmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“The evolved preference for sugary and fatty foods (a functional mechanism) may lead to obesity because of a mismatch with modern nutrition (a maladaptive outcome), which in turn increases the risk of heart failure (a harmful dysfunction).”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach

“As a rule, sexually selected traits tend to be more condition-dependent --and thus more vulnerable to dysfunctions-- than other phenotypes. This contributes to explain why males are generally more vulnerable to both harmful mutations and environmental insults.”
― Marco del Giudice, Evolutionary Psychopathology: A Unified Approach