Evo-Devo Utility for Clinical Work

Evo-Devo: Utility for Clinical Work

"I'm much too young to feel this damn old..." Garth Brooks

1) About Heterochrony: a change in the onset and duration of one developmental system in relation to others. Formerly considered to be the chief factor in evolution but lately downplayed (Raff,1996). Example: sexual maturation vs.. physical (gorillas vs. human size); human intelligence vs. chimp. Speculation: may eventually apply to personality disorders: whatever is first established dominates whatever comes second. Might also be domain specific: genius in one particular domain, immaturity in another. Could apply to mania and depression as enduring conditions, more problematic in relation to bipolar illness.

2) Parents can be seen as exploratory systems: every child is different, so is every setting. Parents organize settings in accord with children's cries and laughter. Children and adults are also exploratory systems that match organism and niche in a bi-directional manner.

3) Behavior patterns are shared to a surprising extent by humans, birds, and lizards. Mating roosters, for example, show a Coolidge Effect. We also find comparable prosody and color in songs by Brooks and Dunn, talk radio hosts (e.g. Curtis and Kubie, 770 WABC, NY), and starlings (de Waal, 2001). Traditional Darwinism (and EP) attribute these similarities to convergence: similar environmental pressures produced similar outcomes. Example: dolphins and tuna started in different places but converged in structure because of living in water. Makes sense! Evo-devo finds, however, similar genetic organizations (Hox genetic assemblies) in vertebrates, arthropods, worms, flies, and spiders. Homology gains explanatory power, convergence loses.

4) We can, thus, look with less trepidation to other species to inform us about our own foundations. We can have more confidence that rattus and mus and our avian friends can inform us about our nature; conversely, our human intuitions may be useful indicators for what is occurring in our pets and research animals. Other species besides our dogs and cats may be able to read our minds and often share our emotions. Even salamanders "count" to the same degree as human infants. Could a lizard tell that McGuire had higher serotonin levels than his research associate? (Buss, 1999).

5) The EEA: we carried into the Pleistocene all of the baggage that we carried out of it. Brief cases and knapsacks, however, grew into steamer trunks!

6) We are less surprised by announcements that hippos are the closest relative to whales. After all, there appears to be one foundation that collects many tools across the ages and it should be a simpler matter to swap them around (See note).

Notes & Refs:

Buss, D. (1999) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. NY: Doubleday.
de Waal, F. (2001) The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reflections of a Primatologist. NY: Basic Books. Birds sort Monet from Picasso, a starling gave Mozart a tune, and chimps do meaningful art. Great stuff!
"Evolvability": we retain bacterial cellular components that may go back 2 billion years or more. Serotonin may go back 3 billion! Old components must integrate with new toys acquired in the last dozen or even 540 million years. See Kirschner, M and Gerhart, J (1998) Perspective: Evolvability. Proceedings National Academy of Science, 95(15), 8420-8427, Gerhart, John and Kirschner, Marc (1997) Cells, Embryos, and Evolution. Malden, MA: Blackwell, and Gould, S. (2002) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap.

Copyright 2002, James Brody, all rights reserved.

Replies:

There are no replies to this message.

| Behavior OnLine Home Page | Disclaimer |

Copyright © 1996-2004 Behavior OnLine, Inc. All rights reserved.