“Therapists have long known that many depressions go away only after a person finally gives up some long-sought goal and turns his or her energies in another direction.” — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“[Mood allocates] investments of time, effort, resources, and risk taking to maximize Darwinian fitness in situations of varying propitiousness. High and low moods adjust… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“The current danger for most of us is not the deprivation suffered by our ancestors but an excess of nutrition.” — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“The current danger for most of us is not the deprivation suffered bu our ancestors but an excess of nutrition.” — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can't prove. — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“People are not controlled by some internal calculator that crudely motivates them to maximize their reproductive success. Instead, people form deep, lifelong emotional attachments and experience loves and hates that shape their lives. They have religious beliefs that guide their behavior, and they have idiosyncratic goals and ambitions. They have networks of friends and relatives.” — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share
“Darwinism gives no moral guidelines about how we should live or how doctors should practice medicine. A Darwinian perspective on medicine can, however, help… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“Therapists have long known that many depressions go away only after a person finally gives up some long-sought goal and turns his or her… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“Paradoxically, it now is much easier to treat many mental disorders than it is to understand them.” — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“Long before there were effective treatments, physicians dispensed prognoses, hope, and, above all, meaning. When something terrible happens-and serious disease is always terrible-people want to know why. In a pantheistic world, the explanation was simple-one god had caused the problem, another could cure it. In the time since people have been trying to get along with only one God, explaining… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share
“Thanks to subsequent years of conversations with evolutionists, especially Williams, and with medical school residents and faculty, he has found that an evolutionary perspective… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share Image
“Emotional capacities are shaped by situations that occurred repeatedly in the course of evolution and that were important to fitness. Attacks by predators, threats of exclusion from the group, and opportunities for mating were frequent and important enough to have shaped special patterns of preparedness, such as panic, social fear, and sexual arousal. Situations that are best avoided shape aversive… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share
“Every textbook description of a disease should have, in our opinion, a section devoted to its evolutionary aspects. This section should address the following questions: 1. Which aspects of the syndrome are direct manifestations of the disease, and which are actually defenses? 2. If the disease has a genetic component, why do the responsible genes persist? 3. Do novel environmental… — Randolph M. Nesse Copy Share
![“[Mood allocates] investments of time, effort, resources, and risk taking to maximize Darwinian fitness in situations of varying propitiousness. High and low moods adjust cognition and behavior to cope with propitious and unpropitious situations.” quote by Randolph M. Nesse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/6d0/randolph-m-nesse-24802_behavior_mood-allocates-investments-of-time-effor_87538.jpg)
