STEPHEN FRY

Interesting point, thanks for bringing out this debate, Alan...

I think mental disorders (well, let´s say most, don´t want to be extreme) may be a consecuence of evolution indeed. I think living nowadays exposes us to stress, noise, situatons and achievements and such high levels of pressure in so many ways that we are forgetting we "were born" (houndred of thousands years ago) to be animals, and I think the world has evolved too fast and we have to reach so many achievements to be "successful" people today, that we are overburdening our brains. I don´t know if there would be any study, but I´m pretty sure that not a single person from the most remote tribe of the most remote part of Africa, for example, is bipolar or schizophrenic, etc... And I think is also the same with virus and cancer, and so on...We are exposing our bodies to substances we have created and our bodies are not still ready to process. I´m not informed about diseases that killed people 100.000 years ago, but I´m pretty sure Aids, or cancer or Altheimer or schizophrenia were none of them.
And bipolarity, ok, seems to be 50%genetic, but I´m strong believer that is also our brain reacting like a pressure cooker cause can´t deal with all the exhausting effort we have to face every day to be on top of today´s life (and social) expectations.
So yes, for me, bipolar and other mental disorders I think are, unfortunately, unavoidable parts of human evolution...in my modest opinion.
I´m no sure this was the point of your debate, anyway...

I'm afraid I disagree with the fundamental premises of the question itself: specifically the phrases: "has to go through" and "evolution is leading us".

I may be wrong, but there seems to be an implication here of a "Guiding Hand" or even a "Cosmic Master Plan", which I cannot subscribe to.

The wandering path of evolution is driven by genetic mutation. For example, white-skinned people are descended from a single mutation which affected the pigmentation of the skin of one of our African ancestors. That gene survived and multiplied.

If the "Bipolar gene" proves to be conducive to survival, then it too will multiply, and become part of evolution. However, if bipolarity causes a propensity to die childless (eg. by committing suicide at a young age, before they have children) then it will not be part of the evolution of the species.

Taking seasun545's 50% figure, there remains a significant, non-genetic influence which will depend on societal evolution: will society ever become warm and fuzzy and peaceful, with goodwill to all wo/men, and devoid of all worry and pressure? I think perhaps not!

I seem to remember something about each bloke choosing their second most attractive girl in the group - in this way they all win, rather than all of them chasing the one beautiful girl, and all losing.


I'm not sure that deserved a Nobel Prize but I can see that it might help the species of mankind with regard to beautiful progeny X-D

... I don't understand exactly what his sums did to the big picture, they didn't give John Nash the Nobel Prize for nothing did they?

I believe it was Game Theory / Prisoner's Dilemma.

I seem to remember something about each bloke choosing their second most attractive girl in the group - in this way they all win, rather than all of them chasing the one beautiful girl, and all losing.

It was, but I'm sure that Nash said that they got portrayed his theory [the Nash equilibrium] incorrectly. By the way, Ron Howard's film is a schmaltzy, semi-fictitious version of Nash's life; Sylvia Nasar's book is far more compelling and far more accurate.

Cancer is called a disease of civilization. Back when we were all hunter-gatherers, chronic illnesses like cancer and heart disease were very, very rare (though not nonexistent). This can be contributed to prehistoric peoples' diet + general environment, or because they did not live long enough for these illnesses to manifest, or both. Lots of risk in those days that we don't think about as much. Women and children would often die in childbirth, men would die in hunting accidents, and so forth. Physical injuries accounted for a lot of the deaths. But surprisingly, the people were generally very healthy in life. Lots of exercise, fresh food, and low population densities (lots of our contagious diseases thrive on the high pop. densities of today's world). Not to mention none of the pollution problems of today. They even had pretty good teeth in terms of decay.

The connection with disease and civilization is the development of agriculture and the sedentary, non-migratorial lifestyle that comes with it. Agriculture = less variety in food and nutrition, early sedentariness = not so much less work than before (cause farming is hard work, even if it is a different type of work than our ancestors would do), but because it is harder to escape disease when you're stuck in one place tending your crops. Our current state of sedentariness, however...we're all lazy bums. That, coupled with modern diet, equals lots of diseases that our bodies are still struggling to adapt to. We're stone-age people living in the space age.

But yes, even so, cancer has been with humans for quite a while. At least through our eyes... The handful of millennia that civilization's been around doesn't amount to much time when compared to the whole of human existence.

^based on what I've heard in Anthropology class and lots of independent reading, anyway


As for mental illness, don't have a clue about that. But according to what my history professor was saying the other day, today's concept of mental disorder is fairly recent. Even very early in the written records we have evidence of mental illness, but it used to be contributed to magic or bile imbalance or whatnot. Probably was similar for prehistoric people -- for instance, "trephinning" is when a hole was drilled into the skull to release bad spirits, which were perhaps mental disorders. Trephinning is one of the oldest surgeries humans are known to have performed. (And people actually survived it – interestingly enough.)

I'd imagine that mental "illness" has been around for a very, very long time. Environment (pollution vs. no pollution, etc.) obviously would have a great effect on which of those disorders have always existed and in what form. But just as importantly, a person’s society plays an extremely large role in its presentation and acceptance/rejection.

Actually on this note, since people with these disorders used to be viewed as prophets and seers and such, what if madness has actually been nurtured throughout human evolution as a way for the people to connect to the gods/spirit world/whatever? It would be great to see how frequently mental illness occurs in other species... I'm having trouble finding research on it though.

I always thought it was called "trepanning". I didn't know there was an alternative term.

Yes me neither.

Methinks a typo in Britannicus' otherwise excellent post?

Back to the topic [kind of]

Firstly would you think of epilepsy as a mental illness?

Well neurological anyway - are the two in any way connected?

In ancient times it was believed by the Greeks that the gods [usually Apollo one of whose attributes was of a god of healing] had cursed someone with visions of demons. It was known as the sacred disease.

In Latin it sometimes was called Morbus Comitialis, meaning that if a public magistrate suffered a seizure in public, the assembly would have to be suspended because this was a bad omen and the gods were displeased.

So there we have a common condition actually affecting the conduct of government.

Epilepsy was associated with the moon goddess [latin Luna] hence our modern term lunacy, lunatic etc.

I always thought it was called "trepanning". I didn't know there was an alternative term.

According to lovely Google, trepanon was one of the names used to refer to the skull-boring tool of Hippocrates's time. That's where we get trepanning -- it refers to the Greek word trupanon, meaning "a borer". Trephinning comes from later on when, in the sixteenth century, some guy invented a new tool for the job. It had a triangular shape. He called it "tres fines", or three points. And then some other guy created another type of tool, which he also called "tres fines". So from there, the word "trephinning" was eventually developed. The two terms can be used as synonyms.

Though now that I see their original meanings, "trepanning" makes more sense than "trephinning" does as a general term.

Yeah...off-topic...sorry.