Evolutionary perspectives on health and medicine

volution and medicine started an immature romance in the late 19th century that broke up amid violent recriminations in the early 20th century.Thereafter, the relationship remained distant until the partners were reintroduced on a more mature basis by Nesse and Williams' book, Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (1).(See ref. 2 for a detailed history.)That book stimulated a symposium in Switzerland in 1996, out of which came a book edited by Stearns (3) that, together with another edited by Trevathan et al. ( 4), raised interest, connected to the existing body of basic research, and provided materials for the courses that were starting to be offered.Momentum was further built by several review papers (5, 6), second editions of the two edited books (7, 8), an editorial in Science (9), a new textbook (10), and many symposia (Berlin, Rotterdam, York, Copenhagen, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, San Diego, Tucson, and New Haven, among others).Of those symposia, the one held at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in 2007 was particularly significant, for it raised medical issues on the home ground of evolutionary biology and brought together the organizers of this Sackler Colloquium.This PNAS Supplement marks a significant milestone in the maturation of the field.The range of topics has been expanded, the connections to basic research have been strengthened, the medical community has been more strongly represented, at a higher level, than it had been previously, and the issue of how best to educate future physicians in evolutionary thinking has been developed significantly.