Evolutionary psychiatry and the schizophrenia paradox: A critique
Biology and Philosophy 22 (4):513-528 (2007)
Abstract
Evolutionary psychiatrists invariably consider schizophrenia to be a paradox: how come natural selection has not yet eliminated the infamous ‘genes for schizophrenia’ if the disorder simply crushes the reproductive success of its carriers, if it has been around for thousands of years already, and if it has a uniform prevalence throughout the world? Usually, the answer is that the schizophrenic genotype is subject to some kind of balancing selection: the benefits it confers would then outbalance the obvious damage it does. In this paper, however, I will show that the assumptions underlying such evolutionary accounts of schizophrenia are at least implausible, and sometimes even erroneous. First of all, I will examine some factual assumptions, in particular about schizophrenia’s impact on reproductive success, its genetics, its history, and its epidemiology. Secondly, I will take a critical look at a major philosophical assumption in evolutionary psychiatric explanations of schizophrenia. Indeed, evolutionary psychiatrists take it for granted that schizophrenia is a natural kind, i.e. a bounded and objectively real entity with discrete biological causes. My refutation of this natural kind view suggests that schizophrenia is in fact a reified umbrella concept, covering a heterogeneous group of disorders. Therefore, schizophrenia, as we now know it, simply doesn’t have an evolutionary historyAuthor's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s10539-006-9042-x
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Citations of this work
Why mental disorders are just mental dysfunctions (and nothing more): Some Darwinian arguments.Andreas De Block - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (3):338-346.
Paving the Way for an Evolutionary Social Constructivism.Andreas De Block & Bart Du Laing - 2007 - Biological Theory 2 (4):337-348.
Why mental disorders are just mental dysfunctions : some Darwinian arguments.Andreas De Block - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 39 (3):338-346.
References found in this work
Resolving the paradox of common, harmful, heritable mental disorders: Which evolutionary genetic models work best?Matthew C. Keller & Geoffrey Miller - 2006 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (4):385-404.
An evolutionary theory of schizophrenia: Cortical connectivity, metarepresentation, and the social brain.Jonathan Kenneth Burns - 2004 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27 (6):831-855.
Psychiatric Categories as Natural Kinds: Essentialist Thinking about Mental Disorder.Nick Haslam - 2000 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 67:1031-1058.
Schizophrenia in an Evolutionary Perspective.John S. Allen & Vincent M. Sarich - 1988 - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 32 (1):132-153.
Toward the Obsolescence of the Schizophrenia Hypothesis.Theodore Sarbin - 1990 - Journal of Mind and Behavior 11 (3-4):259-284.