The Evolved Self-Management System

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Humphrey has held posts at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and is now School Professor Emeritus at the LSE. He is a theoretical psychologist, internationally known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. His most recent book is SOUL DUST.> >

NICHOLAS HUMPHREY: I was asked to write an essay recently for "Current Biology" on the evolution of human health. It's not really my subject, I

should say, but it certainly got me thinking. One of the more provocative thoughts I had is about the role of medicine. If human health has changed for the better in the late stages of evolution, this has surely had a lot to do with the possibility of consulting doctors, and the use of drugs. But the surprising thing is that, until less than 100 years ago, there was hardly anything a doctor could do that would be

effective in any physiological medicinal way—and still the doctor's ministrations often "worked". That's to say, under the influence of what

we would today call placebo medicine people came to feel less pain, to experience less fever, their inflammations receded, and so on.> >

Now, when people are cured by placebo medicine, they are in reality curing themselves. But why should this have become an available option late in human evolution, when it wasn't in the past.... [more]> > Conversation Page Permalink: http://edge.org/conversation/the-evolved-self-management-system