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...from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
—Charles Darwin
Fall 2009 Evolution, Diversity and Change
Public Lecture - Darwinian Gastronomy
Paul W. Sherman, Cornell University
When: Thursday, October 29, 2009 @ 4:00 p.m.
Where: Psychology, Room 100
Departmental Sponsor: Cognitive Science Program
Abstract:
Scientific fields often grow most rapidly at their intersections with other fields. Therefore, an exciting development for both medical science and behavioral ecology is the recent emergence of Darwinian medicine, a new interdisciplinary approach to human health and disease. Whereas medical researchers traditionally study how annoying symptoms occur (their underlying mechanisms) and attempt to develop effective ways to eliminate them, from a Darwinian perspective the question is why those symptoms occur and whether they could be adaptations in certain environments. These two approaches are complementary, not mutually exclusive - complete understanding of any biological phenomenon requires both mechanistic (proximate) and functional (ultimate) analyses.
Eating is essential to survival, and therefore pleasurable. However, ingesting food actually is one of the most dangerous things we do every day, since it provides a free pass to the bloodstream for bits and pieces of the outside world and whatever lurks within them, including microorganisms, toxins, and chemical constituents. Darwinian gastronomy is a developing sub-field of Darwinian medicine that takes an evolutionary approach to understanding how variations in food preferences, physiological responses to food, and food preparation techniques serve to protect us from what we eat. The lecture will illustrate the power of this approach for understanding several topics related to preparation and assimilation of food including why we use spices, ferment milk, and cook meats, why lactose intolerance predominates worldwide, and why we have allergies in general and food allergies in particular.
