Question

we covered quite a bit regarding health, illness, culture, and how these variables are viewed with an anthropological lens.

Based on what you have learned, how does medical anthropology/Darwinian medicine differ from the modern, western perspective of health and illness? What can the western models, ones of which we all have experienced, improve by using this anthropological framework?

Answer 1

Darwanian medicine focusses on the concept of why evolution has shaped the mechanism in ways that may leave us susceptible to disease. Modern medicines focusses on the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying the disease. The Darwanian medicine allows us to see the body as a product of natural selection, full of trade-offs and vulnerabilities that all too often lead to disease. It can fundamentally change how we think about the body and disease. Thus it hepls modern medicine.