livescience.com — Natural selection wants us to be crazy — at least a little bit. While true debilitating insanity is not nature's intention, many mental health issues may be byproducts of the over-functional human brain, some researchers claim. And thus, a diversity of new mental abilities, and disabilities, unfurled.
Aug 26, 2008 View in Crawl 4
triumph6Aug 26, 2008
Not very informative and its explanations seem forced. For example: we have bipolar disorder in our population because people with the condition tend to have more sex? This may factor into the afflicted's short term ability to propagate but does not necessarily provide them with any long term benefits. Thus, they would be less likely to survive as long or as well as a more able individual which would be able to continue to produce offspring. I realize that the reproductive years are early and they may be able to reproduce a significance amount even with this condition, but I still fail to see how this EXPLAINS its existence and prevalence.And this:"Similarly, in its MILDEST form, bipolar disorder can increase productivity and creativity." I just feel like it's reaching and not good science.And: "Certain types of depression, however, Geary continued, may be advantageous. The lethargy and disrupted mental state can help us disengage from unattainable goals - " This just seems as though they are trying to GIVE reason to something that may be better explained with a more critical analysis of the disorder.The rest of the article continues in this manner. I was expecting more.
gonegreenAug 26, 2008
Well, this explains a lot....
Closed AccountAug 26, 2008
Speak to me
greatn3ssAug 26, 2008
"I went mad for a while, did me no end of good" ~ Ford Prefect
esentrikAug 26, 2008
This comment from the article page was really good:"He said that "nobody is ever completely normal". I thought that this was because various personality traits are relatively independent so indeed the likelihood of being normal on all counts is low. This article shows we were both barking up the wrong tree: we were equating "normal" with "sane". "Normal" is a statistical concept, "sane" is a subjective one. They're by no means coincident. Probably many people are "normal" but that doesn't mean good news for them."
sockpuppetsAug 26, 2008
I like turtles.
sirfragsmoreAug 26, 2008
What about pie?
zackscottAug 26, 2008
Perhaps nature is a cruel phantom, slowly changing the human race into a series of bad soap operas. Now play those operas in your head over and over, and you'll see where I am going with this. Add any number of mental diseases...ANY of them, and now you have who to thank? Nature, of course. It's always been that way, and it always will be. It is no surprise that the world and galaxy is trying to pull one of these wools over us. For the time being, I'm glad I was one of the lucky - a majority really - born sane. For now it is the majority, but in nature's future, it will be the minority once people riddle the streets like zombies because they have no brains. Thanks nature. Thanks for the water, the trees, the flowers, the bees, and now this.