Introduction

There is increasing interest in examining aspects of health and disease in the context of evolutionary theory,1-3 and the past decade has witnessed the rise of evolutionary or Darwinian medicine as an entity distinct from anthropology, evolutionary biology, or evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, evolutionary concepts are often viewed as being tangential to medical teaching and practise, which tend to emphasise technical and proximate factors together with the treatment of the individual. Williams and Nesse4 recognised early on that it would not be easy to persuade clinicians of the relevance of evolutionary medicine, regardless of the benets brought by the approach. To this end, one major aim of this volume is that contributors should, where possible, indicate how their research and scholarship informs practical applications in clinical settings, health promotion, or medical education.