(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

Another rather strange idea from evolutionary psychology: a couple of scientists suggest an evolutionary advantage to depression. That it helps us think analytically, encouraging us to withdraw and obsess when faced with difficult social problems.

My own experience makes it very difficult to accept that it has anything other than a catastrophic effect on thinking. Depressed, I can't focus on anything, I can't remember things, I am unable to make even simple decisions - and I don't care.

Even if the scientists are onto something, the evolutionary advantage would have to be spectacular to balance the immense damage caused by a condition which kills the appetite, the libido, and sometimes the patient. Frankly, if there was such an advantage, I think it'd be blaringly obvious.

I think these guys have got sadness and depression mixed up. Which is rather like confusing a punch in the nose with decapitation.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I thought it was an interesting notion. It doesn't necessarily mean that depression as we know it has an advantage, it may be that depression as we know it represents the mechanism gone badly wrong, but the mechanism itself still has an advantage -- I'm thinking here of something like the way auto-immune diseases represent a valuable mechanism gone haywire.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

What you're suggesting is (a) not what they're claiming and (b) a whole heck of a lot more likely IMHO!