Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases

Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by Dylan16807 on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @09:19AM (#11381203)

Sometimes you can infer from evolution that a trait is useful. But only if the trait:

1. Is in a stable part of the genetic code, giving opportunity for bad traits to be weeded out.

2. Is not correlated with a different useful trait that overshadows its goodness/badness.

3. Shows up early enough to affect reproduction.

Human intelligence is quite recent, so prerequisite #1 is not met. We have no idea if prerequisite #2 is met, and prerequisite #3 is met.

So natural selection can't tell us if depression is/was useful. The kinks of human intelligence are not yet worked out.

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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by tim333 on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @09:38AM (#11381330)

#1 Dogs can get depressed so it doesn't need human intelligence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness)

#2 Depression has a major effect, I doubt it's overshadowed

#3 You get depressed teenagers

So I'd think 1,2 and 3 are met.

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Re:Anxiety and Depression Are Symptoms, Not Diseases by lomnakkus on Tuesday March 29, 2016 @01:11PM (#11382980)

Re #1: There's absolutely no way to know if dogs experience "depression" in the same way humans do -- even assuming the outwardly symptoms are similar.

Re #2: Your doubt does not constitute evidence in any reasonable sense.

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