Raisson's Theory Vs Evolution Theory

Depression and Evolution by Christopher He Most of us associate the word “depression” with sadness, loneliness, secludedness, and suicide. But it seems some scientists are trying to sway the pendulum the other way, looking at depression more positively than negatively. How could you make a disease that is defined in the DSM V by unproductiveness, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, and even thoughts of suicide into something good?

Scientists have created almost a dozen theories explaining the possible benefits of depression. One theory, developed by Dr. Andrew Miller and Dr. Charles Raison, claims that people who are depressed have an over-activation of the immune system which leads to inflammation, even when they are not affected by
an infection. They say that depression was a beneficial adaptation before the discovery of antibiotics, when this inflammation helped fight off life-threatening infections. They claim that fever, fatigue, social withdrawal, and anorexia—all potential results of depression —could all be adaptations that keep infections under control. They even added that testing for increased inflammation using biomarkers could mean a good response to certain antidepressants. Another theory relates depression to the existence of social and moral problems. The resulting depressed state is really a way of ruminating about problems. The depressed person develops an analytical style of thinking, where a large problem is broken into smaller, more comprehensible parts. Paul Andrews conducted a study in which subjects were put into a sad or happy mood and then were given logic problem. He discovered that more depressed people were better able to solve these problems. Symptoms of depression such as social isolation and permanent unhappiness makes it so that there is less chance of distraction and interruption. Andrews says depression should not be classified as a disorder but rather as “an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.” Unlike Dr. Miller and Dr. Raison, Andrews is arguing the depression is functional in the world we live in today. It might make sense to take a step back and look at what a beneficial adaptation means.
Evolution, at it’s core, is just a change. It is simply a change in the genetic material of a population. Many people, although they understand this, think about evolution a little differently. They think of it as a filter that removes all bad traits and only leaves good ones. If we continue down that path until we reach its end, we will eventually arrive at a perfect being, that will survive forever and won’t change, because it doesn’t need to. To the contrary, evolution is a constant change. As the environment changes, a population will change accordingly. Also, as we have all been taught, everything has pros and cons. Traits or adaptations are no exception. No adaptations are completely good and none are completely bad. Take a fish’s gills for example. Gills are a great adaptation for fish. If fish did not have gills, they couldn’t get the oxygen to live. But say, suddenly, all of the water on earth dried up. Then gills would just as suddenly turn into a terrible adaptation. This case is a little unrealistic, but it shows just how wrong it is to think of evolution so
moralistically.

Some compelling evidence has recently appeared that depression, like the gills I just mentioned, could be a beneficial adaptation. There was one thing I realized after I discovered this, the answer to the question of: why do we have any “negative” feelings at all? When you look at the most basic negative feeling, pain, the answer is obvious. Pain is a warning of injury, and is an extremely useful tool. Clearly, it is a beneficial adaptation. Also a negative emotion, fear makes us avoid dangerous situations and predators. Sadness is a signal to step up our quality of life, and drives us to take action in our lives. Numerous studies have shown that people who are less happy tend to make better decisions in their lives. It seems to make sense that depression might have a good side as well. On the other hand, doesn’t depression cause suicide, doesn’t it in essence kill people?
It seems impossible that the mere possibility of a positive side to depression could defeat death. That is the argument of many skeptical psychologists. Richard A. Friedman, who often treats depressed patients says, “But unlike ordinary sadness, the natural course of depression can be devastating and lethal. And while sadness is useful, clinical depression signals a failure to adapt to stress or loss, because it impairs a person’s ability to solve the very dilemmas that triggered it.” Psychologists will continue to classify major depressive disorder as a mental disease and will continue to treat it like one. Though, it seems we cannot ignore the possibility of depression having useful
benefits.

So now that we’ve cleared that up, lets take another look at depression. The “negatives” of depression are pretty obvious, which is why it is classified and treated as a disease. The evolutionary biologists are just trying to find the “positives”. And using the same logic, we can ask, Is it bad to believe depression has a beneficial side? Does it harm anything in any way to think about depression as an adaptation? Does thinking this way mean we should stop treating depression? And the answer to all of those, is no. But what I am trying to say is that maybe we even lose something when we don’t think about the upsides to depression. Perhaps we lose sight of the reason depression exists, and that impairs our ability to treat it in the best possible way. Possibly we could even use these benefits against the downsides of depression. Realistically, these possibilities are all pure speculation. In order to actually understand the depth and reason for depression, the only thing we can do is more research. And really, if we actually want to consider the evolutionary side of depression, we must be able to understand every aspect, every smallest detail of this disease. Without that, it doesn’t matter if depression really saves lives, because in the course of doing so, it still destroys millions of those lives each year.