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Schizophrenia is the price we pay for minds poised near the edge of a cliff

(www.psychiatrymargins.com)
262 points Anon84 | 1 comments | 28 Jun 25 21:22 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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HarHarVeryFunny ◴[29 Jun 25 12:17 UTC] No.44412495[source]▶
Genetics is messy - as I understand it most genes don't code for a single thing, so assuming evolution is "selecting for schizophrenia" that only implies that there is an evolutionary benefit to some of the things controlled by the same gene(s) that control schizophrenia, that outweighs the disadvantage of schizophrenia.

Homosexuality is interesting from this perspective too - common enough that evolution has to be selecting for it, yet basically fatal to reproduction, so what are the benefits that evolution is selecting for? Is it advantageous to groups, or maybe the same genes confer an individual benefit to non-homosexuals?

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1. renewiltord ◴[29 Jun 25 18:40 UTC] No.44415308[source]▶
The article's first paragraph has some alternative factors in selection

> Traditional evolutionary hypotheses, such as those invoking kin selection, mutation-selection balance, and evolutionary mismatch don’t quite explain this.

There's lots of explanations here but one that is often mentioned is "kin selection". If you increase evolutionary fitness of nephews, nieces, etc. There's many others, some of which apply here and others which don't.