Assignment details: Choose a topic relevant to evolutionary medicine, that you w

Assignment details: Choose a topic relevant to evolutionary medicine, that you wish to examine in
greater detail. It may be a particular human disease, a pathogen or parasite, anything that affects
human or animal health (veterinary topics are also allowed). Your goal is to describe what is known
about how evolution is relevant to the biomedical topic of your choice. This can include recent or
ancient evolutionary history, evolutionary tools like phylogenetics, and present-day or future
evolutionary processes. Critically evaluate this literature, pointing out any weaknesses in evidence,
areas of disagreement or ambiguity, competing hypotheses, and important questions that remain
unanswered. In short, what do we know about the topic, how strong is the evidence supporting this
knowledge, and what don’t we (yet) know? Where relevant, comment on how an understanding of
evolution might actually guide the actions of medical practitioners (broadly defined) in the topic you
chose to write about.
Your essay should be well-organized and clearly written, with subheadings as appropriate.
Organization of ideas, grammar, and spelling matter. Claims of fact should be supported by citations
to supporting evidence in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (* citations to popular science or
news media may be included to make a point about public interest, but not factual claims which
should be based on peer-reviewed scientific journal articles). Text must not be extensively quoted or
plagiarized, use your own words.
The most common cause of significant trouble with this assignment, is when students pick a
topic that is biomedical, but lacks a very strong evolutionary theme. About half of your essay, at
least, should concern itself with evolutionary perspectives on the topic at hand. For instance, if this
is a human disorder, is it heritable? What genes underlie it? Where and when did this originate? Is it
evolving by drift or natural selection, and if so what are the selective advantages or disadvantages?
Be sure to draw extensively on evolutionary concepts, and if that is not available for the topic you
have chosen, you need a different topic.
Length: The main text of your essay should be between 8 to 10 double-spaced pages, 11 point
Times New Roman font with 1 inch margins. The list of cited literature is extra and does not count towards this limit. If you wish you may also have one figure or table with up to 200 words for acaption, as an additional page. Be sure to include a title and your name on the first page. No abstract
is required.