Humans as model organisms

Abstract

Like every other species, our species is the result of descent with modification under the influence of natural selection; a tip in an increasingly large and deep series of nested clades, as we trace its ancestry back to increasingly remote antecedents. As a consequence of shared history, our species has much in common with many others; as a consequence of its production by the general mechanisms of evolution, our species carries information about the mechanisms that shaped other species as well. For reasons unconnected to biological theory, we have far more information about humans than we do about other species. So in principle and in practice, humans should be usable as model organisms, and no one denies the truth of this for mundane physical traits, though harnessing human data for more general questions proves to be quite challenging. However, it is also true that human cognitive and behavioural characteristics, and human social groups, are apparently radically unlike those of other animals. Humans are exceptional products of evolution and perhaps that makes them an unsuitable model system for those interested in the evolution of cooperation, complex cognition, group formation, family structure, communication, cultural learning and the like. In all these respects, we are complex and extreme cases, perhaps shaped by mechanisms (like cultural evolution or group selection) that play little role in other lineages. Most of the papers in this special issue respond by rejecting or downplaying exceptionalism. I argue that it can be an advantage: understanding the human exception reveals constraints that have restricted evolutionary options in many lineages.

A Review of the Role of Green Tea (Camellia sinensis) in Antiphotoaging, Stress Resistance, Neuroprotection, and Autophagy

“…Humans share many evolutionarily conserved mechanisms with different species which could have been inherited during evolution. However, due to our complex physiological, social and cultural development, which cannot be observed in many of the model organisms [ 186 ], the models are not a perfect match. Additionally, the absorption of the flavonoids under study will be lower in the circulatory systems of these models, as they will be metabolized differently by the microbiota inside the intestine, which is unique [ 187 ].…”

Heritable spouse effects increase evolutionary potential of human reproductive timing

“…Our study demonstrates that genealogical databases hold enormous potential, not only to enable perspectives of the evolutionary dynamics regulating human populations (i.e. human evolutionary demography) but also to offer insights into biological processes that are not amenable to study in other animal species [44,45]. From the perspective of the husband, the reproductive timing of his wife represents an extended phenotype [46].…”

The evolution of class-dependent reproductive effort in humans and other animals

“…Nevertheless, whether adaptive models can produce an overarching framework that closes the divide between human and animal societies is still unclear and the subject of much discussion (e.g. Kokko 2017, Brosnan and Postma 2017, Bshary and Raihani 2017, Jasienska et al 2017, Rook et al 2017; Wilson et al 2017, Sterelny 2017, Briga et al 2017).…”