The Marjorie Grene Prize is awarded every two years for the best manuscript based on a presentation at one of the two previous ISHPSSB meetings by someone who was, at the time of presentation, a graduate student. The prize is named after Marjorie Grene both because her work in the history and philosophy of biology exemplifies the strong spirit of interdisciplinary work fundamental to ISHPSSB, and because she played a central role in bringing together diverse scholars of biology even before the formation of the Society. She was a valued mentor to many members of the Society and a long-standing inspiration to all.
This year’s Marjorie Grene Prize was awarded to Rick Morris for his paper “Stranger in a strange land: An optimal-environments account of evolutionary mismatch”, which was presented at the 2017 ISHPSSB meeting in São Paulo. A revised version of the paper was published online in the journal Synthese in September 2018. Rick will be graduating from UC Davis in the early fall of this year and then plans to go back to school to study computer science and machine learning.
The notion of evolutionary mismatch is gaining increasing currency in evolutionary medicine and evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary mismatch results when organisms live in environments to which they are poorly adapted, for instance because of a rapid environmental change. This situation is seen as the leading cause in a number of negative health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, obesity, breast cancer, dental problems, and many more. However, as Morris argues, the exact nature of evolutionary mismatch is unclear. This in turn leads to a lack of clarity about exactly which problems the theory of evolutionary mismatch can actually explain (it might look like it can explain everything). Clarifying these issues is important for the evolutionary health literature while also raising fundamental questions in respect to key notions of evolutionary theory such as fitness, evolution in changing environments, and more. Morris’s contribution lies in conceptualizing mismatch as the relation between optimal environment (defined by the organism’s physiology) and actual environment, which gives the notion more empirical precision.
Reviewers were impressed with the clarity of the argument presented by Morris and the careful way he deals with various objections. One reviewer commented that it sounded “like something Marjorie would have liked”. And although this was not the leading criterion, the committee was pleased that the outcome of its deliberations resulted in a match rather than a mismatch.
Soraya de Chadarevian, Chair of the Marjorie Grene and Werner Callebaut Prize Committee 2017–2019