Darwinian Medicine
For those of you interested, evolutionary psychologist/psychiatrist Dr. Randolph Nesse has put together a series of lectures for the Henry Stewart Talks called, Evolution and Medicine: How New Applications Advance Research and Practice.
The combined lectures were designed to be a complete introductory course to the field of evolutionary medicine with over 30 expert contributors. Topics include: Fundamentals of evolution and medicine, evolutionary genetics, infectious diseases, co-evolution and arms races, environmental factors, constraints and trade-offs, sexual selection and reproduction, cancer, mental disorders, and practical applications. Power-point slides come along with each talk as well.
The only bad thing about the lectures is that you cannot view them for free. That's right, you have to purchase them! But many, not all, of the lectures offer a playable extract for free. It's a little 5 minute sample of the talk, I guess so you can decide whether you want to buy the rest or not. Of course the single user license is about $650! Wow! So it's just like enrolling in a online course I suppose, just without the grade. From what I heard from the playable extracts . . . they seem pretty interesting.
Go check them out!
3 comments:
My name is Jeff Glickman and I am the Senior Sales and Account Manager for Henry Stewart Talks. The Evolution and Medicine series has 38 individual talks (each approx. 40-60 mins) only presented by high calibre, eminent authorities in the field, and all contained within the same resource. This is a cutting comprehensive and cutting edge educational resource, why would one expect that it should be offered for free? At $690 for 38 talks, that amounts to only $18 per talk, how then can this series possibly be seen as expensive?
In additionm, this series and any of our series are constantly updated and also available on-line 24/7 for unlimited viewing. We at HST thank you for your positive feedback but I simply had to challenge your perspective on our pricing being expensive. Several of our clients have actually liberated money in their budgets by acquiring our resources enabling them to cancel others.
Jeff Glickman
Henry Stewart Talks
Of course . . . point taken. Thanks for the comment!
I really wasn't trying to write negatively about the lectures. I think that they are a great idea! And you are right, this is a cutting edge educational resource. I actually didn't mean to make a big deal about the pricing, to tell the truth. It was largely written tongue-in-cheek. When I wrote,
"That's right, you have to purchase them!"
it was meant to be sarcastic, which looking back at it now, I see how it was mistaken. I really wouldn't expect such an exciting lecture series to be offered for free.
On the other hand, I was, at first, taken back by the fact that it is being offered for $690. I know it's only $18 dollars per talk, which I agree is a good deal, but that's still a lot of money for a struggling graduate student living off a stipend, of which I am.
But for those individuals who can afford the user license, I think that this lecture series will be ideal for anyone interested in evolution and/or medicine.
Hi There,
I am glad to see that Jeff Glickman is blogging here. Even though I agree the series is worth every penny (how could I not!), few invidiuals will be able to pay the price. The solution is to get your university to purchase a license so that anyone at anytime from any computer can listen to any lecture. That turns out to be a pretty good deal. See more info at http://EvolutionAndMedicine.org and http://nesse.us
Randolph Nesse (Editor of the lecture series)
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