Melvin Konner M.D. Ph.D.

The Official Website of Melvin Konner, M.D, Ph.D.

Welcome to my website. Its purpose is to encourage a scientific approach to human nature and experience and to explore the interaction between biology and behavior, medicine and society, nature and culture. Throughout a long life I've been fascinated by why we do what we do, think what we think, feel what we feel. I've sought answers in anthropology, biology, medicine, evolution, brain science, child development, history, and culture...
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Epidemic Obesity: Adaptation Gone Wild

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 by Mel Konner

Obesity is unnatural, but it’s natural to try for it.

This morning I sat on a panel for medical students; the subject was obesity. Nationally, as anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock knows, the picture is not pretty-in fact it’s pretty ugly. By the standard definition, obesity means a Body Mass Index (BMI; weight in kilos over height in meters squared) above 30, and in about 15 years starting in 1990 we went from 22 percent to 33 percent obese.

Now, I don’t care what you call it or (more…)

Craig Venter’s “Creation”

Friday, July 23rd, 2010 by Mel Konner

It’s not creation, but it’s a technical achievement full of promise.

To say that Craig Venter’s latest contribution is garnering hype would be one of the understatements of the year.  The paper, whose title begins “Creation of a Bacterial Cell…” was published in the print version of Science on July 2—Daniel Gibson was the first of many authors, Venter the last—but it had already appeared online on May 20 and generated a lot of comment, not least of all by Venter himself. (more…)

“We Can’t All Be Mozart”? Why Not?

Saturday, June 19th, 2010 by Mel Konner

Some thoughtful comments, and some attempted answers.

The comments on my last posting, “We Can’t All Be Mozart,” were so thoughtful and interesting that I decided to post another blog on this. To my general claim that innate talent matters, I opposed a fact close to home that seems to contradict it: I have two grown daughters, (more…)


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