a Rube Goldberg machine, with many extra moving parts just to make sure the basics can be done. While the human body may not be as elegant in form and function as those of other species, when explored from an evolutionary perspective, human medicine can be wonderfully illuminated. And this Darwinian view of body function and failure can in turn lead to innovative treatment and health care. This book takes some of the most fascinating and acute medical issues today--from high rate of autoimmune diseases to the high number of heart transplants needed--and explores them through an evolutionary prism. Evolutionary medicine prescribes new tools for understanding the origins of diseases and new kinds of research on possible treatments, of exactly the sort that this book so vividly describes.