Darwinian Medicine and Proximate and Evolutionary Explanations

This post is a continuation of my reply to Jerry Coyne's post on Darwinian medicine.

Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr asserted that there are two ways to understand biology: proximate explanations and evolutionary explanations.

Proximate explanations are the description of the process itself. A proximate explanation of type 1 diabetes is that it is caused by lack of insulin. A proximate explanation of Duchenne muscular dystrophy is that it is a recessive X-linked genetic disease that causes m...