[Schizophrenia in the light of the evolutionary theories]

The aim of the article was to review the hypotheses of schizophrenia in the light of the evolutionary theory. The authors distinguished adaptationist and non-adaptationist hypotheses concerning the evolutionary underpinnings of schizophrenia. The adaptationist hypotheses are firmly based on notions of adaptation, natural selection and proximate and ultimate causes. The standard hypotheses of this sort proposed by Steven and Price as well as by Pollimeni and Reiss were discussed. Also, the other similar conceptions originated from McGuire and Troisi and proposed by David Horrobin were presented of which the latter is especially promising and worth further investigating. The non-adaptationistic authors criticised many assumptions of the adapationist program i.e. too broad use of term "adaptation" in the area of human behaviour or the very idea of proximate and ultimate causes. Unlike the adaptionists, they focus their attention on other aspects of the evolutionary processes i.e. the role of the mutation and also they are searching in a much intensive way than their opponents for verification of the hypotheses based on the empirical evidence. The theories developed by Crow and by Yeo were listed among the non-adaptationistic ones and presented.