Adam Hunt
@RealAdamHunt
Followers
2K
Following
9K
Media
341
Statuses
3K
Researcher @Cambridge_Uni. PhD in evolutionary psychiatry. Explaining neurodiversity, improving methods & stigma. 'Evolving Psychiatry' podcast host.
Cambridge, England
Joined February 2019
New paper🎉 just published🎉 in Biological Reviews 🎉.We propose a new gold standard to avoid “just-so” storytelling in evolutionary inference & apply it to autism. It’s been 9 years (!!) in the making.
5
23
92
Every parent (especially of twins) and teacher can comfortably attest: personality does just differ wildly, often with no discernible environmental effect, even at such an intimate level of observation!.Explaining why evolution allowed this was one of the major aims of my PhD.
Nothing like having fraternal twins to realize how big individual differences are. All baby advice seems to assume babies are interchangeable but lemme tell you: we treat them exactly the same & it’s clear that they are two _very_ different people with very different preferences.
0
4
17
Meagre financial handouts for neurodivergent individuals probably aren't the best option for support and maximising their long term potential. A better (cough evolution cough) informed system could do a more nuanced job at helping people integrate into classrooms and workplaces!.
0
0
3
Big problem!."People just take a random GWAS of a protein, a GWAS of a disease or trait B, run a little test,retroactively cobble together an introduction,write a paper, and submit. Add in the bias towards publishing significant findings and you get a very potent noise machine.".
Psychiatric Genetics Beyond Heritability: Q&A with Michel Nivard. “We look for genes as a means to an end—biology, epidemiology, and etiology of complex human outcomes.”.
0
2
6
👇 when evolutionary psychiatry is mainstream.
0
2
19
The Coldplay fiasco is a nice example of huge backfiring of natural reactions due to weird modern environments!.
Shame is designed to minimize the leakage of reputation-damaging information
1
0
4
RT @mpopv: before you have a baby, you think "babies are cute". but then after you have a baby, it finally sets in: that sentiment is exact….
0
198
0
ADHD is in the media a lot recently. Complaints about excessive support, too easy diagnosis. Ignoring the fraudsters, a lot of people do struggle with modernity (understandably, we weren't built for this!) and supporting our individual differences to maximise our potential does.
1
0
1
👇 the records of humans living in pre-industrialised life are some of the most precious information we have (and can still gather, just about!). For however many centuries or millennia humanity survives, we'll be relying on those records for insights into our nature.
Good theory is important in the social sciences but while theories are, by necessity, continuously being refined and often superseded, the observations in the ethnohistorical record are timeless and will always be valuable. They remain criminally under-appreciated.
0
2
9
This summer, August 31st, we are hosting an evolutionary psychiatry debate in Cambridge. Experts discussing whether depression is functional and whether evolutionary perspectives are more important in research or the clinic. Audience participation possible. Join us!.
1
11
33
Excellent blogpost by @JessicaRumbelow who leads Leap Lab, on the possibilities (and limitations) of AI for improving science. Major problems: garbage in, garbage out; and hallucinations . But big data, careful bespoke models and interpretability offer exciting avenues. .
0
1
3
RT @JDaviesPhD: The line between 'disorder' & 'normality' does not exist - but we pretend it does. .
0
43
0
He actually got lost a few times, so it was more like 105 miles. .
0
0
1
Humans evolved as long distance runners. But this was another level. Last weekend I crewed one of my best friends as he ran 100 miles, up and down hills on the South Downs, in 26 hours and 45 minutes. An incredible achievement. Honored to be there for the journey!
2
0
12
From enhanced risk-taking in ADHD to the social deception strategies of psychopathy, each row in the table shows a proposed “trade-off.” While these traits can lead to impairment, they may also reflect specialized abilities that, under certain ecological or social conditions,
0
2
4
Nominative determinism has more supporting evidence than the amyloid hypothesis.
1
0
3
Panic isn't purely dysfunctional—it evolved as a life-saving alarm. Agoraphobia might reflect a sensitive (but sometimes overly cautious) ancient survival mechanism.
0
0
4
Every day I receive an email from 'The Transmitter', sponsored by 'Spectrum' and funded by the Simons Foundation - originally tasked with better understanding autism. I get that it's cool science but. this research has never really helped anyone right?
0
0
1
Homo Sapiens have a very rare ability to obtain calories from decaying fruit. Our appreciation for alcohol being a happy-side effect of this trait, then co-opted for socialising
1
0
7
Personality traits and psychopathological traits share foundational characteristics—like moderate heritability and early onset, on dimensional spectrums—yet are investigated through distinct research traditions.
0
0
2