About
Retired psychiatrist after 40 years of adult practice. Publishing on the demise of evolution. Published Footprints ofSchizophrenia: the Evolutionary Roots of Mental Illness in 2024 (Prometheus) i write daily and sing as well.Besides being a board certified psychiatrist in practice for the past 40 years and a lifetime member of the American Psychiatric Association Dr. Lesk’s viewpoints have been seen in many journals such as Current Psychiatry, Journal of Social Psychiatry, Neurology: Clinical Practice (peer reviews), a book chapter and lectures at a psychoanalytic conference. He is on the editorial board of one of the largest continuing medical education providers analyzing and summarizing articles for psychiatrists. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree in psychology and a medical degree. After starting his career as chief resident at a large county hospital on Long Island, he went on to direct inpatient services at a multi-specialty veteran’s hospital in Brooklyn, NY, ultimately becoming chairman of the department. There he was an assistant professor for Downstate Medical College in New York and over the years has been mentor and teacher for hundreds of medical students, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. For years he sustained a thriving private practice in Minneapolis and served as medical staff president at the state hospital, organizing a lecture series for his peers. He has published a short story and won a 7th and 8th place in a large writing contest. He is schooled in both biological psychiatry and psychoanalytic theory earning a psychoanalytic certificate, and has read extensively on the topics of anthropology, language theory and evolution.
Featured Work
Predator Factor: How Humanity is Decoupling from Evolution and Its Effects on Society
Of late several unique issues swirl around our communal consciousness. There is a disturbing subset of young people shrugging off their expected life trajectories and a decided rise in youth anxiety, depression and suicide, now the second leading cause of death in high school aged students, to which some fault the onset of smart phone addiction circa 2010. We note an alarming decline of population growth in industrialized nations as if people had decided that procreation itself simply lacked the necessary verve to entice their life style. There is a crisis of masculinity and an ongoing decrease in testosterone levels. Transsexuality and homosexuality are rising in numbers with their coincident elevated suicide rates. Youngsters are dating less, drinking and partying less. Truly the end is near, the world hinging on a potpourri of challenges and harsh realities including the onset of AI, global warming, political disharmony and the like. The paucity of answers leaves the culture growling with hunger for richer explanations.
In my book, “Predator Factor” I posit a comprehensive rationale for what we’re observing, one that is both satisfying and unexpected, hoping to illuminate by proffering a previously allergic slant, namely evolution. I will offer a much needed counter-intuitive explanation for the above mentioned social trends that beg understanding. Smart phones are just the lowest hanging fruit of blame for youthful ennui, and in some ways my book offers a rebuttal to Jonathon Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation” as well as books similar to “Alone Together” by Sherry Turkle. The unseen hand of evolution is now in free fall due to the neutralization of most of the jungle predators our pre-historic ancestors evolved within. We have moved from natural selection to sexual selection, and now, with this hydraulic vacuum of predator inhibition, to selection by indecision. While evolution’s previously hard wired mandate of procreation used to dictate our life trajectory and behaviors, we now see a luffing of evolution’s sails, due, I assert, to the absence of the predatory intensity inherent in our cave man past. In short, people are decoupling from evolution, a major game changer in the forward progress of humanity.
