Margie Profet

Who is Margie Profet?

Margaret J. "Margie" Profet is an American evolutionary biologist with no formal biology training who created a decade-long controversy when she published her findings on the role of Darwinian evolution in menstruation, allergies and morning sickness. She argued that these three processes had evolved to eliminate pathogens, carcinogens and other toxins from the body.

Detractors argued that little to no experimental evidence supported Profet's reasoning. But supporters—including U.C. Santa Barbara anthropologist Donald Symons and U.C. Berkeley toxicologist Bruce Ames—considered her work a pioneering analysis of evolutionary theory in a never-before-studied, everyday context.

When Profet won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1993, international media took notice. New York Times reporter Natalie Angier called Profet's theory that menstruation protected the female mammal's reproductive canals a "radical new view". Scientific American, Time, Omni, and even People Magazine all followed with in-depth profiles of the 35-year-old "maverick" scientific prodigy.