Robert M. Sapolsky

In the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Robert Sapolsky, a foremost science writer and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, tells the mesmerizing story of his twenty-one years in remote Kenya with a troop of Savannah baboons. “I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,” writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist’s coming-of-age in remote Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky’s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate’s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti — for man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on the farthest vestiges of unspoiled Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes evermore enamored of his subjects — unique and compelling characters in their own right — and he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him. By turns hilarious and poignant, A Primate’s Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.

Why do we do the things we do? More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.

Why do we do the things we do? More than a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right.

One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences. Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: we may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at base of human behavior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there's some separate self telling our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works--the tight weave between reason and emotion, and between stimulus and response, in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others, and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world.

As a professor of biology and neuroscience at Stanford and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," Robert Sapolsky carries impressive credentials. Best of all, he's a gifted writer who possesses a delightfully devilish sense of humor. In these essays, which range widely but mostly focus on the relationships between biology and human behavior, hard and intricate science is handled with a deft touch that makes it accessible to the general reader. In one memorable piece, Sapolsky compares the fascination with tabloid TV to behavior he's observed among wild African baboons. "Rubber necks," notes the professor, "seem to be a common feature of the primate order." In the title essay of The Trouble with Testosterone, Sapolsky ruminates on the links, real or perceived, between that hormone and aggression.Covering such broad topics as science, politics, history, and nature, the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers writes accessible and interesting essays that explore the human struggle with moral and ethical problems in today's world. 20,000 first printing.

Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear—and the ones that plague us now—are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way—through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us sick.

Renowned primatologist Robert Sapolsky offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with nearly 90,000 copies in print Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way-through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick. Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses. This new edition promises to be the most comprehensive and engaging one yet.

Zachowuj się – znakomita, kompleksowa publikacja amerykańskiego biologa i neurologa, Roberta Sapolsky’ego, o motywach ludzkiego zachowania. Autor zabiera czytelnika w zdumiewającą podróż, przedstawiając interdyscyplinarne spojrzenie na ludzkie postępowanie z perspektywy naukowej. Fascynująco tłumaczy nasze codzienne doświadczenia, a zarazem maluje najpełniejszy jak dotąd obraz gleby, z której wyrastają plemienne waśnie i ksenofobia, wojna i pokój. Książka ma pomysłowy układ: poczynając od chwili, w której zachowaliśmy się tak, a nie inaczej, cofamy się w czasie, aby warstwa po warstwie ukazać kolejne przyczyny naszego postępowania — od reakcji w ułamku sekundy zachodzących w mózgu i układzie nerwowym, przez interakcje hormonalne, doświadczenia dorastania, dzieciństwa czy rozwoju płodowego. W każdym rozdziale pojawia się najważniejsze z pytań: co sprawia, że popełniamy najgorsze potworności, i zarazem co nas popycha do najwspanialszych zachowań? Autor uwzględnia też wpływ genetycznego dziedzictwa i kulturowego kontekstu aż do ewolucyjnych początków istnienia naszego gatunku. Po połączeniu wszystkich tych warstw uzyskujemy bezprecedensowy, zdumiewający wgląd w ludzką naturę, który rzuca nowe światło na takie zjawiska, jak rasizm, traumatyczne dzieciństwo, moralność czy wolna wola, ale także pokazuje, jak skuteczniej dążyć do pojednania i trwałego pokoju. „Zachowuj się” to niespotykane osiągnięcie: książka mądra, głęboko ludzka, często bardzo zabawna, która nas uczy człowieczeństwa. Przez wiele lat nie znajdzie sobie równej. Niewątpliwą zaletą tej książki jest wspaniała narracja, zabarwiona dowcipem i humorem, a także znakomity przekład autorstwa Piotra Szymczaka, które ułatwiają przyswajanie pełnej erudycji treści.

★ 甫出版即成為《紐約時報》暢銷書！★ 《行為》作者羅伯．薩波斯基（Robert M. Sapolsky） 從神經認知科學出發，以詼諧輕鬆的方式，反駁了自由意志的神話。提出人類每一個行為，背後都是由一系列複雜的生物學、神經科學和環境因素的結果，其中不存在自由意志運作的空間。 薩波斯基也對歷史上人們如何對於思覺失調症患者、癲癇患者、自閉症、異己者、犯罪者施予懲罰進行了耙梳，證明人們對於精神疾病和行惡者者越來越瞭解，我們就會變得更具同理心和人道，加上不存在自由意志的最後一擊，我們會發現「所謂報應式的懲罰，是徒勞而錯誤的做法」，從而改變我們的社會和法律框架，比起懲罰更重視矯正。 行為科學家、暢銷書《行為》（Behave）作者羅伯．薩波斯基（Robert M. Sapolsky），暨《行為》之後，深入探討了關於人類做選擇和決定背後的生物科學，以及哲學，提出駁斥自由意志存在的毀滅性案例，呈現出一個具有深遠影響的論點，那就是「人類沒有自由意志」。 在《行為》一書中，他探討人類行為的生物學、神經科學和環境因素，甚至文化因素，表明人類任何一個行為背後，都是由一秒之前、一分鐘之前、一天之前、一年之前、一千年之前……一系列複雜的基因、神經學、環境、文化因素所構成。我們也許無法精準掌握所有結合先天、後天的物理反應和化學反應；但這些生理機制確實深刻影響了我們每個當下的行為表達。而這隱含了「我們的行為是被生理機制和環境共同決定，沒有自由意志運作的空間」的神經科學強烈主張。 在《命定》中，薩波斯基用了一整本書（在《行為》中只用一章篇幅）針對決定論和自由意志展開論證。針對我們幻想――也就是有個獨立存在的自我告訴我們該做什麼（即自由意志）――展開一場精彩的正面攻擊。告訴我們，其實所謂的自由意志，只是一種幻覺罷了。他也不假辭色地駁斥了現代物理學提出的、似乎能佐證非決定論的混沌理論、突現複雜性科學和量子物理學，其實都是決定論的，再次向我們展示了自由意志並不存在。 他的探討不僅停留在學術上的討論，更著重在實際道德責任、歸咎、懲罰、法律判刑等實際運作上，提出當我們「超越自由意志的存在」而對生命擁有新理解後，將會面對「人類就不需為自己的行為負責」的結論，卻不至於使整個社會運作失控。反而提出從歷史上來看，當我們能夠瞭解許多人行惡是眾多因素交織而成的結果，就會更擁有同理心，也能以更人道的看法看待懲罰的概念，從而改善我們的法律體系和懲罰制度，比起懲罰，更重視事前預防犯罪和矯正，便能以更人性化的方式來打造更有同理心的世界。 無論你是否贊成他的觀點，這本書都將成為以有憑有據的論證來挑戰你的可敬對手，引發你深入思考人性、人類行為，以及我們究竟是誰的觀點。