From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky

Start date: August 1, 2019

Finish date: August 31, 2019

Discussion: Book Club 2019

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 26 topics — 448 comments total

Book Club 2019

December 2019 - Uninhabitable Earth
By Betsy , co-mod · 8 posts · 108 views

last updated Dec 21, 2020 08:09AM

November 2019 - Invisible Women
By Betsy , co-mod · 17 posts · 122 views

last updated Oct 18, 2020 06:07PM

showing 8 of 8 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Dec 04, 2017 Charlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: medicine, general-science, decision-making, neuroscience, evolution, innovation, abnormal-psych, ecology, mindgasms, chaos-complexity-emergence

Without question, this is Sapolsky's best work yet. I have too many pages of notes to synthesize a review that could possibly do this book justice. Review to come when I have more time to write. Meanwhile, put this book at the top of your list! A+ ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Jul 20, 2019 ktsn rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: cognition

This is a book claimed to explain the biology of behavior, in particular those related to violence. The first half is more like a biology class, organized in an ingenious way: various factors that may influence behaviors are discussed based on the timescales they take effects. So we have neurological signals (seconds), hormones (hours to days), environments (years), culture (centuries to millennia), and the evolutionary history of the whole species (millions of years). The second half is more li This is a book claimed to explain the biology of behavior, in particular those related to violence. The first half is more like a biology class, organized in an ingenious way: various factors that may influence behaviors are discussed based on the timescales they take effects. So we have neurological signals (seconds), hormones (hours to days), environments (years), culture (centuries to millennia), and the evolutionary history of the whole species (millions of years). The second half is more like a collection of essays chatting over more philosophical issues.

Does this 800-page door-stopper achieve its goal? It depends. Dr. Sapolsky is famous for his witty writing style, and is definitely very erudite (not surprising for a Stanford professor). Readers can get a feeling of "I've learned so much!" through tons of anecdotes. However, I don't think many readers, if confronted with a question unmentioned in the book, can analyze and propose a model/hypothesis based on what he "learned". In other words, this is a book that helps readers acquire knowledge, not understanding.

In some sense it's not the author's fault. Rather, it's due to the difficulty posed by the fundamental "representation problem" in neuroscience. When someone sees a red apple, how is that apple represented in his brain? Scientists can make a lot of measurement and infer firing pattern of neurons or hormone levels in the blood, but rarely any this information can help to predict what would be the pattern in another person seeing the apple, or even the same person seeing the same apple next time. As a result, scientists usually can only use these "correlates" -- which regions in the brain are activated, which hormone gets higher level... etc. -- to make inference. The problem of the book is it often ends up conflating these correlates with the behaviors themselves. For example, glucocorticoid becomes the synonym of stress; nonetheless, without proving the stress is the "only" factor that can raise the level of glucocorticoid, how can its level be used as the proxy in many experiments studying stress?

The author is usually quite sharp when pointing out such kind of loopholes in some studies when they are AGAINST the story he intends to tell, then becomes extremely credulous and generous for the studies in his camp. In some cases he indeed mentions the potential drawbacks of the studies he cites as evidence, but only with few sentences after pages of promotional stories. Examples include some very famous controversial studies such as Milgram experiment, Stanford prison experiment, "hungry judges are more reluctant parole giver" study...etc. He also unreservedly embraces the "just-so stories" such as "alternative splicing enables neurons in our brain to be more flexible", and "epigenetic mechanisms help behaviors to be inherited". Many of these are at best intriguing hypotheses without solid supportive evidence.

Another problem is that the author tends to describe his (intellectual) opponents as ridiculously naive. In the section discussing free will, he defines free will in such a narrow way so those who don't 100% agree with him (that there is absolutely no free will) are basically idiots with medieval religious mindset who believe "a homunculus in your brain... operating independently of the material rules of the universe that constitute modern science." In subsequent sections he makes the stake so high to claim that as long as you believe science will keep making progress you should believe all factors affecting our decisions would be delineated and free will debunked. Of course I think science will keep making progress, but that doesn't mean it has to converge to the author's version of truth -- which is ideological tyranny instead of science. For many people the core of the free will debate is whether we can make choice, and decision making could still be a pure materialistic process and at the same time non-deterministic due to complicated interactions and feedback (I recommend Stanislas Dehaene's Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts for relevant discussions).

The author then continues to argue why we should review the concept of responsibility in our moral and juridical system because there is no free will. When I read this I thought "oh that's funny, then why should the author be rewarded grants and professorship, if those ideas shouldn't be attributed to him?". Then, in the final episode of the chapter the author admits exactly the same point, that those "positive" aspects in life such as praise and compliments would be very difficult to exist without the idea of free will. In my opinion, the author gets stuck in the paradox because he misses the point from the beginning. The root of responsibility (and positive attribution) is not free will, but the continuity of individuality (in many cases that means memory, both individual and social).

To conclude, this is a huge book with a lot of "knowledge snippets", but I don't think they successfully construct a systematic understanding. Many sections in the end are no more than the author's "just-so stories" reinforcing stereotypes that are actually not so new. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review