3. Behavioral Evolution II
2011 ж. 31 Қаң.
3 012 591 Рет қаралды
(April 2, 2010) Robert Sapolsky continues his two-part series on evolution focusing on individual and kin selection, behavioral logic, competitive infanticide, male/female animal hierarchies, sex-ratio fluctuation, intersexual competition, imprinted genes, sperm competition, inbred-founder populations, group and multi-level selection, and punctuated equilibrium.
Stanford University
www.stanford.edu
Stanford Department of Biology
biology.stanford.edu/
Stanford University Channel on KZhead
/ stanford
Netflix doesn't even have anything as binge-worthy as this guy's videos.
I know I'm three lectures in and I love this professor!
for REAL
I would say the nature stuff with David Attenborough comes close.
Mindhunter
Flash.
"Can't afford college but can't afford ignorance either" Comment on lecture 1 of this series. Thank you Stanford. This is priceless. And Sapolsky's conversational and apparently free flowing style is insanely engaging!!
Im here as a means to try to better understand wtf happened in 2020 cause damn humanity confuses me now more than ever.
@@cassandra5011 we exchanged a sense of security for freedom, and we, consequently, have neither
this has been me. I live a relatively simple life but I always love learning something new. so I put these on while I clean the house
@@joshlcaudilldon’t you mean we exchanged a sense of freedom for security. And now we have neither?
I used to listen to dull lectures to get to sleep, or I'd imagine i was at one. Now I'm kept awake by the ideas from these fascinating lectures!
Some good news: in the decade since this video, the population of mountain gorillas has increased. It's still tiny (over a thousand gorillas) but they're still around.
Good to hear, but what going on with the cuckold flies?
I was actually going to google that! Thanks
I was about to write the same thing, haha.
I think the gorillas might have watched this course
Time to discredit the man completely because of his false belief that they will eventually go extinct!
I'm amazed how he doesn't stop to think what he's saying. He's so versed in the matter, all these matters, that he just flows through it. It's amazing and awe inspiring.
He is a mind slave
Lies again? Smooth Beer
@@KimWilsonTV If you dismiss science because you don't like what is being taught, that doesn't make the curriculum wrong; it just makes you less capable of learning it. If you want any intelligent people to take your comments seriously, you'll need to dispute the facts, evidence, or reasoning that he is presenting *with* evidence and reasoning of your own.
@@KimWilsonTV what is a mind slave?
Every bullshitter I've ever known believes in what they're saying and they expect you to believe it as well.
Man Im really stressing about this midterm
Gore Blaster hope everything turned out well
@@myaaellis lmao
I would love to have seen the midterm and the final questions for this course! Just to see if I could answer the questions.....
Guys I don't think he passed he's not responding, I think he left us 8 years ago 😔
it's okay I'm sure the dropout rate was very high
00:42:44 Imprinted Genes 01:16:17 Criticisms 01:20:34 Adaptationist Fallacy 01:30:21 Punctuated Equilibrium 01:32:11 Political Critiques
Thank you
No mention of abortion. He talks about infanticide but never mentions abortion
Science for the People in Boston, Ma
@@leadimentoobrien1221 He mentioned miscarriage because of the male hormonal smell.
I’m so unbelievably happy to be part of a generation where you can learn about anything and everything, basically for free, at this high of a level. It is a beautiful thing to share these things, and for a prestigious university as Stanford to give it out for free, that’s just amazing. Thank you!
So nice to see a comment like this. I'd never get into a college like Stanford, so this is such a gift. Don't have to do no exams neither!!!
@@MrNikkiNoo Good job guys
@@MrNikkiNoo nnI'mmmkm
yea I really like his class
If I would have had You Tube as a kid.....you would never of heard of Elon 😂😂😂
"the males fall for it" is my new reply to people when they start questioning my knowledge
Ahahaha
He forgot about at least one animal that sometimes doesn't fall for it. Lol
@@redactedbananas humans?
I prefer "women select poorly" anytime someone loses faith in human nature.
@@NickMart1985 incel
Sapolsky is the greatest lecturer I have ever seen. I am not a student of human behaviour but this guy makes me want to change the subject what I study! I read comments about his style being more teenager-like and less "professional", but what I see is a highly intellectual person engaging students with "student-like" speech. Obviously, he could give a lecture with more professional terms and without humour, but that at the end of the lecture, you would sit there thinking the same like after every lecture. "There is this guy, talking like a non-human and expects me to understand everything." We need more people like him who instead of trying to push down 100% of the facts on students throat focuses on engaging the audience with funny, easily understandable language and 98% of the facts. My personal opinion, that 2% loss of facts worth the exchange. This is my subjective opinion, but considering that during his videos I am not able to stop it for a second and constantly laughing and being amazed by all these things, his style is so human that is indescribable. I wish I had teachers like him from 1st grade...
Ernő Berezvay know
Read his book why zebras dont get ulcers. Its awesome!
He has a sense of humour ☺️
// , A great teacher lights a fire
hes a G
whoever said "Man is the only creature that kills for pleasure." must have never had an indoor cat.
Yes cats do kill for pleasure. On top of that cats are the most successful hunters in all of the animal kingdoms. There catch rate is super high vs all other animals even the bigger cats like lions. It's crazy
@@tylersmith6520 And they are involved in the extinction of more bird species than humans, yay we are not the most morally bad animal.
Or an outdoor cat for that matter
@@sandrosixarulidze398 The only reason cats driving avian extinction is because Shannon's mom Cheryl kept buying a new one every time her outdoor cat ran off to live a life of killing birds
to words & sandro ::i think wild dogs or somesuch have highest catch rate in addition just recently saw some bbc thing where they said cats have low to no impact on their bird pop.....but i guess thats not global..
I am so grateful he provides a critique to end the lecture. Whenever I learn bout something and it seems really convincing and mind-blowing, I always immediately look for the a critique of what I just absorbed, otherwise you run the risk of getting carried away with one perspective instead of weighing the points of multiple perspectives.
Agreed. I think there needs to be more honest critiquing of academic identities. Particularly when those identities have strong political leanings, one way or the other.
I think there should be critique like you said, however, I don't think we should see everything from a political standpoint, as I think we end up in a path that leads away from the actual truth. However, it never came to my mind who the pioneers of these way of thinking were nor their criticals but damn, it's also interesting.
@@silverface851 It’s not an intention to see things in terms of politics, it’s to identify when something is being used politically
Agreed, it's very good to be aware of the criticisms. Though I do find the critique based on the background of those who first developed the field to be quite a shameful and lazy one. If the field was developed with such a strong political bias, then it wouldn't take much analysis to unravel the discipline on the basis of its own (alleged) presumptive claims.
Both Gould and Lewontin were Marxists... Marxists don't like the idea that human behaviour is based in biology because if it's based in biology it can't change except over tens of thousands of years.. Marx argued that the introduction of a Communist society in a few hundred years would bring about a change in human nature... So Marxists argue against evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology... That is why Lamarckian evolution, not Darwinian, evolution was taught in schools in the USSR... And no evolutionary psychologist argues that a chin is an adaption... Note that Sapolsky doesn't/can't give an example of a spandrel that any evolutionary psychologist actually claims is an adaptation..
Getting to this third lecture I'm realizing part of the appeal of this prof is how effectively he communicates. He delivers information efficiently (hardly wastes any spoken words) while not being dry, and without constantly checking notes, it's very impressive.
"Many hands make the itch less scratchy." - Robert Sapolsky Brilliant!
Or more scratched..
Aaaaah...lectures without homework. Doesn't get any better than this :) *sits back in cheap plastic chair*
How's the chair?
@@WhoShortsVids he never replied 😔
@@publicopinion3596 I will
Some things about school you can’t escape I guess.
Lmao your probably not going to reply,but you made me just realize I feel the same way with the whole no homework notion.
It's truly stunning that he can go through an entire lecture without once hesitating or saying erm.
It’s fantastic 😃
I think he only cleared his throat about once too!
The fact that there is so much positivity , creativity and thurst for knowledge in these comment sections makes me hopefull for the future of humanity.
Well go look at Sapolskys book sale numbers - most people are just watching this and never spending another minute thinking about anything herein.
I'm surprised that this is free and very grateful they are. Thank you Stanford University :)
Colby Fraser yessss!!! Agree so much!
That’s why I’m rushing to suck it all in before Stanford or KZhead monetises it!
Stanford knows that they need to educate the public or pseudoscience will take over (I am guessing at their motivations).
DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON COURSES LIKE THIS THEY ARE GARBAGE AND A WASTE OF MONEY. ( his two-part series on evolution focusing on individual and kin selection, behavioral logic, competitive infanticide, male/female animal hierarchies, sex-ratio fluctuation, intersexual competition, imprinted genes, sperm competition, inbred-founder populations, group and multi-level selection, and punctuated equilibrium.)
@@Frank289100 there is no God. Nothing is lower than us and nothing is higher than us. We are a part of it as well as everything else. Nothing higher nothing lower.
The information in these lectures is fascinating, but I'm equally impressed by Sapolsky's ability as a lecturer. I haven't had a biology course (or many science courses at all) since I was in my mid teens, and he still manages to make all this information totally digestible. I don't know if his writing style is similar, but I'll definitely look into buying some of his books.
Well, 7 months after. Don't know if you bought the book. But yes, his writing is similar.
@@rafaeljordao6826 lol
i love is writing i am reading Behave at the moment and i love that it feels a bit like a conversation definitly one of my favorite non fiction books or maybe books in general
Absolutely 💯
same. graduated 4 years ago and haven't had a biology class since the 9th grade, but am still able to follow along
Lecture Three Notes 1 Hour 36 Minutes 58 Seconds Link to other lectures of the series: kzhead.info/channel/PL8DarU8p0CpeH0FZwIdq6jiMXAa_dsb1E.html Minutes 1-10: - The professor discusses what will be on the midterm/final and states the specific chapters and passages that need to be read are specified on the handout that was passed out in the last class. - Next the professor reviews the major points of the last lecture. The major point being inevitable logic and how it is based off the building blocks of individual selection, kin selection and cooperative altruism. - The professor then notes the patterns of inevitable logic that have been identified in tournament and pair bonding species (and continues to do so for the first sixty minutes of class) 7:55 Minutes 11-20: - The professor reports that the work done on Lauinger monkeys by Sara Hrdy in the 1970’s identified that humans are not the only species to kill or commit infanticide. Infanticide is the killing of an infant before its first year of life is fulfilled. The professor clarifies that these murders have a pattern. - The professor specifies patterns are that the murderers tend to be males and the prey murdered by the males are most often children of other males and that these murders are committed in an attempt to enhance their chances to pass on their genes. Therefore, these animals were working from the standpoint of individual selection. A few animals that follow these patterns are mountain gorillas, lions, and various species of monkeys (such as Langer monkeys, Vervet monkeys and Pygmy monkeys) - The professor then gives additional examples of how other species (horses 19:18 and rodents 19:37) practice infanticide. Minutes 21-30: - The professor gives additional examples of how varies species practice inevitable logic and its building blocks. Langer Monkeys 22:20 and Savannah Baboons 26:50. Minutes 31-40: - The professor discusses sex ratio fluctuations as it pertains to individual selection and social context 31:36 The example the professor provides primarily states that having a daughter is a Conservative Strategy because a daughter is less calorically taxing. Thus, females are born in times of high vulnerability. Having a male is physically more taxing which typically results in only high-ranking species taking the hit to produce a male because it is not a Conservative Strategy it is a Risky Strategy. - The professor discusses role of kinship amongst various species and how polyandry and adelphic polyandry may be present in these roles. 36:50 (The specific example given is in lion prides and humans. When there are two male leaders of a lion’s pride it is usually adelphic polyamory. That is the two leaders are brother’s aka adelphic polyamory. In humans this can be seen when one woman marries a multitude of brothers. Adelphic polyandry amongst humans usually occurs in agriculturally impoverished areas. The logic of why humans and lions practice adelphic polyandry are the same. The logic is kin selection. It is to increase the chances of passing down genetic coding.) Minutes 41-50: - The professor briefly discusses intersexual competition as it pertains to individual selection 41:53 - The professor discusses imprinted genes (a concept developed in the 1990’s) and reproductive strategies of imprinted genetic mechanisms regarding individual selection 43:09 (Methylation is the genetic mechanism that causes imprinted genes. In simpler terms Methylation is what makes genes work differently ergo imprinted genes. Imprinted genes work differently depending on which parent they come from. Imprinted genes from males usually are all genes that enhance fetal growth by making receptors more sensitive to insulin like growth factor. Imprinted genes that come from females are all usually genes that slow down genes that decrease fetal growth by making receptors less likely to find insulin like growth factor.) - The professor highlights that a lot of the of imprinted genetic mechanisms used between partners are destructive to the reproductive longevity of the females in that partnership. 47:45 Minutes 51-60: - The professor clarifies you do not find imprinted genes in pair bonding species. Imprinted genes are found in tournament species and those that fall in a category of a hybrid between tournament and pair bonding species aka humans. - The professor addresses research done by William Rice of Santa Cruz on the sperm competition amongst flies. Sperm of certain flies kill sperms of other males. However, the toxins of the sperm are also toxic to the female flies in which they are ejaculating in. House flies are not a pair bonding species so this makes sense from an investable logic point of view. 52:22 - The professors introduce the concept of an animal leaving its initial community at puberty. Specifically, he discusses how in the chimp species females leave and in baboons males disperse at puberty. Therefor the males of chimp groups are all brothers and the females of baboons are all sisters. - The professor then asks, based on this information which species have more male on male aggression, chimps, or baboons? The answer is Baboons. The next question is which species have more advanced and productive war patterns. The answer is chimps. This is because there is more kinship in chimps than baboons. 56:05 Minutes 61-70: - So the professor spent the first sixty minutes of class discussing different scenarios in which the building block of inevitable logic comes into play, now, the professor attests that group selection (behaving for the good of the group) also comes into play within the world of inevitable logic but only under a few circumstances. Those circumstances include the Founder Effect and a more Generalized Founder Effect - The professor begins to discuss the Founder Affect. 1:00:32 The Founder Effect= Something happens that isolates a small subset of a population. The sections go about reproducing and the population with less people will be more inbred. Levels of corporation will be higher in the group with more inbred occurrence. So, there is a high level of corporation due to kin selection. The high productivity of the small subset of people develops is so advantages that that behavior turns into an adaptable gene which enters the major population. To put it simply, the mass productivity amongst the inbred founder population drives larger populations to cooperative altruism in order to try to become equally if not more so productive. - The professor then begins to discuss A Second Scenario in which group selection can come into play. 1:07:44 Generalized Founder Effect = You have got chickens with an array of traits one aggressive chicken lays a lot of eggs and one pacific chicken lays little eggs. The aggressive chicken lays a lot of eggs that produce babies and the passive chickens do not. This results in a lot of aggressive chickens that attack each other. This leads to low fertility rates amongst the aggressive subset of chickens. So now we are in this very important world where figuratively “group A can dominate group B but where groups of B will dominate groups of A.” So the group of aggressive chickens could together take out the pacific chickens, bust individually isolated from the other group the aggressive group of chickens (group A) would likely kill each other off leaving the passive group of chickens alive and ready to pass on their genes. Minutes 71-80: - The professor addresses the work of David Sloan Wilson “Darwin’s Cathedral” where he analyzes clusters of new religion over time and highlights how they are based in the found effect, group selection like properties and inbred cooperative strategies. - The professor begins to discuss Multi-Level Selection 1:11:09 Multi-Level Selection = Sometime selection is entirely dependent on one gene. - The professor moves on to discuss that when predicting behavior remember that social behavior is dictated by acting in whatever way one must in order to maximize the potential in passing down there gene which may be thwarted by kin selection and then by cooperative altruism and at times (but rarely group selection). - The professor then goes about addressing the popular criticisms given to the tenants he just stated/listed above. The criticisms negating the primary tenants of inevitable logic which are as follows: heritability, adaptiveness, and gradualism. Minutes 81-90: - The professor addresses the criticism against heritability 1:20:08 - The professor addresses the criticism against adaptiveness and discusses adaptative fallacy 1:20:35 The professor addresses the criticism of adaptiveness by Steven Jay Gould (Harvard Paleontologist) and Richard Luyeton (Harvard molecular geneticist). The two Harvard men said that behavior did not adapt because of adaptiveness but because they are spandrels. Spandrels are the unavoidable spaces between arches. So, the two Harvard men were essentially saying that some developed behavior has no explanation, it is just there. - The professor addresses the criticism against gradualism 1:30: 22 Minutes 91-106: - The professor addresses punctuated equilibrium. 1:31:08 Punctuated Equilibrium = The argument that there can be moments of stagnancy followed by great change with no gradual nature present aka “the hypothesis that evolutionary development is marked by isolated episodes of rapid speciation between long periods of little or no change.” - The professor clarifies who the harshest critics of this theory really are 1:33:38 - The professor clarifies that although there are a lot of hot takes on why inevitable logic is wrong the most popular criticism is that is justifies immoral behavior.
THANK YOU
Good looking out!
Thank you
thank u
Brilliant notetaking! It really helped me solidify multiple understandings of the video. Thank you super much! :)!
This happened a decade ago and this information is still so damn relevant and he is so well spoken. It induces genuine interest and attention.
I'm very grateful to both Stanford and Dr. Sapolsky for making this publicly available. Dr. Sapolsky's lecture style is amazing. I'm hooked! Kudos!
*Professor
Dude, those last 10 minutes were intense.
Ironic that the Communist Manifesto is all about cooperation but is responsible for the genocide of millions and capitalism is all about competition but gets massively regulated because they get along a little too well...
@@Theodore042 Claiming the Communist Manifesto is responsible for killing millions is like claiming a Marilyn Manson song was responsible for the Columbine shootings.
@@Theodore042 Ironic, that capitalism is all about competition and during installation of free competetion without any limitations like aristacrasy there were millions of people killed and probably the same amount of death in % from population, like during socialist implementation try. Hmmm.
@@Reality4Peace If you read the communist manifesto, it is all about putting the state in control of the supply of labor, what that labor produces, what produced goods that labor gets.... the Communist Manifesto just describes the most complete form of totalitarianism. Its very different from what normal people think of when they hear the word "communism," which colloquially just means a bunch of people sharing their means of production (tools and labor) so they can sustain themselves on a piece of farmland. (See: hippies)
@@Theodore042 No.
His calm demeanor is so comforting in the academic field
I just finished the third lecture in 3 days, understood every single point, I have taken soo many notes, learnt them by heart, whats amazing is that i am going to finish all lectures and hopefully understand everything- what a privilege it is to have these videos, sapolski is a legend
Wow, I only looked him up because I purchased his new book and since I can't get enough of him..I love his interdisciplinary critical realist approach. Thanks ever so much for sharing his amazing lectures.
Interdisciplinary critical realist approach 😃well said
Jesus, my French final is tmrw and haven't started reviewing in because I have been binge watching this, I can't put this down
Im sorry dude, for your excellent taste that is..
+Carol Chen Same problem here!
hahaha
Well, the internet is for porn, nazi.
haha. how did it go?
This is the best thing about Internet , knowledge seekers like us will be forever grateful to Standford and Professor. You have no idea how you r changing the lives of people across globe. Love from India🙏
I am appalled on how many subtle and amazing jokes and irony this man made that were not caught by the audience, in part 1 and 2 as well. All in all, this is amazing , I would have sold my soul to have such a teacher in my Uni years. He is one of a kind. Presence, discourse, likability, and of course out of this world knowledge.
'Idk what happened...they arranged marriage between their grandchildren,... ,they love each other,they constituded a new language togeher,they share burial customs...'
Be careful selling your soul Milli. Typically the trade off to having these fabulous lecturers is the massive amount of work they justify loading on you. The amount of work he was talking in Behavioral Ev 1 was more than I could accomplish in a single semester if I took any other classes.
"Humans have chins. Apparently all humans have chins hidden away in some place or another"
milicici they got it but this isn’t a comedy club. It’s their class were they need to hear everything he is saying. If they constantly laugh then they can’t hear. The lecturer is only making the lecture humorous but he is not trying to crack people up. People can control themselves, you know.
I think you think that they don't catch the jokes because you don't hear them and don't see them. Moreover, it's common courtesy not to make noise during lectures. If you gave mics to the students and pointed the camera to them, I predict you'd see way more silent laughter and smiles.
I'm a brazilian with access to Stanford university lectures, I feel privileged.
I am German and I feel privileged with my 500€/term tuition working if I get into exchanges (including to the USA), this lecture beyond my own university ones is just to brag in philosophy class 😉
Also german. I really appreciate the cc-subtitles. With them I can get every word. Great. I will be able to talk with my daughter. She is studying psychology.
I'm mexican, wich means that my problabilities to someday go to stanford are practically zero, that's what I'm grateful that i can take this class for free :)
His beard has its own class at harvard advanced beardonomics
That or Beard Behavioural Biology
@@jmacdonald6195 or Beardotionary Psychology
These lectures are addicting. No feeling matches the power you feel when you're armed with new knowledge!
You put that feeling so well!
How could you possibly take notes in a class like this? This guy is just an endless stream of interesting knowledge.
Right?!?!? I’d have to literally record every lecture!!
This is absolutely fascinating. Putting this on youtube makes the world a better place, thank you.
"Whoa, what a guy!"
// , What part of the lecture was that from?
@@NateB The part that he's explaining pseudo-ovulation.
@@NateB 24:30
It’s incredible that I, an Indiana core maker, can learn about behavioral evolution from a Stanford professor all while I work. This is truly the Information age.
"Calvin and his sidekick Hobbs..." I very much appreciate how seamlessly the small little winks are woven into these already very interesting and entertaining lectures!!!
18:02 Glad to say that there are currently 1000 estimated mountain gorillas in the wild today, as of december 202O. Go conservation!
Thank you so much Stanford University for this amazing opportunity, and prof. Sapolsky for making such an enjoyable lecture series.
This is the BEST Professor on KZhead because of his brilliance, humor and knowledge. Human Behavior is mostly ignored in all societies. Is it not?
Came for the knowledge, stayed for the B E A R D
This is the most interesting lecture I've had in years thanks Stanford for sharing this, much obliged
I feel so privealged to watch this for free. He's an amazing lecturer and what I appreciate most is how fluid he's explaining such a complex subject in a digestible way. Incredible!
if you are binging this, he stops summarising last lecture at 11:57
Algorithm boost!
this was recommenced for me for quite some time and corona made me watch it. omg. I am a master student and I have seen good lectures, by all means. Specially in the masters, professors are super excited to share their knowledge (not just the boring basics) and are soo into it. but even compared to the professors who I adore and love and learned so much from, Mr Prof Sapolsky is taking to another level! Thanks so much, Standord!
The lecture starts @3:14
The real mvp
@ss i know right, some people....
@SS shut the fuck up, 3 minutes over a million people... 3 minutes times 1 million converted to hours is 50,000 hours which is over 2083 days with 365 days in a year... thats years and years... parasitic on humanity that 3 minutes you dumb asses... im not even including the 14 seconds...
Thanks for saving hundreds of decades of life across the world and even the universe. Thank you! I used my 3 minutes and 14 seconds to come to the point of making this comment, so it's been nullified in all actuality. FUCK YOU!
@@MrKillerpumpkin Bullshit, 3 minutes are 3 minutes, it's not like people have to wait for each other to finish those minutes.
Such a great professor. I could just listen to him all day.
Same - I have zero professional need for this knowledge but damn, does Professor Sapolsky ever make it interesting!
I'm studying human behavioral biology at Stanford
Give me the scientific arguments for a global direct democracy please, lol.
1:14:07 : I wish Jordan Peterson would've taken this class before writing about how about lobster society determines our hierarchical structures
Form and content at their best in the classroom. My interest in biology is near nil and I always hated behavioural studies. But this is quite a different level of teaching and I cannot get enough of this lecture series. my alternative was watching the next episode of the crown but this guy here is even more fascinating.
ON SAPOLSKY'S VERY SPECIAL SPEAKING STYLE - 790 words, April 23d, 2022 What impresses most listeners first about Sapolsky, even more than his messianic beard, is his passionate speaking style, like a speeding locomotive rushing towards some goal. This is never small talk, but an interrupted flow of statements, citations of facts, constantly referring to what he calls “the literature”, the sum of published papers in the scentific journals related to his topic. He sounds as if he never pauses to catch his breath, even though he does, quite imperceptibly, and does not seem to need to prepare in his mind his next sentence (unlike for instance Obama). This continuous flow of speech is mind-boggling. He is not acting as if he were following a set text that had become intimately mastered for having been repeated year after year. His method is a bit freer. He just needs to grab a key word, a concept, a fact, and that single lead is enough to set him off into a non-stop discussion of the point for as long as he has time. And those lead concepts are all spelled out in the notes spread in front of him on the desk. He needs a simple glance from afar to end the current point with a resonant "OK" and launch the new segment. He knows the whole extent of each point, and all the related tangents, so well that he can freely let his mind navigate in multiple directions and tangents in that vast territory without losing the thread of his destination and without having to control or edit what comes next. A few times, he realizes he is drifting too far afield, catches himself, and switches directions. But this self-correction is nearly instantaneous, a second or two. He is more like a geyser, or a torrent, than a river. His speech is not so much a flow as a continuous eruption, with many branches that all return to the point.. And I think there’s more to it than just being thoroughly familiar with his subject, or even an ease due to repeating the same points year after year. Beyond knowledge and memory, I suspect there’s a neural engine in his brain that sets his speech into motion with enough energy to go on for one or two hours without taking a break. And this engine does not start in first gear, but in fourth. The source of this energy is a personal neurological trait distinct from memory. Watch Barack Obama, who also knows his subject very well, and rehashes the same points of his intellectual life over and over during his public career. However, at the opposite of Sapolsky, Obama mentions a fact, an idea, and then stops, letting it sink, while surveying his audience to judge if they are imbibing his words, and appreciate their weight. It is not that Obama is hesitating, not at all. Like Sapolsky, Obama knows very well what target he is aiming at, but he takes his time. The mountain is there and he knows exactly how to climb it, and all the ways that get to the summit. But he is not in a hurry to speed towards his goal. Whereas Sapolky is driven by his inner engine to rush forward at full speed, as if subject to a mental force that keeps accelerating his output. This is an unstoppably driving engine that Obama does not have, and does not need. I have watched Sapolsky’s 25 lectures of this Stanford Un. course twice, with some lectures more than twice. I have also watched most of the seminars given to the public and posted on KZhead, and some more than once. The same mental engine is at work in every one of his oral deliveries. At some point when he was starting to adib on his subject, he murmured to himself, “I’ll stop now because I feel a coming”, that is, he is feeling his engine continuing to spin on its own, and is concerned about getting carried by this engine too far, too long considering the time allotted to his presentation . At some point I’ll come across that moment again and will note exactly the word he used. All this to say that Sapolsky’s very idiosyncratic style is not just due to his intimate knowledge of his subject, which he has mastered without any doubt like any expert does, but to a special, personal brain trait which I compare here to a kind of spontaneous speeding engine that just needs to be jump started. Sapolsky must know the neurobiological description of his own trait and which parts of the brain are involved. This should be the object of a special investigation: What is the neurobiology of Sapolsky's own brain?
I have listened yesterday the 1st part, today I have scheduled this 2nd one. Congratulations. I have learned so much on these classes and the style of speech, and keeping the audience focused by many small jokes. Sincerely, MD dr. Dávid Cs. L.
This lectures are gold. His teaching is so incredible - almost like narrating a story.
I love listening to Sapolsky. First saw him in a documentary, 'Stress, Portrait of a Killer', and then came across these lectures. I am not in the field but have always had a fascination with watching and analyzing animal behavior. I have been listening to these while working and am going to read the books he suggests. Hmm...maybe I should go back to school...
+Jim Battersbee Just bought Chaos, Cheers
I hope I’m not coming to conclusions here but even though this fella looks identical to my brother, he is the dark side of the Force. Maybe? I don’t know. My brother is an evolutionary biologist as well, in fact he helped to initiate the program out west in either Eugene or Seattle, can’t remember which school as he went to both, and my brothers talks are intense as well but his doppleganger right here has a twinge of dark! Which is fine, the world needs all kinds. I can’t get over the fact that my bro looks just like this guy! My bro is the kindest person you could ever meet and is burnt out on science. He is currently trying to re-wire his brain and once he feels better he has the potential to help the world because that is what he would do if he could
not me actually failling my exams but going through 3lectures of human behaviourial biology in a row and loving it
This is 10 years old and I have looked forward to this video all week. Hope you are well, Professor Sapolsky.
I wish they hadn't cut the ending off so abruptly :(
Watching this series through for the second time. :) Just as enjoyable as the first time. I'm so happy that these lectures are available online.
I love how he always brings in National geographics to the discussion XD
I love how well thought out and balanced his lectures are. He presents a logical idea and then disembodies it with the opposing critique. This emphasizes the notion that he brought up earlier that behavior is enormously complex and cannot be explained by single phenomena. This principle branches out to so many human behaviors...racism, generalizations, preconceived notions, judgement of others, etc that plague our society. These are all factors of what I consider primitive cause-and-effect, correlation without causation brands of human thinking and not taking into account that the individual is not capable of such deductive thinking based off the information at hand.
Nothing like getting back from a hard day at school and watching school
The last 5 mins were at least mind boggling. Thanks for the free lectures Stanford!
Stumbled on this by accident and was about to move on, but couldn't. I became transfixed with the content, and by his tone and delivery. Excellent, relevant, very interesting. Thanks for this. I'm going to go back and watch the videos leading up to this one.
another comment in the first part of this lecture said this is binge-able and they’re so right. he even has the call backs to things that came up before, the foreshadowing to things that’ll come up later, and the amazing cliffhanger at the end of an episode that makes you want to go straight in to the lecture. amazing
Wow, what a great man and professor, what a detailed info on what to focus on regarding exams. This is how university should be, educative, inspiring, encouraging studying and evolutionary thinking. Deeply grateful for this lecture!
Holy Bill Waterson,nobody in that class got the Calvin and Hobbes joke!
It had me cracking up!
Well in addition to the great comic strip, there really were historical Calvin and Hobbes ... "Both Calvin and Hobbes are named for historical figures.As any undergraduate philosophy student will know, Hobbes is named for Thomas Hobbes, who’s best known for his weighty 1651 treatise Leviathan. Calvin, meanwhile, takes his name from John Calvin, the cheerless Protestant theologian responsible for founding the strand of Christianity that now bears his name. Neither were particularly big on people in general; Leviathan argued for government as necessary to prevent humanity from descending into endless anarchy, while Calvinism is based around the idea of humanity’s base state being “total depravity.”"
@Jay L i can't tell if you're having a stroke or if you're having an orgasm on the thought of killing infants
I recently had an eye surgery, so I cannot even look at the screen, and yet could not resist listening to your lecture, Thank you.
This year I’m taking lecture courses at Stanford and Yale. Life is good.
Wow!! This guy is a TERRIFIC lecturer!! He knows his stuff so well that he can just stand and deliver without any notes at all and without even pausing for breath!! Fascinating subject. Thank you to Stanford U.
I'm so happy that these got posted. I love learning about stuff like this!!
Sapolsky is such a fantastic teacher and lecturer. I am hooked. I have not ever found anything so fascinating and completely agree with other comments that Netflix has nothing as binge-worthy. Thanks Dr Sapolsky and Stanford for making this available to all.
I like this professor a lot! His communication style is exemplary!
I wish all lecturers made thier stuff available so anyone has access to Learning.
Can I just watch these kinds of videos for a living
I am a 72 yo. I find this subject fascinating . Makes a lot of sense. I just downloaded his book Behave which was written maybe 5+ years after this lecture series. I am looking forward to the new discoveries and his analysis.
It's rare that someone who knows so much is also so good at explaining what they know so well to others. I started watching this 2 weeks ago and have now watched perhaps 30 hours.
i paused so many times just to let it all fall in to place.and I’m still pausing
During the last ten minutes, I have been thinking of the sociopolitical implications of the lecture. Dr. Sapolsky did not disappoint.
fucker does not pull punches. he just gives it to you, it is complicated, we look at it with diligence. what a man
I like how his lectures get Dark and sexual mixed wity humor and rationally.. as an instructor , he is a Master teacher! Keeping you intrigued while giving so much knowledge in such little time.. amazing
I plan to watch all his lectures on KZhead. Sapolsky makes the subject matter interesting and easy to understand.
another great lecture as a whole -- esp everything from 1:13:00 onwards is insanely packed with deep knowledge and insight. great stuff
1:27:00 There was a theory where the size of the Kiwi's eggs were a spandrel. For those who don't know, kiwi's eggs are the biggest in terms of relative body ratio with mother. If you look at the egg inside a kiwi, it is so hard to imagine all the other vital organs fitting there. (About 20% to 25% of the mother body weight). Some might argue that the explanation for these enormous eggs were a family heritage. The family of kiwi is the same as ostriches, Emu, Ema, etc.. so, maybe, they "shrank" to be more adaptable for their Island environment, and maybe the egg is more of a heritage than an adaptation . Of course, there are some advantages, like how developed the newborn is. But is so much investment for breeding, it becomes really problematic when you are trying to repopulate a species to take them out of risk of extinction.
I grew up on PBS and Marlon Perkins . I brought home a dozen books from the library every week when I was young but if I had the internet and Stanford lectures and all of the education available for free when I was young ,, I would have ate this up, played repeatedly until I could quote it paragraph by paragraph until I understood every bit and who knows where I might have gone . I hope that there are kids today actually studying and gaining knowledge and not just taking selfies & tik toks and planning their LOOK AT ME life plans.
This is gold. Pure gold. Can't express my gratitude. This is better and more entertaining than any documentary.
cant believe how much good stuff you can find on the internet
Every evolution biologist should have a Darwin beard.
+RagHelen i'm already growing mine. damn genetics won't allow it to grow to his length though.
+RagHelen i'm growing mine too. But i'm not even a biologist, so now i'm just looking like a homeless guy...
Rica Pancita damn genetics i also look like a mix between a homeless guy and a fanatic Islamist.
that's funny cause Darwin only had sideburns for most of his adult life, and only as he got old he went full bearded. I wonder if it had something to do with accepting what genetics manifest in our male bodies.
someone tell Dawkins to quit shaving... lol
This guy is such an awesome speaker, he’s knowledgeable and has a good sense of humour, makes difficult topics super simple
Ty for setting the tone in the beginning of class. I think its important to point out what we want to discuss and understan the end of this. Thank you again ill try to post my comments to this.
1:05:48 I listened to this and I suddenly understood that he's talking about "familism", "amoral familism" (which is typical of Italian Mafia families) and "corruption". All these concepts have "reciprocal altruism" in them (beyond good or bad meaning).
Thank you for making these lectures accessible to the public. My son and I are learning quite a bit from them.
I read a comment up above in the comment section "I can't afford college, but I can't afford to be ignorant either." Hopefully one day we'll stop warring with one another and educate the hell out of everyone.
This is the simplest yet the most brilliant way of explaining imprinted genes
You can tell how well he understands the material by how simply he explains it. Great mind.
my god, i'm tempted to skip out on my own classes so i can binge this
I'm really enjoying. This makes you rethink everything. History, culture, emotions, languages... System thinking rules.
This is one gem that deserves millions of views man, thanks for uploading this
It is my duty to thank Stanford and this magnificent guy Robert Sapolsky these incredibly good lectures. Thank you very much.
Thanks for uploading and making all these priceless lectures available for all of us to see, I'm watching them from Mogadishu, Somalia..
Awesome, and I'm glad the wifi in Mogadishu is good enough to make that possible!
Whoa! What a great lecture, that last bit was a twist I wasn't expecting.
Bless the camera man - Great lecture had me engaged all along - moving the camera every time the professor moved
This one was incredible -- I have no idea how I didn't watch this lecture series within the past 10 years it was released but wow. I'd love nothing more than to get an updated version with new research added into it
thank you for posting on youtube. youre a fantastic teacher! and im really enjoying your lectures for free :D