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A review by greden
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky
4.0
This book puzzled me. Is the scientist-lord Robert Sapolsky on an unholy crusade, chopping the head off all superstition in sight with the sword of double-blind peer-reviewed studies? On a quest to raise the flag of objectivity, capturing the Holy city, obtaining world-peace, manifest the platonic form of justice and save humanity?
Or was he like, "Hey, check out these cool things, I dunno what this implies, but hey, facts are cool!"
Sapolsky seems a little doubtful that science is the answer, but, he holds strong beliefs that science will, and shows that have made an impact on the way we act.
So maybe a mix of both.
The book examines what causes us to behave bad and good. Sapolsky emphasises looking at behaviour through multiple "buckets" - To understand behaviour through one scientific field is insufficient. Looking at human behaviour through a very specialised lens has detrimental effects. This book provides an excellent bird's eye view of a wide range of disciples in biology to understand human behaviour. Sapolsky shows a remarkably detailed understanding of many different fields and is unbelievably objective, providing counter-arguments and re-interpretations of many studies and theories.
I often found myself in the following scenario:
Sapolsky: "Here's a study that proved X!"
Me: "Wow, that's intere..."
Sapolsky: "BUT THEY DIDN'T TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT!"
Me: "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?"
One of the most meaningful lessons I've got from Sapolsky is that results from studies can be interpreted and phrased in so many ways that it's a good idea to take everything with a grain of salt.
So, Sapolsky is not married to any discipline within biology; he also makes it clear that biology is not the only branch of science in which to understand behaviour. But he must draw the line must somewhere, Sapolsky is not interested in understanding behaviour outside the meta-bucket of science. It's not at all reasonable to demand a broader scope of this book, but it seems like Sapolsky is taunting and dismissive of any way of interpreting the world outside the scientific framework.
It's challenging to appreciate non-scientific ways of interpreting the world. "Non-scientific" is used as an insult after all.
The problem of dismissing non-scientific ways of understanding behaviour is that our understanding will be limited by what we can measure. The scientific framework can lead to premature rejections of particular interpretation due to the lack of technology to measure it. Or because the interpretation in its nature is tricky to measure, quantify or replicate, leading to a sense of "objective truth" shaped by our technology and the scientific-standard that it can shape our values in ways that lead to behaviour that isn't necessarily the most useful.
Sapolsky made all sorts of disclaimers, but not this one. Is questioning the power of science if sacrilege? He admits somewhere near the middle, that "Nietzsche" was just some name of a philosopher he googled. Ah. Rude.
Sapolsky is well-connected and has an army of graduate students to make sure everything's airtight. However, with the massive amount of studies referenced, it is only reasonable to expect that some might be a little off.
Considering how central the idea of "Us vs Them" was to message of the book, and one of the corner-stones of that idea is the "Automatic race-face amygdala response" study, I wish Sapolsky presented a similar level of scrutiny to this study like the others.
The study gives us a bleak image of the world, implying that people are implicitly racist, fitting the "Us/Them" narrative in this book. The only variant of the study presented was on American white people judging blacks. I think Sapolsky would have suggested a different conclusion had he taken into account the variations of the study. In one variation, black men were the subjects, who displayed an automatic amygdala response toward men of their race, but in a smaller degree toward white men. Although this finding has its complications, it leaves for optimism that we can defeat racism because we are not hardwired to dislike those of a contrasting skin-colour. I find it odd that Sapolsky did not discuss if it is merely the different skin-tone that activates the amygdala. I don't mean to be the tinfoil hat guy here, but I must admit I think the only reason why this mistake got through is by the white guilt in Sapolsky's academic circle. I might be entirely wrong, but considering how Sapolsky repeated the study in many of the chapters and the brevity of its original discussion, I wonder if he presented this in thoroughly good faith.
In conclusion, it’s an impressive book, Sapolsky presented the science in an objective and well-researched fashion, but of course, not perfect. Not to mention Sapolsky has aa witty sense of humour and he is so on top of his game he allows himself to be self-deprecating presenting science. It's not often you see that.
Or was he like, "Hey, check out these cool things, I dunno what this implies, but hey, facts are cool!"
Sapolsky seems a little doubtful that science is the answer, but, he holds strong beliefs that science will, and shows that have made an impact on the way we act.
So maybe a mix of both.
The book examines what causes us to behave bad and good. Sapolsky emphasises looking at behaviour through multiple "buckets" - To understand behaviour through one scientific field is insufficient. Looking at human behaviour through a very specialised lens has detrimental effects. This book provides an excellent bird's eye view of a wide range of disciples in biology to understand human behaviour. Sapolsky shows a remarkably detailed understanding of many different fields and is unbelievably objective, providing counter-arguments and re-interpretations of many studies and theories.
I often found myself in the following scenario:
Sapolsky: "Here's a study that proved X!"
Me: "Wow, that's intere..."
Sapolsky: "BUT THEY DIDN'T TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT!"
Me: "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?"
One of the most meaningful lessons I've got from Sapolsky is that results from studies can be interpreted and phrased in so many ways that it's a good idea to take everything with a grain of salt.
So, Sapolsky is not married to any discipline within biology; he also makes it clear that biology is not the only branch of science in which to understand behaviour. But he must draw the line must somewhere, Sapolsky is not interested in understanding behaviour outside the meta-bucket of science. It's not at all reasonable to demand a broader scope of this book, but it seems like Sapolsky is taunting and dismissive of any way of interpreting the world outside the scientific framework.
It's challenging to appreciate non-scientific ways of interpreting the world. "Non-scientific" is used as an insult after all.
The problem of dismissing non-scientific ways of understanding behaviour is that our understanding will be limited by what we can measure. The scientific framework can lead to premature rejections of particular interpretation due to the lack of technology to measure it. Or because the interpretation in its nature is tricky to measure, quantify or replicate, leading to a sense of "objective truth" shaped by our technology and the scientific-standard that it can shape our values in ways that lead to behaviour that isn't necessarily the most useful.
Sapolsky made all sorts of disclaimers, but not this one. Is questioning the power of science if sacrilege? He admits somewhere near the middle, that "Nietzsche" was just some name of a philosopher he googled. Ah. Rude.
Sapolsky is well-connected and has an army of graduate students to make sure everything's airtight. However, with the massive amount of studies referenced, it is only reasonable to expect that some might be a little off.
Considering how central the idea of "Us vs Them" was to message of the book, and one of the corner-stones of that idea is the "Automatic race-face amygdala response" study, I wish Sapolsky presented a similar level of scrutiny to this study like the others.
The study gives us a bleak image of the world, implying that people are implicitly racist, fitting the "Us/Them" narrative in this book. The only variant of the study presented was on American white people judging blacks. I think Sapolsky would have suggested a different conclusion had he taken into account the variations of the study. In one variation, black men were the subjects, who displayed an automatic amygdala response toward men of their race, but in a smaller degree toward white men. Although this finding has its complications, it leaves for optimism that we can defeat racism because we are not hardwired to dislike those of a contrasting skin-colour. I find it odd that Sapolsky did not discuss if it is merely the different skin-tone that activates the amygdala. I don't mean to be the tinfoil hat guy here, but I must admit I think the only reason why this mistake got through is by the white guilt in Sapolsky's academic circle. I might be entirely wrong, but considering how Sapolsky repeated the study in many of the chapters and the brevity of its original discussion, I wonder if he presented this in thoroughly good faith.
In conclusion, it’s an impressive book, Sapolsky presented the science in an objective and well-researched fashion, but of course, not perfect. Not to mention Sapolsky has aa witty sense of humour and he is so on top of his game he allows himself to be self-deprecating presenting science. It's not often you see that.