Neuroscience & Biology
1957 - Present
Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist and professor at Stanford University. He has spent decades studying stress in primates and humans, leading to profound insights about the biological basis of behavior.
Free will is an illusion - behavior emerges from biology, environment, and history interacting across timescales from milliseconds to millennia.
His definitive argument against free will, synthesizing neuroscience, genetics, and evolutionary biology.
Explores how context shapes behavior from seconds before an action to evolutionary timescales.
Groundbreaking work on stress and its effects on the body and brain.
"Show me the brain scan, show me the genes, show me the childhood, show me the culture, and I'll show you the behavior."
— Determined
"We are not the captain of our ship; we are the ship."
— Lecture