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1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology

Stanford

2.2M subscribers • 7 videos on Rounds

YouTube
  • Recommended by 15 people, in Hacker News, across 15 different months.
  • Presented by Robert Sapolsky, Stanford professor, as the video describes them

Assumes interest and some biology. Education, not medical advice.

20M views15 years ago15 recommendations

Brain and nervesMental healthNeuroscienceGenetics and genomicsPhysiology

Robert Sapolsky introduces his Stanford course on human behavioral biology, explaining how to avoid categorical thinking when studying behavior.

(March 29, 2010) Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky gave the opening lecture of the course entitled Human Behavioral Biology and explains the basic premise of the course and how he aims to avoid categorical thinking. Stanford University stanford.edu Stanford Department of Biology biology.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Channel on YouTube youtube.com/stanford

Why it's here

15 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an engaging and accessible lecture series on the biological underpinnings of human behavior.

super_marioin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Iterated prisoner's dilemma contains evolutionary opponent dominating strategies”

That's well known if you ever took evolutionary biology course, or game theory course. Even popular books like Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" talk in some detail about it, and this 25 hour video course is also a must see for pretty much everyone: link to this video

ehsanu1in Hacker News • Recommends

On “What Darwin's Theory of Evolution Reveals About Artificial Intelligence”

…arly) lead to the existence of "appropriate" organisms and features. But I think knowing some of the actual details in how evolution works at all the different levels (molecular bio, epigenetics, competition/cooperation, behavior, etc, etc, etc) serves as an even better explanation. Here's a 25 lecture course from Stanford that explains just that: link to this video…

ploomansin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Robert Sapolsky talks turbulence – teens, stress, and the information age”

BTW, you should watch his lecture series on the biology of behaviour: link to this video For me one of the best teachers you will find online

daodedickinsonin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Study of Holocaust survivors finds trauma passed on to children's genes”

There are definitely known links between psychology and genes; we know the epigenetics behind why if mothers are stressed when pregnant, their children will be more stressed for their entire lives. Far too many people still have the Jurassic Park view of DNA and believe in Central Dogma—but it has become clear that environment and all sorts of post-conception events effect genetics. Dr. Sapolsky, in this lecture series, explains, for just one example, how and why Lamarckian evolution sometimes occurs: link to this video

guzmanovichin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: What's the most useful online course you have watched?”

Robert Sapolsky`s lectures on human behavioral biology. Fascinating, funny and gives insights into many different topics like cultural differences and nationalism. link to this video

Frozenlockin Hacker News • Recommends

On “The Real Problem with Facebook and the News”

…me people are wired in a way that makes it very difficult for them to refuse a cookie now in exchange for two cookies later. So it's not necessarily that you are making a greater effort; you might be born in a way that makes it easier for you for delay gratification. I would recommend the complete playlist to anyone here. It is simply fascinating. link to this video Second, the psychology professor Jordan B Peterson ( link ) teaches how an amazing predictor of success IQ is. You can see a little of what he has to say here: link Then I learned how IQ is highly correlated to genetics (from 0.75 to 0.8). By the way, for you parents, this means that you might not be as good tut…

yesenadamin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2017?”

Try Sapolsky's incredible 25-or-so-part online lectures on Biology of Human Behavior. A great lecturer on a most fascinating subject, it's accessible to a general audience. Covers the topic on all different levels, scales, approaches, from evolutionary psychology to the minutiae of brains and genes, with a lot of stories about the discoveries and researchers involved, and jokes, he's a funny guy. Best course I've ever done. Part 1: link to this video

jmcqk6in Hacker News • Recommends

On “Online activists are silencing us, scientists say”

If people are interested in exploring this topic, I would highly recommend Robert Sapolsky's course "Human Behavioral Biology" from stanford. The lectures are all available on YouTube and I learned so much from them: link to this video

mrdoopsin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: How do you keep your programming motivation up?”

Trial and error as a programmer dealing with depression and anxiety accounts for a lot, but for resources I'd point you to Robert Sapolsky's lectures on Behavioral Biology (here: link to this video ). Sapolsky's lectures are great for getting a Biology perspective to how human's operate. Jordan Peterson's has lectures on Personality (here: link ) which are also great and echo similar ideas from a Psychology perspective.

i2sharin Hacker News • Recommends

On “What men eat and drink may affect their babies’ health”

Also, the initial few lectures from Robert Sapolsky's lecture series1 were an eyeopener for me. The exact mechanism of how environment affects epigenetics (transcription factors, etc.) was really fascinating! 1 link to this video

eastendguyin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Dear Mom and Dad, please stick with me (2020)”

This blog post is low quality marketing/SEO copy and paste. But the topic itself is very interesting. High-quality lecture series around the same topic (Human Behavioral Biology) link to this video

nomilkin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've ever seen?”

Bob Sapolsky's Stanford Biology lecture series is... amazing. A rare combination of both extremely important and extremely interesting. If you watch just 3 or 4 minutes, you'll struggle to stop watching. link to this video

zer00eyzin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Psychedelic brew ayahuasca’s profound impact revealed in brain scans”

> - I got more confrontational which almost got me into fights, but also got me laid These systems are likely deeply tangled up in your biology. Robert Sapolsky has a Stanford lecture series on this: link to this video Well worth a watch!

culiin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Harvard: The Effects of Noise on Health”

…al explanation for why modern humans have so many chronic diseases that are rarely seen in other animals (or even archeological/anthropological evidence of non-industrial societies but he doesn't really go there much in the book) I also highly recommend Sapolsky's Human Behavior Biology course which he taught for Stanford but published on YouTube: link to this video…

philipovin Hacker News • Recommends

On “Intelligence is not like height”

Anyone who wants to look at heritability numbers should make sure to watch these lectures first. Heritability is often a misleading stat, because it has an unintuitive definition. Sapolskiy covers common failings of heritability numbers, as well as confounding factors for twin studies. link link Full Lectures: link to this video An example of how non-intuitive heritability is: whether a person wears earrings or not would be a heritable trait if we're looking at mid-20th century America, because the variability is entirely explained by whether you're male or female. Heritability is unable to identify whether a trait is caused by genetics, only whether the variation correlates with genetics.

totetsuin Hacker News • Mentions

On “Patrick Collison's Questions”

on "What's the right way to understand and model personality?" Personality is an outdated concept, personality types triply so. There is no fundamental stability of personality, just behavior context. Christian Miller - The character gap link link Robert Sapolsky - Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology link to this video