Robert Sapolsky

American endocrinologist (born 1957)

For the singer, see Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Robert Sapolsky

Sapolsky in 2023

Born|

Robert Morris Sapolsky

(1957-04-06) April 6, 1957 (age 68)

Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Education| Harvard University (BA)
Rockefeller University (PhD)
Spouse| Lisa Sapolsky
Children| 2
Scientific career
Fields| Neurobiology, physiology,[1] biological anthropology
Institutions| Stanford University
Salk Institute
Thesis| The Neuroendocrinology of Stress and Aging (1984)
Doctoral advisor| Bruce McEwen
Other academic advisors| Melvin Konner[2]

Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American academic, neuroscientist, and primatologist. He is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, and is a professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery. His research has focused on neuroendocrinology, particularly relating to stress. He is also a research associate at the National Museums of Kenya.[3]

## Early life and education

[edit]

Sapolsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrants from the Soviet Union. His father, Thomas Sapolsky, was an architect who renovated the restaurants Lüchow's and Lundy's.[4] Robert was raised an Orthodox Jew. He spent his time reading about and imagining living with silverback gorillas. By age twelve, he was writing fan letters to primatologists.[5] He attended John Dewey High School and by that time was reading textbooks on the subject and teaching himself Swahili.[6]

Sapolsky is an atheist.[7][8] He said in his acceptance speech for the Emperor Has No Clothes Award, "I was raised in an Orthodox household and I was raised devoutly religious up until around age thirteen or so. In my adolescent years one of the defining actions in my life was breaking away from all religious belief whatsoever."[9]

In 1978, Sapolsky received his B.A., summa cum laude, in biological anthropology from Harvard University.[10][11] He then went to Kenya to study the social behaviors of baboons in the wild. When the Uganda–Tanzania War broke out in the neighboring countries, Sapolsky decided to travel into Uganda to witness the war up close, later commenting, "I was twenty-one and wanted adventure. [...] I was behaving like a late-adolescent male primate."[12] He went to Uganda's capital Kampala, and from there to the border with Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and then back to Kampala, witnessing some fighting,[13] including the Ugandan capital's conquest by the Tanzanian army and its Ugandan rebel allies on April 10–11, 1979.[14] Sapolsky then returned to New York and studied at Rockefeller University, where he received his Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology[10][11] working in the lab of endocrinologist Bruce McEwen.

After the initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, he returned every summer for another 25 years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. He spent eight to ten hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these baboons.[15]

## Career

[edit]

Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor at Stanford University, holding joint appointments in several departments, including Biological Sciences, Neurology & Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery.[16]

As a neuroendocrinologist, he has focused his research on issues of stress and neuronal degeneration, as well as on the possibilities of gene-therapy strategies for protecting susceptible neurons from disease.[17] He is working on gene-transfer techniques to strengthen neurons against the disabling effects of glucocorticoids.[18] Each year, Sapolsky spends time in Kenya studying a population of wild baboons in order to identify the sources of stress in their environment, and the relationship between personality and patterns of stress-related disease in these animals.[19] More specifically, Sapolsky studies the differences in cortisol levels between the alpha male and female and the subordinates to determine stress level. An early but still relevant example of his studies of olive baboons is found in his 1990 Scientific American article "Stress in the Wild".[20] He has also written about neurological impairment and the insanity defense within the American legal system.[21][22]

Sapolsky is also interested in the role of schizotypal disorders in the emergence and development of shamanism and of the major Western religions. In this context, he has noted similarities between obsessive-compulsive behavior and religious rituals.[9][23][24]

Sapolsky in 2009

Sapolsky's work has featured widely in the press, most notably in the National Geographic documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer,[25][26] articles in The New York Times,[4][27] Wired magazine,[28] the Stanford magazine,[29] and The Tehran Times.[30] His speaking style (e.g., on Radiolab,[31] The Joe Rogan Experience,[32] and his Stanford human behavioral biology lectures[33]) has garnered attention.[34] Sapolsky's specialization in primatology and neuroscience has made him prominent in the public discussion of mental health—and, more broadly, of human relationships—from an evolutionary perspective.[35][36] In April 2017, Sapolsky gave a TED Talk.[37][38]

Sapolsky has vigorously argued for a deterministic view of human behavior. According to him, "there is no free will, or at least that there is much less free will than generally assumed when it really matters".[39] He argues that human actions are determined by neurobiology, hormones, childhood, and life-circumstances.[22][40][41]

Sapolsky has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987,[42] an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience.[43] He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award,[19] the Young Investigator of the Year Awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the Biological Psychiatry Society.[44]

In 2007, he received the John P. McGovern Award for Behavioral Science, awarded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[45]

In 2008, he received Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.[46] In February 2010 Sapolsky was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers,[47] following the Emperor Has No Clothes Award for 2002.[48]

## Personal life

[edit]

Sapolsky is married to Lisa Sapolsky, a doctor in neuropsychology. They have two children.[4] In 2024, Sapolsky launched a series of Father-Offspring Interviews on YouTube with his daughter Rachel.[49]

In his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, Sapolsky discussed his personal experiences with depression, revealing the complexities of living with the condition while also highlighting moments of relief provided by medication.[50]

## Views

[edit]

In a podcast interview with Light Watkins called "Neuroscientist: How To Escape The Rat Race with Robert Sapolsky" - via YouTube., Robert Sapolsky says that after learning in synagogue about how God "hardened Pharaoh's heart," he woke up one night at 2am as a teenager and said "Oh, I get it! There is no god and there's no free will. The universe is this big, empty, indifferent place. And that's kinda where I've been at ever since."

## Books

[edit]

* Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death (MIT Press, 1992) ISBN 0-262-19320-5
* Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers (1994, Holt Paperbacks/Owl 3rd Rep. Ed. 2004) ISBN 0-8050-7369-8
* The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament (Scribner, 1997) ISBN 978-0-6848-3409-2
* Junk Food Monkeys (Headline Publishing, 1997) ISBN 978-0-7472-7676-0 (UK edition of The Trouble with Testosterone)
* A Primate's Memoir (Touchstone Books, 2002) ISBN 0-7432-0247-3
* Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals (Scribner, 2005) ISBN 0-7432-6015-5
* Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Penguin Press, 2017) ISBN 1-5942-0507-8
* Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (Penguin Press, 2023) ISBN 978-0525560975

## See also

[edit]

* Animal psychopathology
* Hans Selye
* Mental health of Jesus
* Paul Radin
* Walter Bradford Cannon
* Whitehall Study

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Robert Sapolsky at Stanford".
2. ^ Hanson, E. Simon (January 5, 2001). "A Conversation With Robert Sapolsky". Brain Connection. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
3. ^ "Robert Sapolsky". Retrieved February 22, 2009.
4. ^ a b c Brown, Patricia Leigh (April 19, 2001). "At home with: Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky; Family Man With a Foot In the Veld". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 17, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
5. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2001). A Primate's Memoir. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. pp. 24–25\. ISBN 978-1-4165-9036-1.
6. ^ Vaughan, Christopher (November 2001). "Going Wild A biologist gets in touch with his inner primate". Stanford Magazine. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
7. ^ Shwartz, Mark (March 7, 2007). "Robert Sapolsky discusses physiological effects of stress". News. Stanford University. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
8. ^ "Dr. Robert Sapolsky's lecture about Biological Underpinnings of Religiosity" - via YouTube.
9. ^ a b Sapolsky, Robert (April 2003). "Belief and Biology". Freedom from Religion Foundation. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
10. ^ a b "Sapolsky Lectures on Stress and Health, Oct. 28 in Masur Auditorium - The NIH Record -October 16, 2009". nihrecord.nih.gov.
11. ^ a b "Professor Robert Sapolsky Bio Page". www.thegreatcourses.com.
12. ^ Sapolsky 2007, p. 87.
13. ^ Sapolsky 2007, pp. 87–88.
14. ^ Sapolsky 2007, p. 88.
15. ^ "Transcript of How I Write Conversation with Robert Sapolsky". Stanford University. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
16. ^ "Stanford Univ. detail of Prof. Sapolsky". Retrieved July 27, 2007.
17. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (1992). Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death (Bradford Books). MIT Press. ISBN 0262193205.
18. ^ "Robert Sapolsky". Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). UC San Diego. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
19. ^ a b "Rockefeller University names Robert Sapolsky 2008 Lewis Thomas Prize winner". Rockefeller University News. May 19, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
20. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M (1990). "Stress in the Wild". Scientific American. 262 (1): 106–13\. Bibcode:1990SciAm.262a.116S. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0190-116. JSTOR 24996650. PMID 2294581.
21. ^ "The Brain on the Stand," New York Times Magazine
22. ^ a b Sapolsky, RM (2004). "The frontal cortex and the criminal justice system". Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 359 (1451): 1787–96\. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1547. PMC 1693445. PMID 15590619.
23. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (1998). "Circling the Blanket for God". The Trouble with Testosterone: and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament. New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster. pp. 241–288\. ISBN 978-0-684-83409-2.
24. ^ Dr. Robert Sapolsky's lecture about Biological Underpinnings of Religiosity on YouTube
25. ^ "Stress: Portrait of a Killer". Stress: Portrait of a Killer. Stanford University, National Geographic. 2008. Archived from the original on March 17, 2016. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
26. ^ Springer, Michael (August 22, 2012). "Do Yourself a Favor and Watch Stress: Portrait of a Killer (with Stanford Biologist Robert Sapolsky)". openculture.com. Retrieved February 8, 2020.
27. ^ Angier, Natalie (April 13, 2004). "No Time for Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture". New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
28. ^ Lehrer, Jonah (July 28, 2010). "Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine". Wired Magazine. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
29. ^ Vaughan, Christopher (November–December 2001). "Going Wild". Stanford University Magazine. Stanford University. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
30. ^ "Racism, inequality, and conflict: an interview with Prof. Robert Sapolsky". Tehran Times. July 15, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
31. ^ "People - Robert Sapolsky - Radiolab". www.radiolab.org. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
32. ^ Joe Rogan (October 18, 2017), Joe Rogan Experience #965 - Robert Sapolsky, archived from the original on May 26, 2017, retrieved March 20, 2018
33. ^ "Human Behavioral Biology (Robert Sapolsky) 25 lectures". Retrieved February 8, 2020 - via YouTube.
34. ^ Meltzer, Tom (August 27, 2013). "The 20 online talks that could change your life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
35. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (May 9, 2017), The biology of our best and worst selves, retrieved March 20, 2018
36. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (January 8, 2010), The uniqueness of humans, retrieved March 20, 2018
37. ^ Vasquez, Alejandra; et al. (April 27, 2017). "Bugs and bodies: The talks of Session 8 of TED2017". TED Blog: Further reading on ideas worth spreading. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
38. ^ "Robert Sapolsky: The biology of our best and worst selves". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. April 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2023.
39. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2023). Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. New York: Penguin Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780525560975.
40. ^ Reese, Hope (October 18, 2023). "A Conversation With: Robert Sapolsky Doesn't Believe in Free Will. (But Feel Free to Disagree.)". The New York Times. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
41. ^ Sapolsky, Robert M. (2017). "Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will". Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 552–583\. ISBN 978-1-594-20507-1.
42. ^ "MacArthur Fellows List - July 1987". Archived from the original on April 19, 2008. Retrieved March 24, 2008.
43. ^ "Talk to probe roots of stress (03/16/07)". mc.vanderbilt.edu. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
44. ^ "Science writer Robert Sapolsky to speak about coping with stress April 10". Middlebury. December 17, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
45. ^ "About AAAS: John McGovern Lecture". Retrieved February 22, 2009.
46. ^ "Sagan Prize Recipients". wonderfest.org. 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
47. ^ "Honorary FFRF Board Announced". ffrf.org. Archived from the original on December 17, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
48. ^ "Emperor Has No Clothes Award -- Robert Sapolsky". Freedom From Religion Foundation. Retrieved December 7, 2013.
49. ^ Sapolsky, Robert. "Father Offspring Interviews". Retrieved September 8, 2024 - via YouTube.
50. ^ Sapolsky, Robert (2023). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Penguin Press. p. 389.

### Works cited

[edit]

* Sapolsky, Robert M. (2007). A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons (reprint ed.). New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-9036-1.

## External links

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Wikiquote has quotations related to Robert Sapolsky.

* Robert Sapolsky profile at Stanford School of Medicine
* Robert Sapolsky at IMDb

### Video courses

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* Your Evolved Brain Is at the Mercy of Your Reptilian Impulses and Vice Versa
* Sapolsky, Robert. Human Behavioral Biology, 25 lectures (Last 2 lectures were not taped / included in the official Stanford playlist but older versions/tapings of those lectures are available here).
* Robert Sapolsky: The Biology and Psychology of Depression Two-part lecture, updating his 2009 lecture.
* Sapolsky, Robert (2010). Stress and Your Body. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company. ISBN 978-1-59803-680-0..
* Sapolsky, Robert. Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science.
* Sapolsky, Robert. Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition.

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