...when doing science (or perhaps when doing anything at all in a society as judgmental as our own), be very careful and very certain before pronouncing something to be a norm - because at that instant, you have made it supremely difficult to ever again look objectively at an exception to that supposed norm.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Categorized in : Looks Made Judgmental

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert M. Sapolsky

pain nature art

We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

Robert M. Sapolsky

stress scary hate

Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.)

Robert M. Sapolsky

optimistic exercise people

What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

Robert M. Sapolsky

impulse-control doe long

If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other.

Robert M. Sapolsky

stress animal mean

The frontal cortex doesn't even fully develop until age 25, which is wild!

Robert M. Sapolsky

age

Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

Robert M. Sapolsky

stress states mind

We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

Robert M. Sapolsky

luxury good-life stress

The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert M. Sapolsky

mystery purpose wonder

The less it is possible that something can be, the more it must be.

Robert M. Sapolsky

But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.

Robert M. Sapolsky

stressed smart sick

For example, most mammals are either monogamous or polygamous. But as every poet or divorce attorney will tell you, humans are confused - After all, we have monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, celibacy, and so on. In terms of the most unique thing we do socially, my vote goes to something we invented alongside cities - we have lots of anonymous interactions and interactions with strangers. That has shaped us enormously.

Robert M. Sapolsky

divorce confused unique

If I had to define a major depression in a single sentence, I would describe it as a "genetic/neurochemical disorder requiring a strong environmental trigger whose characteristic manifestation is an inability to appreciate sunsets.

Robert M. Sapolsky

sunset appreciate strong

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

Robert M. Sapolsky

prerequisites mind heart

The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

Robert M. Sapolsky

regulation environment interesting

What happened in the milliseconds before a behavior to cause it? That's in the neurobiological realm.

Robert M. Sapolsky

realms causes behavior

Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.

Robert M. Sapolsky

determinism vulnerability genes

Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads.

Robert M. Sapolsky

smart events long

To out-group-members, oxytocin makes you crappier - less cooperative and more preemptively aggressive. It's not the luv hormone. It's the in-group parochialism/xenophobia hormone.

Robert M. Sapolsky

oxytocin xenophobia groups

If you care about your longevity and health, be a socially affiliated baboon who is better than high-ranking ones at walking away from provocations.

Robert M. Sapolsky

ranking walking-away care