1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology

What Hacker News said

Strong rec super_mario · 2012-05 · 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: [this video]

Strong rec ploomans · 2015-06 · on “Robert Sapolsky talks turbulence – teens, stress, and the information age”

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

Strong rec guzmanovich · 2016-03 · 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. [this video]

Strong rec Frozenlock · 2016-05 · on “The Real Problem with Facebook and the News”

I like that you accept to evaluate someone else's position before instantly putting them into the little "bigot" box. It's much better to leave traces of your thinking process, instead of simply declaring that your conclusions are the only ones that are acceptable and others are idiots. Let's take me for example. It just so happens that I'm rethinking my position on interracial marriage (yes, really). I haven't reached any solid conclusion yet, but I'm not as sure of my position as I once was. My current uncertainty is based on a few things I learned in the past few years. First, Sapolky's excellent "Human Behavioral Biology" did show me how incredibly susceptible we are to hormones; how a t

Strong rec yesenadam · 2017-11 · 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: [this video]

Strong rec jmcqk6 · 2019-03 · 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: [this video]

Strong rec nomilk · 2023-01 · 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. [this video]

Strong rec culi · 2023-04 · on “Harvard: The Effects of Noise on Health”

for anyone unaware, this is a book by Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky: [LINK] The book is about stress and the impact of glucocorticoids on the body. The chemical stress response used in "the wild" by animals is actually the same as the stress response we have when worrying about losing our job, not being able to complete a paper for school, dealing with poverty, etc. It's a partial 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