A Quote by Robert Sapolsky
My roots, in college, were in behavior in the context of evolution.
Related Quotes
Grace-driven effort wants to get to the bottom of behavior, not just manage behavior. If you're simply managing behavior but not removing the roots of that behavior, then the weeds simply sprout up in another place.
My interest in the psychological roots of psychosis has both personal (my brother Andrew committed suicide) and professional origins (I was trained in a behaviorist approach to psychology which - whatever its limitations - at least taught me to see human behavior in its social context).
All finite things have their roots in the infinite, and if you wish to understand life at all, you cannot tear out its context. And that context, astounding even to bodily eyes, is the heaven of stars and the incredible procession of the great galaxies.
Even if it were true that evolution, or the teaching of evolution, encouraged immorality that would not imply that the theory of evolution was false.
I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" - anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context").
For our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt.
The concept of evolution postulates that living organisms have common roots, and in turn, the existence of common features is powerful support for the concept of evolution.
We started off with physical evolution and got our form. Then we somehow developed language, which meant cultural evolution could race so we could change our behavior really quickly instead of over hundreds and hundreds of years. And then comes moral evolution, which means we're not frightfully far along with people. And maybe we end up with a spiritual evolution, which is this connectedness with the rest of the life forms on the planet.
I do want to write about social/cultural/historical context. I'm interested in relationships, in character, but within a specific social context. Which is kind of a political thing, I admit that. But it's what I'm interested in, and it's how I believe human behavior is legible.
When I look at what I'm doing today, I see [the] roots in my college life. I was the online editor of my college paper and an active member of the Harvard Computer Society. I abandoned a summer internship at the Washington Post due to injury and instead did theatre. I found my comedic voice through satirical newsletters in college.
The roots of great innovation are never just in the technology itself. They are always in the wider historical context. They require new ways of seeing. As Einstein put it, 'The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.'
Love is a context, not a behavior.
My parents were in high school and college in the '80s, so let's just say I've heard some stuff, man. We listen to a lot of music and watch lots of great films, but the real context they provide from that era is about politics.
Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.
I was always kind of a school person - my parents were teachers, and my grandparents were immigrants, so their big thing was, 'Go to college, go to college, go to college.'
Pulling a gun's trigger can be an appalling act. But if it is suicidal drawing fire to save someone, it has an utterly different meaning. Placing your hand on someone's arm can be an act of deep compassion or the first step of betrayal. The punch line? It's all about context, and the biology of context is vastly more complicated than the biology of the behavior itself.
Related Authors
Austin O'Malley Quotes
American
Scientist
Carl Sagan Quotes
American
Scientist
Charles Darwin Quotes
English
Scientist
E. O. Wilson Quotes
American
Scientist
Georg C. Lichtenberg Quotes
German
Scientist
Isaac Asimov Quotes
American
Scientist
Jane Goodall Quotes
English
Scientist
Margaret Mead Quotes
American
Scientist
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quotes
Lebanese
Scientist
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes
American
Scientist
Richard Dawkins Quotes
English
Scientist
Stephen Jay Gould Quotes
American
Scientist
Steven Pinker Quotes
Canadian
Scientist
Sylvia Earle Quotes
American
Scientist
Thomas Huxley Quotes
English
Scientist
W. Edwards Deming Quotes
American
Scientist