Good videos, with context.
1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology

1. Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology

Stanford
15 HN recommenders · discussed 2012–2026
Open YouTube ↗

About this video

The opening lecture of Robert Sapolsky's Stanford course on Human Behavioral Biology, explaining the course premise and how to avoid categorical thinking. It starts a roughly 25-lecture series on how biology, genes, hormones and environment shape behavior.

Why it appears in the archive

One of the most consistently recommended lecture series on HN, praised as fascinating, funny and eye-opening about human behavior across many scales.

AI-generated summary and labels from the source dataset; verify important details against the video. Source & credits.

From the Hacker News discussion

super_mario · 2012-05 · strong rec

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: [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
ploomans · 2015-06 · strong rec

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

Read original comment ↗
guzmanovich · 2016-03 · strong rec

Robert Sapolsky`s lectures on human behavioral biology. Fascinating, funny and gives insights into many different topics like cultural differences and nationalism. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
Frozenlock · 2016-05 · strong rec

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 tiny little change can have huge impacts in our daily life. The part on delaying gratification was also eye opening for me. Some 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. [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

Read original comment ↗
yesenadam · 2017-11 · strong rec

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: [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
jmcqk6 · 2019-03 · strong rec

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: [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
nomilk · 2023-01 · strong rec

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. [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗
culi · 2023-04 · strong rec

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 Stanford but published on YouTube: [VIDEO]

Read original comment ↗