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]
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]
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]
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 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 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 human actions are determined by neurobiology, hormones, childhood, and life circumstances.[22][40][41]
Sapolsky is married to Lisa Sapolsky, a doctor in neuropsychology. They have two children.[4] Sapolsky was a passionate amateur soccer player and used to play twice a week, but he stopped due to back problems.[50]
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.[51]
^Hanson, E. Simon (January 5, 2001). "A Conversation With Robert Sapolsky". Brain Connection. Retrieved June 3, 2014. BC: Who were your greatest mentors? RS: Of people I've actually dealt with, ... the main person is an anthropologist/physician named Melvin Konnor ... . He ... was my advisor in college and remains a major mentor.
^"Dr. Robert Sapolsky's lecture about Biological Underpinnings of Religiosity". YouTube. I was raised in an extremely religious Orthodox upbringing and I had a break with it when I was about fourteen. That process of completely breaking to the point now where I have no religion, have no spirituality, I'm utterly atheist, and in passing it is probably the thing I most regret in my life but is something I appear not to be able to change the process of getting to that point I view in retrospect as one of the most defining things in my life, the process of turning into that person from who I was.
^ abSapolsky, Robert (April 2003). "Belief and Biology". Freedom from Religion Foundation. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
^"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.
^Sapolsky, Robert (2023). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Penguin Press. p. 389. At some point in this writing process, I was struck with what seemed like the explanation for why I've been able to stick with an unshakable rejection of free will, despite the bummers of feelings it can evoke. A point made earlier in the chapter is personally very relevant. Since my teenage years, I've struggled with depression. Now and then, the meds work great and I'm completely free of it, and life seems like hiking above the tree line on a spectacular snow-capped mountain. This most reliably occurs when I'm actually doing that with my wife and children. Most of the time, though, the depression is just beneath the surface, kept at bay by a toxic combination of ambition and insecurity, manipulative shit, and a willingness to ignore who and what matter. And sometimes it incapacitates me, where I mistake every seated person as being in a wheelchair and every child I glance at as having Down syndrome.
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).
