Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
The author sets the stage for this book by calling B.S. on the way so many scientists discuss behavior. They often have a strong bias to explaining the world in terms of their field. To the neuroscientist, the origins of behavior are neurological. To the sociologist, they’re cultural. And so on…
The point being different scientific fields study precursors that contribute only in part to human behavior. The truth is always more complicated than we grasp as first. Our brains are oversimplification machines!
So Sapolsky starts with a behavior and looks backwards at its influencing factors. He starts with seconds before, to hours and days before, to years and millennia before. Everything from neurotransmitters to hormones to genomes comes into play.
In the process, the author shares a lot of scientific background information with the reader. So much so, that I think I’d have to read the book a few times to really absorb it all. And I might!
This book sheds a lot of light on behavior. It’s a detailed and measured approach to analyzing why humans do what we do. A must-read for anyone who’s seeking to better understand humans.