Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology

stanford university is biol one fifty years ago okay just wanna make sure so if we start off with a scenario forty year old guy quiet suburban white married fifteen years to kids
three-and-a-half dogs everything standard everything’s going wonderfully
and one day out of nowhere he punches somebody in the face of work totally bizarre at a character the guy standing there by the water
cooler and make some comments on some baseball team takes exception to what punches in the
face utterly strange things are quiet three months later his wife to fifteen years happy marriage
discovers he’s having an affair with a sixteen-year-old checkout came down at
the safeway really then three months after that keys
ex-cons with all the money at work in vessels that disappears ends never seen
it yet three possibilities first one the sky is eight truly deep creek second he is having the most immature
mid-life crisis you could ever imagine third possibility here’s a mutation in
one gene in his head and will be seeing is this is exactly
the profile that you get any certain neurological disease words one gene that’s out of work first demonstration okay just get a sense of who’s here how
many of you think uh… there is a genetic influences on sexual
orientation through k how many think it is impossible for
prenatal events to influence your political opinions thirty years later okay how many think that there is a valid way
of using biology to understand whose religious and who isn’t well not quite as many hands there now there was always when i try and how
many people believe in god how many people believe the souls how many people believe in the fall how many people up believe in free will that’s going to change cole i might as well ask is there
anybody in this room with actually does believe in evolution just want to make sure see what we’re
dealing with here okay how many think that there is a genetic influence and
that there is a basic biological differences a sex differences and levels of
aggression how many think there’s biological basis
of sex differences in intelligence brocade cool thanks as always blamed by nature who thinks it’s old standby nurture i think there’s a magnificent
fascinating new ones interaction between the time had a okay and everybody figured in a plus than
your typical is under control okay so we started off trying to find
something in common look at these four of us here or not bonanza being scraped out there but
these are four circumstances that have something surprising in common having your period having a brain tumor eating a lot of junk food taking at all like steroids those if you
are not oriented to attach the ones the blow up your muscles like testosterone
driven as okay these all have something in common
having your period having a brain tumor eating a lot of junk food and taking a
lot of anabolic steroids anybody wanna family guess what’s the
commonality amongst the four of them hormones good ok were often running with
hormones could be more specific than that something they all have in common colorado somebody else sees briefing rooms pastors people
watching survivor okay it all has to do with hormones that
all of hormones in combat i say trying to facilitate somebody making an
experience i’ll convert all have something okay we gotta get outta here at some
point these all have four things in common all of these have been used successfully
in courts of law to explain the behavior of the murderer first case host case a number of cases where the fact that a woman was having her period at the
time of killing someone part of what a jury said led them to
exonerate the person a literature showing that a disproportionate share of
female aggression comes around the time of medicines next one there is an area of the brain
you will know it was so much about over the next three months colby may go up that has something to do with aggression and has something to do with fear and
you get a brain tumor there and in a number of cases you get someone who is
uncontrollably violent this is also can you successfully in a
court of law food any of you who are san francisco
history buffs will know twenty years ago thirty years ago that could damage white eight
disappointed office seekers sesame the mayor of san francisco along with
harvey milk as part of his remarkably successful defense for a double murderer
that led to a remarkably short jail sentence was the famed tweaking defense the argument that his addiction to
junkfood caused wild fluctuations in his blood sugar levels which caused him to
do that finally anabolic steroids and a number
of cases of people having uncontrolled violence arguing because they were weight lifters and a
wildly abusive range of taking stuff had something to do with violence put all four of these together and we get the first of the two points
of this entire course sometimes the stuff that’s going on in your body
confirm adequate influence what goes on in your brain second critical point tonight when you’ve settled back down
when you’re ready to risk leaving you a nice and relaxing at heart speeding nice
and slow think the following thought you know that heart isn’t going to be
forever think about think about your lips
turning blue after they think about the blood flow slowing down think about your
feet your toes getting cold and at that point you will probably be increasing the rate
at which the heart beats and you will just seen the second key
thing in this course which is sometimes what’s going on in
your head will affect every single outpost in your life and discourses about is intertwined in
the interconnections between used physiology and you’re behavior the
underlying emotions thoughts memories all of that and the capacity of each too deeply
influenced the other under all sorts of circumstances now what we’re going to do with this is
trying to understand this under fairly difficult circumstances if everybody here was here because the really wanted to
understand white all the wildebeest underestimating
the same week each year we have a fighting chance of figuring
that one out bata that’s not what we want understand
we don’t want understand why birds migrate you don’t get lost me with longer in just a human behavior worse than that part of that human
social behavior and hardest of all in some cases some grossly abnormal human behavior and if you’re going to try to do fact
there’s a problem which is officially it’s complicated it is a huge messy
process trying to make sense to the biology of human social behavior and just as all sorts of realms when one
deals with missing complicated problems that you need to think about in some
wildly into acting way we all have a strategy that we come up with strategy to make things easier which is is that we think in categories we thinking how two boys we take things
better continue up and we break them into categories and we label those categories and we do
that and various settings because it could be extremely useful for example somebody give me an estimate on how long
this line is afoot people who set of foot what is it that went through your head
to figure it out you imagined how long a ruler is this is eleven a half inches because
they’ve been even if it’s eleven inches an eight and a half by eleven but everybody in here as this category
in their head things that are now under the same
length is a ruler continue world lengths and there’s a category for that suppose i’m telling you i have some
friends who’s a runner runs the mild he’s
incredibly fast effect is one of the best runners in the country at this
point how fast is you have to run the milder
better for you to be deeply impressed under four minutes unless we have
another categorical boundaries there but there’s an infinite variety of speeds with which you can run on mile yet we have in our heads this boundary people who are under four minute my
lawyers you were very impressed with okay now i want to impress with another
friend of mine who support each other and this person is such a great painter that they paint with eleven different
colors that doesn’t work because that’s not a category that we
have we don’t classify the quality something off we will classify quality of paintings
along those lines but what we begin to see here is in the
right areas we have categories that we impose on
things that are not categorical here’s an example why should you do
splinter cell phone ko here is one of the classic continue with
that we ever deal with which is the continue of color in
varying wavelengths they take the rainbow from violent to read and there
is an infinite number of spaces in between and what do you do we have rules
in english dot you divide the continuing here and here or whatever and that’s what you call the caller mrs read everything from here is where
dc everything here is our jsut want you take the continue uh… and you
break it into boundaries why do we do that because it makes it easier to store the
information away instead of remembering the absolute
features of something you simply say it’s any it’s a sub for
minute mile her it’s a line that’s almost a link that’s about the length of
the ruler hits the color orange how do you know that’s the case because going take people from other
language groups were their language are returning to find some rain growing
element points with completely different color terms the remember different profiles of
colors differently than an english speaker
might take the color and if the color comes
right in the center on somebody’s caller canonization becomes right in the
middle of the range of what else is that caller people remember whether they saw that
color remark far better than a few sonoma calmer and the boundary and people who show that as a function of what language they
speak taking you continue any break it into pieces because it’s been easier to deal with
the facts another example of it here we have forearm checks and as drawn here simply
because we have categories to describe the first three to one of those test of show people go into shapes and they come
back an hour later asking have you seen the shape before and people are going to be far more
accurate with this and whether they saw this or not we don’t have a word for it we don’t
have the word exit polls showed analytical woodson’s squiggly whatever we don’t have a clear category thinking in categories makes it easier for us to remember stuff and makes it easier for us to evaluate
stuff so that’s a classic sort of response
that we have cognitively too complicated things but there is a bunch of problems with
categorical thinking first example and first when you can see
from aroma of language differences in that not only is there a continual
infinite number of wavelengths there’s a continual of silence that
teens connick and different languages you draw boundaries a different points
as to what counts as similar sounds of different sounds there’s like two different teenage
sounds in english which apparently were not very good it hearing but there’s
only once we are and that will affect your ability to
remember stuff what word it was depending on whether it is on a
dramatically different balloting whether it is sound that sounds different you are not example of this apparently in finnish people do not differentiate between the
sound of the b_ unsound repeat whereas we have no trouble with that but people from finland do not make that
differentiation and i discovered was wounded in the mood
music over where for reasons i’d don’t even understand i found myself
needing to take to specular biopsies on baboons not having looser learned that in junior high and
how you do that i call it destroyed urology at the med school happened to be and i explained to him what i want to do and he sort of sweeping through the
cases and told me what india i needed to buy a m that’s of the stuff and holiday packages
of those we can get it doesn’t and sort of telling me how to do that and once we went through he said what i want to do the thing to do at
this point is get some practice i want you to practice on a bear yeah practice on america i said well you can leave he said i know i know it sounds crazy but we have all the residents do there
is a very good learning device day ride a practice on the bear or an apple home here we see the dangers of making
mistakes about differences between yuki under certain extent circumstances so we see one of the dangers there wishes when you are paying too much
attention to categories you can’t differentiate two facts that
fall within the same category next example remember back at various points of
anxiety during exams in such background where there was a world of difference between getting a sixty five hundred
test in the sixty six on the test noticable difference but because there’s this boundary drawn
there are between passing unfailing there is this dramatic differentiating
we make when you put it down trees you have trouble seeing how similar
things are on either side of it next example one additional problem that
you get when you think categorically and for this everybody needs to be
turnover of one of the pieces of paper and paper you’re going to hand in the
questionnaire and on that issue is reviewing a series of phone numbers and i wanted to write them down as
accurately as possible okay ready two four three two six four nine six five oh three two six oh two five six five seven seven nine eight three two two four four nine nine one three one seven one he’s returned for or to six five five three two four four nine seven four eight three eight before eight three one five two okay now what exercises no that doesn’t count towards the great what that was shown sure when some
obsessive burst the procrastination on actually look through the answers to
life was going to show is that the accuracy is going to take this you go from the phone number pattern of
three digits followed by four break up that pattern and suddenly we
all get screwed up because we’re safe witnessing i thought it was a phone
number that was one digit no tv just like a and strong onto the next one and
what we see there is the third example which is when you pay too much attention
to boundaries you don’t see the big picture all you see are categories all you see our wait a second phone
numbers are supposed to come with revisions followed by four another example of where we use
categorical thinking okay i’m putting up another series here okay what’s away okay what’s the next number in the
series forty two okay so we’re kinda oscillating all over
the place there sume perhaps is about as anybody else’s who
else has an excellent bottom line there forty-five how come for you to take that forty-five it’s very okay what else let
me make it a little bit easier but okay so what’s the next number that
series and when i’m telling you is if you think about the world with a
certain set of categories and your head you will know children the sequence of what’s the next
one seven billion ok seven possibility although presumably will be seven
billion anything else any other guesses here as
to what what happens next fourteenth twenty-third thirty fourth
was an external sequence yes forty four how come okay remember it’s gotta be forty fourth what’s at ordinal cardinal whatever it
is what we you are right anybody who has a new yorker uh… no exporters these are the someone stops thank you database or what choose but but soon you get new yorkers and while
everybody else is thinking logical things like forty-three and forty one forty five and
seven billion in all of that you’ve got this whole world is dividing
numbers by the subway stops we think in categories we think
categories but as you just software of these problems first one being when you
think in categories you underestimate how different e-fax
are when they fall on the same category when you think in categories you
overestimate how different they are when that happens to be a boundary in between
them and when you pay attention to
categorical boundaries you don’t see big pictures now what our role in this class is going
to be is think about this big complex issues
of the biology behavior without falling into thinking in
categories wadhwani in this regard thank you
categorically about a subject like this their songs shaken and the chicken is standing somewhere
and there’s some rooster over there but does some sexually solicited exciting thing for
the female and in response to that the female picks
up and goes running over to the rooster and thus we have our first behavioral
biology question here why did that chicken crossed the road to get to that so you could answer that like an
endocrinologist insect well the female have certain levels of estrogen her
blood stream which means ki hai planetary is responsive to the stimulus or you could answer like and then that a
mess of saying well because the fulcrum river
of pelvis surrenders chickens have that allow them to run or you could ask for it in the category
of an evolutionary biologist over the lenny chickens that didn’t
respond to sexually solicited justice females were fewer copies of your genes
and there’s all these different categories that we can use to explain what’s going on all of these different buckets all of these different buckets which
begins at home towards all of the problems we just saw having trouble telling how different
first similar to the facts are having trouble seeing big pictures over
emphasizing the importance of the bucket you happen to live inside of suddenly everything about this behavior is
explained by it agee eighteen-year-old transmitter any child
who trauma eighty a moving inside one pocket we’re going to be doing over and over
here is the main point of the course is looking at how what goes on your body influences
behavior emotions memories how it goes on your influences you body
moving over and it every one of those points resisting the poll to think
categorically of this is the explanation for this
behavior came from here’s what we’re going to be doing
instead throughout the terms of the structure of the class when we get actual behaviors for each behavioral category we will start off by looking at what the behavioral looks
like because often that takes a lot more
objectivity than we initially assumed what is the behavior look like then we’ll all say well what went on and
that organism i have second before that behavior occurred to occur tu casa to occur which is the world of what’s going on
with neurons what’s going on with circuitry where’s the explanation for the behavior
are harvest behavior happens because this part of the brain got
activated registers were about to settle in
happily into that bucket we pushed back a bit insane well what smell what’s
sound what sensory stimulation in the environment cause there’s no rush to get activated and produce that behavior and then pushing one step further behind okay don’t want to hormone levels various hormones in the blood stream of
animal or individual for the past few hours how do those hormones change how
sensitive you are to those sounds succes truck that caused his nose goes to get activated produced behavior and all we’re going to be doing is
working our way back all the way through early development
fetal life the genetic makeup of an individual the genetic makeup of entire population
species the evolutionary pressure on all the way back to their how do you
explain each one of these behaviors in the context of those outpost and how are they not really outposts all they are are different ways of
expressing the same biological influences ruled here’s a hormone that explains
this behavior this behavior is caused by hormone acts hormone acts is coded for by a gene
society where you’re not just talking about endocrinology you’re talking about genetics and here’s
the gene derek it has been subject to selections are suddenly you’re talking
about evolution if you’re talking about what smells
sites et cetera are each you triggers for behavior by definition you’re also talking about
fetal development that determines how sensitive those systems work to those sorts of stimuli what we really haven’t over and over
again is anyone of these pockets that we spend some time and all we’re going to do is think of bucket is at that point the most
convenient way of describing all of the influences that
came before hand and that regard there’s no buckets all there are temporary platforms and each platform is simply the easiest most convenient way of
describing the outcome of everything that came before hand starting with millennia back in
evolution okay so that sounds great that’s what we’re going to do where do this and we’re going to be very
sophisticated and francine are thinking about it we’re not going to fall
categorical thinking all other okay this is a complicated subject and
was smart so we’re gonna try to think about that smart like that’s great book bike maybe this is
just an irritating song and dance hereof who were not going out for for
categorical thinking like people out there obviously when people are thinking about
stuff like behavior and they do this professionally professional biologist
biology behavior type yes invade understand also this is just as strong and we were to be
more sophisticated i think even endocrinologist some geneticists and all others they obviously you know that these
things into iraq and it’s not just one explanation and it’s just a really focus on the
understand that let me read you a few quotes to show just how much some of these
folks don’t understand first-quarter giving your child at birth from any
background and let me control the total environment
in which he is raising and i will turn into anything i wish him
to be with a doctor lawyer beggar or thief this forest junk walks in nineteen
twelve when the founding fathers of the school of psychology holt behavior isn’t behaviours and that sort of reaches
apogee with this guy b_f_ skinner nineteen fifties this notion that if you could control
the rewards the punishments the positive and negative reinforcement you could turn anybody into anything you
want whether doctor laura baker we know that isn’t the case we know that’s not possible we know that
all you have to do this field and one other factors like a lot of protein malnutrition during
fetal life and you’re not going to be able to do
that that being a crude example of just how
wrong this guy was you cannot have all the control of the environment and turn somebody into whatever you want here’s a guy living pathologically in
this bucket that behavior could be explained solely by understanding the
warden punishment interesting factories john wat sometime
shortly after that he was driven out of academia forty wild scandal but he was involved
in and he spent the rest of his career
early as next week successful advertising executive going to show you something he may not
have been able to turn people into anything you want to but apparently
can’t buy also should you go on on since okay next close normal cycle life depends upon the good functioning
cabranes sin taxes if you don’t know what synopsis are
don’t panic at this point there are ways principles connect with each other okay normal psychic wife depends on the
good functioning a brain syntax is mental disorders appear as a result of
snap ticked arrangements synoptic adjustments movement modify the corresponding ideas
and force them into different channels using this approach we obtained cures and improvements but no failures cinematic adjustments applicant we suppose those innocent africa just
inside of the sky is referring to the u_s_ is we have some determined electric shock therapy electric shock therapy you know a little
synoptic you wish it were as gentle was electric shock therapy missus even more dramatic synoptic
adjustments and the other guesses yahoo from poor bodies if you know you want to adjust
somebody’s synapses you just like slice off the
phone for delivery in urself this war is a big gospel moonies a portuguese neurologist who invented
frontal lobotomies have different name at the time but was the person who started this something that was done to tens and hundreds of thousands of people absolutely nothing wrong with them one of the darkest chapters of where psychiatry gets into bed with
ideology massive criminal destruction of people’s
brains this is what he had to say about the
procedure on his acceptance of his nobel prize in
physiology in medicine for having invented it so here we have somebody pathologically
living in a world of understand house an absence of working adjust them and with that we obtain
humorous and improvements but no failures final quote more stonewall this selection for social utility must
be accomplished by some social institution if mankind does not to be ruined by
domestic issue in tuesday’s university the racial idea as the basis of our
state has already accomplished much in this respect we may and we might rely on the healthy instance of the best
of our people for the extermination of elements of the
population loaded with bricks anybody want to guess who now runs hitler and then i hitler that behavioral
biologist feels a little bit busy at the time of his was instead of one of
hitler’s main scientific propagandists this was somebody living pathologically
in a box of obstacles even exist having notion of race and ethnicity and gender nixon all
of that sank let me fix in that one let me
exterminate the elements of the population loaded with trades and off except that one of the problem
with the contracting bidding broken who was this this was a scientist named konrad lorenz konrad lorenz is probably a lot of us
are familiar with konrad lorenz was one of the founding fathers in the fall if
you will learn all about that but he like id everybody knows someone you know a
little kid nature books konrad lorenz discovered imprinting and birds and he’d be going around who’s
this little austrian coley witnessed shouldn’t be quite fearing he does have his little austin shorts
and suspenders and they would be a whole bunch of duckies following him because
they thought he was bombings totally charming and here is a symbol of the
sort of them imprinting with these dockings kids add he also happen to be
in rapid nazi propagandist who went to his grave saying that there
was nothing wrong with what he did these are not crappy fourth-grade
scientists these are not people working and have to
know the university of the desert of podunk or whatever and these are among the most influential
scientists of the last century usually people hui influenced how people
were educated and one we decided it wasn’t worth the effort in doing that these are people terms influence led to be grains being
destroyed of hundreds of thousands of people who have nothing wrong with them
these are the people who led to the notion thank you fix the problem that doesn’t
exist by exterminating nine million people these are not minor scientist these are the most influential people in
the last century coming out of science in many ways delivery pathologically
inside their own buckets and how they could explain the entire world and girls again our goal is going to be
to not fall for that to think about human behaviors and in
some cases to think about some of the most disturbing to some of the most
frightening damaged human behaviors since the temptation to think inside a bucket and find the
explanation every level we’re going to talk about jeans hormones neurones environmental
influence whatever it is that point will simply be the easiest
way of describing although the influences that came before he’s not even temporarily for kids there’s no buckets that will be arco now thinking about this in approaching
human behavior the biology of human social behavior often the biology of
abnormal cubans human social behavior we’re going to have three intellectual
challenges the first one is recognizing circumstances where there is nothing fancy about us
whatsoever of your just like every other animal out there and with the challenges to accept that let me give you an example are a hamster you were female hamster and you’re
sitting in your chain cage and as a female hamster working things you
operate every five days or so and you’re going about your business and
everything’s great now somebody puts another female hamster
in the case with you and over the subsequent month or so what
happens is both of you will begin to lengthen your
cycles and eventually synchronized so that you were both on the awaiting
the same afternoon on a regular basis amazing this actually works this way and menstrual obvi which was synchrony
people understand how this works and hamsters it is done with the full faction with
films with chemical airborne signals from one female to another and you can prove this fiery
electrically recording for more factory systems work if you know how much funding you can
take like a paper clip over the female hamsters knows and she doesn’t synchronize then it’s
all done with old-fashioned and what’s most amazing is you put the two females
together and there’s a way of disrupting it quickly mail hamster in there and suddenly the cycles to synchronize
and shorten and you break it up with mail for months what’s even more remarkable is you put the two females together and
it’s not random who synchronizes the other one the dominant female synchronizes the
subordinate one totally understood people were working
on this for years and it works this way inline in sheep been daw aung san katzen apparently you can go to a seven-eleven somewhere
in all i a lot and you could buy a can of pig off which weighs synchronization
spray and take it home in just one why i have
no idea why you’d want to do that nonetheless that’s how i mean by kids up there with
a cane since she has risen whatever and ethics that well understood and what’s
remarkable is it works exactly the same way in aus consumers where it is known as the
wellesley effect believe that horse freshman year has his first owner
wellesley nineteen seventy over the course of freshman year fresher in your roommates tended to
lengthen and synchronize their cycles and it was done with all faction women who had all factory deficits
didn’t synchronize with the remains they would synchronizing unless they were
having close intimate relationships with an email in which case they do synchronized and
what’s most cool of all is it’s not random cool synchronizes the crew studies tend to show his the individual who is more socially
outgoing extroverted dominating is the one who synchronizes the other
one and this is well enough understood and
when i when college people would sit around the dinner table would say stuff
like ovary room together this summer i had
her synchronized by august first it is what happens if you hang out with
a biologist but where exactly the same challenger is
recognizing there’s nothing fancy about us at various points in the class will look
at comparisons between the human and it should be genome and it’s virtually the same some of the
time we are just a plain old off the rack animal second challenge is going to be circumstances where we appear to be just
like everybody else all the other organisms out there but we do something very different with
the similarity let me give you an example here you have to humans two individuals
tomorrow going through a ritual they are sitting at a table absolutely silent they’re making you
know why contact and they do nothing more physically
taxing and every now and then one of them picks up their hands a little piece of
wood on the table and if these happen to be the right to
individuals in the middle of the chess grandmaster toward america these people are maintaining blood
pressure first six hours running that you only see a
marathon runner these people are going through thousands of calories a day do-nothing more and thank you this is outrageous because you look at
one of these checks grand masters is just taking down upon it so if you’re clear whatever and their wives exact same physiology as some mail
babbling on this matter who’s just to rip the stomach opened his worst arrival and who are doing that they are just
with fault and some of the time which work allowed
us is with absolute lead technical boring physiology but we use it in ways that no other
having occurred we get stressed by the inevitability of our mortality we get stressed by reading something
offer what has happened to child on the other side of the planet we
get stressed by somebody’s union past essence in sports car we decide that we
are now economically inadequate he never even see the person’s face you just see the car and we get stressed
reading about something awful happening to character in an awful this is all whole realm of things that we could do that nobody
else does and on the flip side we can feel compassion and empathy for a loved one but we can also do the same
for someone on the other side of a planet in a refugee camp we can feel compassion for a number of
another species we feel badly when our pastor injured this is another realm where physiology of the response the empathy emotional
bonding all of that it’s the same boring physiology is every
other animal health care and we are using it in a way that is
unrecognizable now some of the time of the challenges
the third category which is when we are doing something that no
other animal out there anything remotely similar to let me give you an example here and
shocking example you have a couple they live together they come back at the
end of the day from work they talk feed error they talk some more work they go to bed and they have sex they
talk some more they falsely the next day beijing this same exact thing they come home from work that talk
freely they talk they would’ve had to have sex they talk some more they do this every single line first thirty days running hippos would be repulsed by this post
hardly anybody out there in the animal kingdom has not reproductive sax weather one day after day and nobody
else out there talks about it afterwards a as a whole lawful domain of human beings language
use aspects of our sexuality is profoundly damaging human uniqueness of some individuals confusing aspects of
sexuality with aggression in some cases we are going to be out
there on her own trying to understand what’s up okay so that would be the general
strategy for the course revolt resist categorical thinking over
and over and over not just because that school in new launched in southern all
of that but fall into categorical thinking and you
can do unspeakable damage and realm of silence silence that makes
a difference we will do so thinking constantly about
ourselves as a boring species just like all the others out there as a species that has that same boring physiology that uses in ways
that are unrecognizable as a species that does some things that
are simply without precedent out there and constantly struggling with what does biology have to do with okay general structure of the course the first half of course isn’t going to be an overview an
introduction to various buckets various categories and what we’re going to go
through this understanding sort of an introduction to evolutionary theory an introduction to what molecular genetics has to do with
behavior behavioral genetics he followed g the brain endocrinology each of these buckets and you know what
happens next which is in the second half of the course we will look at specific behaviors and
in each case rip apart the buckets and each case to the strategy of what is the beginning to look like what happened the second before role of
neurons what happened with the sentry stimuli to trigger there’s no runs
etcetera all the way back to the evolutionary
selective pressures so the first half of the course is going to be the introduction to the
bucket and i will tell you right off the bat it is a total pain in the rear because we’re really doing is like every
two and a half lectures just when you were getting vocabulary
down we’re going to jump to a completely different pockets it is going to be
dizzying mwf listen to all of that and then second half of the course of over
the rewards finally come avent putting all the pieces together
looking at the individual categories of behavior sexual behavior aggressive behavior parental behavior schizophrenia
depression personality disorders language used in each of these cases what’s going on the second before what’s
going on ten million years before we’re to all these pockets disappear in
the interactions so that’s good news strategy for the
course something critical about how the course
was designed to his it’s got no prerequisites because i really think this is a subject
that everybody on earth should be forced to learn about it gunpoint and lost like it’s a good thing i think to have
his not being one of those upper level bio classes let me just get a sense of
things here how many of your bio tight spot majors home bio psychology anthro their anything worse with grad students
in here on okay good for you thank you significant three months but nonetheless the classes been designed explicitly to
have no background whatsoever how we could do that regarding the usual song and dance of
weekly sections and reviews and all that sort of thing but in addition to his first half of the
course when we’re jumping from category category we’re going to have the each week
additional sections a catch-up section which is for people who have no
background in that area getting you through the basics and
getting you up to speed so that you will be able to them know
what’s up during the lectures so those will be posted but first wanted
uses make sure i thought this yes it would be this thursday at seven
thirty in the room next door and this is going to be the introduction to
evolutionary theory and getting him ready for what will be the evolution lectures
wednesday and friday and this week if you don’t have a strong background go
to these catch-up sections that he is who will be getting at are really expert in those areas lots of
background this will be your chance to catch up look through the handout i think i have
a bunch of terms there or something where if you are not terribly familiar
with those terms and some discipline that’s a sign that you should probably
go for some of the catch up stuff if you really are just doing this sort
of being very adventurous with no background if you can take a pass fail that will
take off a lot of the pressure as well because you could then actually pay
attention to stuff here and the whole point here is to be able
to do this even if you don’t have a science bachelor because the obvious argument i would
make is everybody has to learn behavioral biology because would be behavioral biologist
everytime serve on a jury every time we vote whether or not money
should be spent on stopping some problem whether it’s a problem with the ritz
although we’re not everytime we try to make sense of the
family member sunk and depression are they having a biochemical disorder
or are they just indulging themselves we’re behavior biologist all the time so
it’s probably good thing that will be informed once so they catch up with midsections their
take advantage of that what else we will have weekly section is the usual
type people are not assigned to sections
there’s gonna be ano eighteen of them are so weak and various times go to whichever works for you there will
be a mid-term and that only turn coming as we finish the last of those categories last in those markets there
will be eight final there’s no paper or anything like that so that will be the pattern what else
other stuff here office hours my office hours are up on the handout ordering his greatest more than any luck
be able to week i with the new york will be able to be
organized and also the journey stretch of class there will be a five minute break in the
middle c_ you can’t stand up and just get to the front of the line for the
bathroom and that we will resume properly before you get in there so just to let you clear your heads a
bit assignments brooks reading there are two
books that i have assigned for the course want to is up by need ange they would have to meet you just go buy
a bunch of copies bringing the receipt you got it great
great america so that was pretty quickly it’s the second half of the course uh… we’re going to give you a list of
the chapter to make the most sense to read the other book is a bond offering james collec called chaos chaos per year after year after year in
this class provokes the strongest opinions a quarter of the people decided is the
most irritating you relevant thing that could possibly have
been assigned to the class and feed it by half the people never quite figure
out what’s up with it and a quarter of the people their life
is transform they no longer have to meditate they no longer have to happen they are peace seaside town because wrote this book does has
introduced this whole radically different way of thinking about biology taking a part of the world of production
is in provide a hundred years we all have been
using a very simple model for thinking about moving systems which
is if you want to understand that something
that’s complicated you break it apart into its little
pieces and once you understand a little pieces
and put it back together you will understand the complex thing and what chaos as an entire field is
about and this was pretty much the first book
that was meant for the late public about it mchale shows is that’s how you fix clocks that’s not how you fix behaviors that’s
not how you understand behaviors behavior is not like a clock behavior is like a
cloud and you don’t understand rainfall
migrating cloud down into its component pieces and gloom back together so reading that book a lot of his from physical sciences
rather than biological self will just be suggesting the chapters you should read i will tell you is peace first the books since like baby beluga where i’ve gotten to the last page and
immediately started reading it over again from the front because along with baby boomers had the
greatest influence in my life i found this to be the most influential
book in my thinking about science since college so that is assigned to
also be a bunch of lectures in the second half of course covering
these fields of chaos and complexity and if you
really think about it it is going to force a change in everything else that
you bring to thinking about the subject in
addition at this moment there is not a reader because i’m trying to avoid having to
get you guys to have to buy a reader i’m trying to redo all the assigned
readings so that we just be from papers that are available online if you’ll be
able to download i’m about halfway through geting there
was anyone they will not have to be a reader but if it does exist it’s not going to
be a good won’t be terribly expensive but there will be a bunch of readings online to download hannibal vary in some
cases it will be meeting the whole paper in some cases all fees suggesting you
just read the abstract in some cases it will be to understand
what’s happening to be in the paper in detail in some cases this is an example of how
people in this bucket think about this problem just read the abstract some although that would be designed to
make clear what other stuff distribution general information online their course work is good news set up for the class there will be
copies of the handouts there will be lecture notes lecture notes that i have that would be
about five to ten pages covering each lecture which will get to
about the middle of the course and i suspect i will run out of steam by then simply won’t grow for the second half there will be commonly asked questions
there will be a q and a there will be course logistics some slides will be put off than they
are making use of that they will be
announcements about time changing for office hours and things like that make
sure you make use of that and people who are not formally enrolled we are
figuring out a way for you to get access to that as well we’ve also made a decision after this
lecture the handouts will not be on paper and that is because of my roughly for
each luxury will go through about five thousand pieces of paper even double-sided all the stuff will get posted on
coursework the day before going to make it impossible for you to
follow what happens in class because you were the last june on stanford who
was not living off of the computer screen comin talk to me and we will sleep u_n_
actually paper copy other handouts most of those with and what we can avoid
using paper just cuz of how many people there are in here webct of their staff sections sections will start this thursday the regular sections all of those will
be posted the times for that uh… office hours we’ll start until
next week will be in the evening rather than
during your class time and if we’re on schedule to class tonight they will be
used for review and anything else for a very good
suggestion just now given at the class before here is she
long gas and thus we have been possible problem of a lot of people trying to get out of
town a lot of people trying to get into that it might work best for everybody to come
in from the top so that you feel old down the stairs seamlessly and ride out the seventeen
twenty four hours salvador there that might work a lot better final thing is we have a team of chase
here and they have a great through they are ta xs terribly embarrassed i lose
venables there they are not there is all but one
of them who is in transit very heartening scott
and great they have undertaken the course before in some cases they ta dah
course before their grad students in various of the
market specialties i would strongly suggest taking advantage of the sections what will evolve after the first few
weeks is there will be the regular sections going over the course materials
from the usual way there also be more advanced sections for
people who have stronger backgrounds take advantage okay you guys could sit down reading them standing there all quickly
for hours after work take advantage of the sections really gratefully skilled t_s_ okay so that’s basically what we got
going here are there any questions universal give somebody emailed
documents uh… the classes five units and it’s because
we are meeting for so many hours a week actually for a while the class was
sixteen mid-course and i was because of condo lisa rice because when she was the
provost here she totally screwed the biology department by pumping our
teaching requirements and written really nasty conditions so what we all decided was to find ways
every single sleazy trick we could do to pop up the number of units we were
suppose lead teacher so for a while the five unit class
humidity six units but eventually they called us so we stop
doing that so proceeded doubted and weapons of mass
destruction happen moment say hi for me if you run
into her on campus old five units arm of the workload i
think will be commensurate with that but he’s mainly because of heavy class time one additional vein lectures are going
to be taped and put up online within a day or so on coursework the reason for that is given that the
spans two hour block a lot of people have to miss one of the hour blocks in
the past is work to be able to get the stuff up online so that will be
advantageous for some folks okay questioned yes there was a question of
there as ok you take it back or any other
questions cable guy did you get your big or did
somebody he did okay could social contract comes through yup yes i don’t remember they serve a third for the midterm seven thirty in the evening news and
monday tune for for the final came more questions lock what’s the format of the term in the
final in an ideal world given the whole
emphasis here on the locketts blah blah such work it would be long essays and requirements
of sonnets insensitive hike rules about the high patel nest matsu because the numbers in here we are reduced to sort of like a lowest
common denominator a lot of multiple-choice questions just to make
things sooner for beauty aids because it isn’t unbelievable job to try to make
the greatest many papers that quickly broadly intellectually with midterms
going to be about is just touching base making sure you understand the basics of
each of those buckets each of those disciplines a little bit of forcing you
to think across disciplines with the final is going to be entirely about is
forcing you to think across the disciplines across the markets there
she’s going to be so very different intellectual full-size in their midterm have the facts and hopefully will be
quite as mindless is that the best main function of nature of any more questions okay choose to give us decide to
videotape the catch-up section audio okay okay our office hours or it’s going to
be taped and put up online of course works and if there’s critical handouts visuals
tools will be posted there as well good more questions tends to be for each it’s going to be in advance of the next
three lectures finals at seven thirty fourteen hours final over finals the final five fifteen twelve fifteen just hit that up twelve fifteen more questions please visit us