“After more than 40 years studying humans and other primates, [Stanford University neurobiologist Robert] Sapolsky has reached the conclusion that virtually all human behavior is as far beyond our conscious control as the convulsions of a seizure, the division of cells or the beating of our hearts,” MSN publicized. Not just MSN, which was reposting an article originally appearing in The Los Angeles Times, but The New York Times as well, and no shortage of major media influencers reaching millions worldwide.
“This means accepting that a man who shoots into a crowd has no more control over his fate than the victims who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the article elaborates. “It means treating drunk drivers who barrel into pedestrians just like drivers who suffer a sudden heart attack and veer out of their lane…If it’s impossible for any single neuron or any single brain to act without influence from factors beyond its control, Sapolsky argues, there can be no logical room for free will.”
“We have no free will at all,” the San Franciso Chronicle’s “Datebook,” quotes Sapolsky. This means that “holding people morally responsible for their actions is wrong.”
“You might believe that your professional success is attributable to a trait — persistence, say — that you’ve consciously nurtured; that you’ve overcome addiction thanks to carefully cultivated willpower; and that those who commit the worst crimes should get life imprisonment,” the article paraphrases. “But these beliefs don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, Sapolsky writes: ‘No one has earned or is entitled to being treated better or worse than anyone else.’ That, at least, is what the experiments he cites tell us.”
Shades of Obama’s “You didn’t build that.” Meaning you didn’t earn that. What’s yours isn’t yours. Meaning we all have a claim to it. We’re pretty much into Marxism territory at this point. And participation trophies for everyone!
By these nihilistic secular humanist “standards,” or lack thereof, morality is subjective, and good and evil are artificial and malleable constructs determined by factors beyond our control. Being incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong is the hallmark of a criminal insanity defense, which is what this appears to be. In this case, for those old enough to remember, comedian Flip Wilson’s “The Devil Made Me Do It” gag, swap that out for “my gut bacteria.”
Recalling the maxim about the blind pig and the acorn, Sapolsky does stumble upon one unassailable truth in his “world without blame or prisons, with criminals ‘quarantined’ only as long as they’re deemed dangerous.”
“Anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian” is an observation derived after reading Robert J. Kukla’s essential primer Gun Contol, wherein he equated releasing a violent person who is still dangerous with opening the cage of a man-eating tiger and expecting a different result.
But Sapolsky’s morally ambiguous world, where a man is neither responsible for his achievements nor his failures, raises another question: How can you have freedom if you don’t have free will? If it’s all an illusion, why would you have a Bill of Rights? And forget “rights endowed by our Creator.”
It’s not out of line at this point to suspect there’s a fair amount of gaslighting going on, and that there’s a reason it’s being promulgated under the banner of “science.” That way, those counting on most people not understanding how things work can elevate it to the oxymoronic status of “settled science,” like with Covid “vaccines” and “climate change,” and cancel any naysaying as “baseless,” like with election fraud claims.
If it’s dressed up as “science,” most will cede to the outlandish conclusions of gun prohibitionist claims like “studies show” a “national gun violence epidemic” (they don’t), that guns are the “leading cause of death of children” (they’re not), that a “gun in the home endangers women” (not in peaceable homes), and more…
After all, science! Except for the parts about genocide of disarmed populations and defensive gun uses, which don’t get the ink or the airtime.
Forget that “students” are being cranked out of the public education system who not only can’t read and write but are taught that basic language abilities, along with math and science are racist, and that capitalism “inherently exploits children,” while those indoctrinating them are doing the exploiting. And let us not forget the chromosome-denying “science of transgender flourishing.”
While science doesn’t lie, charlatans who represent themselves as its interpreters have been known to tell some whoppers.
For those who haven’t read H.G. Wells, the synopsis for his The Shape of Things to Come seems particularly relevant and prescient:
“A benevolent dictatorship is set up, paving the way for world peace by abolishing national divisions, enforcing the English language, promoting scientific learning, and outlawing religion.”
The much-scoffed-at “Great Replacement” is not just about people. It’s about imposing an ideology incompatible with free will that questions and challenges “approved” thought. Ironically, that means it’s incompatible with real science.
If you believe that people are responsible for their actions, guess who the “benevolent dictatorship” is conflating with domestic enemies. It’s up to each of us to either act on what our brain or what our gut (bacteria?) tells us.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Those with no self control will rapidly embrace this nonsense. I fear that is the vast majority of our current civilization. And as it becomes “settled science,” this great experiment of our democratic republic will be lost to the ages. As I have noted before, I’m glad I’m old and won’t have to suffer through too much more of this idiocy. But I weep for my grandchildren who will never know the freedoms I have enjoyed.
This is because science has also now just become a club to hit people over the head with, the same as language has been perverted. Now any crooked moron in a white coat can stand up and claim; “the science is settled”, when the only settled part is that Fauchi is/was a genocidal criminal. Science, like medicine, is now just another religion… and I reject all of them.
For a “scientist” he sure is stupid
Using his own logic against him, prosecuting and punishing people are out of our control. Game on.
Sapolsky has a very old, oft repeated, boring, and incorrect opinion. He cannot substantiate it with facts.
What a sad individual! After 40 years he realizes his “work?” Has been totally irrelevant and creates this completely asinine theory so he can name it after himself. He appeals to the base desires of immoral lazy creeps who need an excuse for their deviant behavior to achieve his notoriety.
The proof that he’s wrong died on the cross. Everyone has the ability to make choices. We all are responsible for our actions and regularly make beneficial changes in our life based on many influences. It’s what responsible people do.his theory is just another excuse to for evil to occur.
Another addled “professor”. It took this idiot 40 years to come up with this diatribe? He’s just looking for attention, to be “important”, if only for a few days, until wasted “life’s work” is blown out of the water.
Morons, educated into imbecility, can get all the attention they want from the fawning media.
This is just academic marxism reaching into the behavioral sciences. Part of academic marxism, or wokeness, is to remove all blame from “oppressed peoples” for the crimes committed by them. No one was buying their argument that the behavior is caused by “structural racism” or “generational trauma,” so now they’re testing to see if we’ll buy the notion that criminals are genetically wired to be criminals, so we ought not punish them. Here’s how we know this is false: Go back three or four generations. The same genetic pool that they are now trying to excuse for crime was not… Read more »
And we’re letting these people teach our young. Will someone please put him out of OUR misery.