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It’s about 1:00 p.m. on a weekday in December, 2015. I am working with a small team in a radio studio on campus. We are about to interview world-renowned scientist, Dr. Robert Trivers, for a potential podcast that we are working on. We are using Skype and have both audio and video channels going. We call him via Skype at exactly the time we’d said we would. He answers. Dr. Trivers’ face and upper body show up on the screen. No shirt. Our team includes veteran media personality and radio host, John Tobin, who has conducted thousands of interviews in his time. John would later report that he’d never had an interview go quite this way before.
And so it begins:
Dr. Trivers: Oh wait - I have to put on a shirt and get a beer - can we wait just a minute? Oh and I have to put this towel away. I just got out of the shower - I wanted to be fresh for this ...
Of course we smiled and complied and said it was fine. In a few minutes he settles down into a chair that he describes as “near the fridge,” just in case there’s a need for more beer during this interview.
For about an hour, Dr. Trivers took us on a wild ride - emerging at times as kind of hard to pin down on a particular topic - and emerging at other times as having uniquely interesting personal anecdotes, such as one about the time that he drove a getaway car for renowned Black Panther leader Huey Newton after leaving a bar in Northern California under sketchy terms back in the 1970s.
Trivers’ Influence on Modern Evolutionary Psychology
As an evolutionarily informed behavioral scientist, or as a an evolutionary psychologist, I'll say that there is a handful of major scholars whose work paved the way for what we do now and for how we understand the impact of evolution on behavior. Within that handful is one that perhaps stands alone - and that one is Robert Trivers.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Trivers was a young, mathematically oriented theoretical biologist who was armed with the ability to develop insightful theories of behavior that cut across species and that helped make clear predictions about many many facets of behavior. One of his greatest such theories is the theory of reciprocal altruism (Trivers, 1971) - which provides a simple, elegant, and evolutionarily informed model for why helping often exists between non-kin across various species (such as the Florida Scrub Jay, the Belding Ground Squirrel, and the Homo Sapien). Essentially, under certain ecological conditions, such as when the individuals within a particular species live in stable social groups and can effectively recognize individuals in those groups, reciprocal altruism can (mathematically and logically) evolve to ultimately serve to the benefit of each individual. Turns out he was totally right. And that’s how Dr. Trivers rolls, by the way.
In our field, Trivers is considered truly a one-of-a-kind thinker, whose insights into such concepts as reciprocal altruism, parent/offspring conflict, and parental investment, have fully shed light on how we understand these social-behavioral domains across species. In a word: Brilliant. And this brilliant nature of the work of Dr. Trivers has been acknowledged by such world-class scholars as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker.
The Wild Life of Robert Trivers
Dr. Trivers is primarily known for his landmark work on evolution and behavior. In our field, he is almost as well-known for being a pretty wild guy! He has unabashedly reported that he has a strong attraction to Jamaican women, for instance, and, over the years, he has spent some exciting times in Jamaica as a result. At a recent conference in Boston where I was fortunate to meet him in person, he adorned a hat with an iconic green marijuana leaf on it - and I will never forget him taking a beer from the conference reception under his jacket (to not be detected) out onto the streets of Boston.
I have to say, I don’t know Dr. Trivers super-well - but I do wish I knew him better. You see, I’ve been in academia for over two decades now. And while I love the work I do and feel privileged to be surrounded by a lot of amazing people, I do think, every now and again, that academics can be a bit … stuffy - yeah, I guess that’s the word. Anyway, if there is an example of someone in this world who is the exact opposite of stuffy in any and all senses, then that person is Dr. Robert Trivers. He’s a kind and generous guy who cares a lot about supporting the next generation of scholars - but he’s also fun. Very fun. And I have to say that I value this attribute in others enormously. Life is too short to surround oneself with boring people!
In his newest (2015) book, “The Wild Life: Adventures of an Evolutionary Biologist,” Dr. Trivers walks us through a wild ride of a life. He gives us the behind-the-scenes of a man whose work is considered as perhaps the most significant body of work to advance evolutionary theory since Darwin himself. And I will tell you, the behind-the-scenes version is just awesome! Dr. Trivers has always lived on the edge - and has captivating and thought-provoking personal stories from his days in Boston, northern California, New Jersey, and, of course, Jamaica. And more.
His writing style is clear and captivating. And his story is one worth knowing. This book is a great read for anyone who:
- Is interested in why life exists
- Is interested in our place within the broader context of life
- Wants to know what the life of a great thinker can be like
- Wants to know about the life of someone who is not afraid to take chances
- Wants to smile and laugh and say out loud, repeatedly, “Oh my God!!!”
The Lessons of Robert Trivers
One of the reasons to read a book is to learn things that will help you in your own future. We can learn a lot from Robert Trivers. Several life lessons are there for the taking in Wild Life. These include:
- Don’t be afraid to take risks. All new ideas in the world came from brave souls who were not afraid to take risks.
- Ask big questions. When Dr. Trivers was still in his 20s, he was asking huge questions about the existence of life.
- Respect people regardless of their “status.” It’s so easy to see people arranged in some kind of status hierarchy. Dr. Trivers never took that approach in dealing with people in his life. We can be egalitarian if we choose to be.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously. And don’t take others too seriously either.
- Have fun. Life is way too short.
- Don’t be afraid to push back against the establishment. The world needs revolutionaries.
Denouement
As for the podcast, we are still in the editing stages.* Dr. Trivers had so much to say on so many different topics - honestly, I’m not sure how well we’re going to be able to edit the whole thing down. So we’ll see on that. But in any case, I will say that I felt privileged to be part of the team in just talking to such a living legend in our field.
Every now and again, someone with unique insights and communication skills comes into this world and revolutionizes how the world is seen for all future generations. Dr. Robert Trivers is one such rare individual. And as an evolutionary behavioral scientist, I’m thrilled to have gotten to know him - even if just a little bit. Dr. Trivers is a down-to-earth guy who cares little for the standard academic etiquette and political correctness that typically surround the academic world.
A breath of fresh air, a great guy, and a scholar who stands alone in his impact on modern thought - Dr. Trivers is considered nothing less than a hero by members of my academic cohort. And he’s done a favor to all of us by capturing his life in a book - check out Wild Life if you can.
(Also see the PT article Trivers' Pursuit.)
References
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57.
*Big thanks to Brett Barry, Gregg Bray, Heather Handler, and Liz Levy - and, of course, John Tobin, for taking the time to conduct our interview with Dr. Trivers which serves as the basis of this post.
