Robert Trivers Is Dead. I Once Thought He Was Going to Kill Me
Robert Trivers, 1943-2026, in Jamaica, where I interviewed him in 2017. He sent me this undated photo.
HOBOKEN, MARCH 21, 2026. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, who has been in the news lately because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein, died March 12 at the age of 83, according to this obituary. Now I can explain why I once feared Trivers might murder me and my girlfriend.
In 2017 I visited Trivers at his home on the island of Jamaica and dragged my then-girlfriend “Emily” (a pseudonym) with me. I wanted to interview Trivers for a book I was writing on the mind-body problem, which I define as the mystery of what we are. Are we matter? Mind? Software? Genes? Evolutionary adaptations? Children of God?
I wanted to explore the mind-body problem by looking at prominent mind-body theorists afflicted with specific mind-body problems, such as mental illness. Trivers was the perfect subject for my book. He has arguably contributed more to evolutionary theory than anyone since Darwin. He is also “a difficult man, a hot-tempered, bipolar anti-authoritarian with a taste for booze and weed.”
That’s a quote from “He-Town,” my chapter on Trivers in my 2018 book Mind-Body Problems. The chapter describes Trivers’s scientific achievements—including his theories of altruism and self-deception--and my interactions with him in Jamaica. That account omits one key exchange, which I can now disclose:
I had been asking Trivers about his bipolar illness and his penchant for violence, and he seemed to be getting increasingly annoyed. He confessed that decades earlier, during bouts of depression, he had contemplated suicide, but he didn’t want to abandon his children when they were young.
Now that his children were grown, he was thinking once again about taking his life. But before killing himself, he wanted to kill someone else. Here is an exact quote from our conversation, which I recorded and transcribed: “I’m not going to commit suicide unless it’s preceded by murder.”
Trivers said this to me in his living room. Shortly thereafter my girlfriend “Emily,” who had been in another room, joined us. The three of us chatted a bit, then Trivers abruptly left the room.
Emily asked how the interview had been going. Fine, I replied, although I worried my questions were upsetting Trivers. A moment later Emily, looking over my shoulder, whispered, John, he has a gun. Trivers, she said, had just walked past a doorway holding a gun in his hand.
I freaked out. I told Emily in a whisper that Trivers had just been talking about killing someone before killing himself. I fretted: Do you think he’s planning on killing us? What should we do? Should we run away?
Emily, who is much tougher than I am, told me to calm down. Then she murmured, Shhh, here he comes.
To find out what happened next, read my chapter on Trivers. I don’t mention his comment on murder-suicide in the chapter, because I knew he’d be upset, but I do mention the gun. Trivers read the chapter before I published it to confirm its accuracy.
As I worked on the chapter, I struggled to come up with a fair assessment of this brilliant, flawed man. Here is a lightly edited excerpt from Mind-Body Problems:
Trivers was a warm, gracious host. Before we arrived, he bought fish for us and had sheets and towels laundered. He took us on a tour of his land and his town, which had a tourist attraction called Lovers Leap. He entertained us with scientific fun facts and tales from his life on the island and elsewhere. He answered my questions, even those that upset him. He bared his heart.
I still have doubts about Darwinian science. Theorists ascribe much of what we do to instinct, but it is often hard to know where instinct ends and reason begins. We acquire many of our values and inclinations from culture rather than biology. Altruism is a case in point. Maybe kindness is in our genes, but we are also brainwashed to be nice from an early age, and we learn that niceness, and even pseudo-niceness, is rewarded.
Trivers has clearly projected his belligerent psyche, what I call the “tough guy stuff,” onto all of humanity. Whether because of nature or nurture, he sees even the most intimate relationships—between husbands and wives, parents and children, friends—as struggles. For this tempestuous man, at war with himself and with the world, life is a battleground, a contest for respect, status, reproductive opportunities.
But the more I contemplate the work of Trivers, the more profound it seems. It helps me understand why my reason and emotions, and selfishness and kindness, are so entangled. It gives me a little insight into the swirling, contradictory feelings I have when I interact with others, whether my girlfriend, children, friends, colleagues, students--or subjects of my journalism.
Trivers is right, life is a battleground, a war of all against all, even when the combat isn’t physical. Trivers has explained, as well as anyone, why it is so hard for us to be happy, to be good, to be honest. We are at war with ourselves as well as others, and our self-deception makes peace elusive. Our shared evolutionary heritage landed us in this tragic condition, which no one, no matter how privileged, intelligent and decent, can escape.
Not to lay too great a metaphorical burden on him, but Trivers embodies the contradictions of modern humanity. So enlightened, so benighted! No matter how much we learn about ourselves, we will always be missing something, on which our lives might depend.
Given what Trivers has shown us about the depths of our folly, our deadly capacity for self-deception, can we create a truly just, free world? Can we save ourselves? Will my students and children be okay?
That is what I wrote in 2018. I’m still asking myself these questions.
Further Reading:
Check out my chapter on Trivers, “He-Town,” in Mind-Body Problems.
See also my column “Self-Gaslighting,” which discusses Trivers’s ideas about our capacity for self-deception.
To hear Trivers speak, check out the audio clip at the end of “He-Town” and my 2018 conversation with him for Meaningoflife.tv.
For my take on the Epstein files, which include correspondence between Epstein and Trivers, see my column “Epstein and The End of “Pure” Science.”