L'etologia: Fondamenti e metodi

by Konrad Lorenz, Felicita Scapini (Translator)

Al pari della teoria relativistica di Einstein o di quella psicoanalitica di Freud, l’etologia, la scienza di cui Konrad Lorenz è stato l’iniziatore e che studia il comportamento animale con il metodo dell’analisi comparata, è entrata ormai stabilmente nella «coscienza collettiva» e nella cultura dell’Occidente. Questo trattato di «fondamenti e metodi» è una vera summa del pensiero lorenziano, con la quale deve misurarsi anche chi voglia solo contestarne i risultati.
Accusato spesso di eccessivo innatismo, Lorenz sorvola qui sugli aspetti del comportamento umano, ma i risultati di etologia animale che vengono illustrati sono di portata così generale che il riferimento è trasparente. Il luminoso ma fragile edificio della nostra razionalità, sembra ammonire Lorenz, poggia su un terreno di istinti primordiali che abbiamo in comune con creature ben più primitive nella scala evolutiva e con cui dobbiamo fare i conti.

Genres: Science, Biology, Nonfiction, Animals, Psychology

394 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 3, 1978

About the author

Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, developing an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth.
Lorenz studied instinctive behavior in animals, especially in greylag geese and jackdaws. Working with geese, he investigated the principle of imprinting, the process by which some nidifugous birds (i.e. birds that leave their nest early) bond instinctively with the first moving object that they see within the first hours of hatching. Although Lorenz did not discover the topic, he became widely known for his descriptions of imprinting as an instinctive bond. In 1936 he met Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, and the two collaborated in developing ethology as a separate sub-discipline of biology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lorenz as the 65th most cited scholar of the 20th century in the technical psychology journals, introductory psychology textbooks, and survey responses.

Reviews

[Silvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I finished this one a while ago and I don't know why I never wrote a review.

This book is amazing. Read it. It's not a suggestion. It's an order.

[Jakub Štefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"V tomto získavaní informace se evoluční proces podobá kognitivnímu procesu získavaní vedení."

"Každé "naučené chování" však obsahuje fylogeneticky získanou informaci, protože základem každého "učitele" je fyziologický aparát rozvinutý pod selekčním tlakem jeho učební funkce."

"Bylo skutečne nesprávné formulovat pojmy vrozeného a získaného jako disjunktivní protiklady: pospolitost a prekrižovaní obsahu pojmu však nespočívaly, jak tvrdili "odpúrci instiktu", v tom, že všechno zdánlive vrozené je vlastne naučené, nýbrž naopak v tom, že základem všeho učení musí být fylogeneticky vzniklý program pokud má produkovat účelné zpusoby chovaní sloužící zachování druhu."

"Poznání, že vrozený "vrozený učitel" musí hrát svou nepostradatelnou roli v každém procesu učení, ukazuje, že disjunktivní pojmová definice vrozeného a naučeného je skutečne nesprávná, ale z duvodú presne opačných, než jsou ty, z nichž zde kritizovaní autori tuto "dichitomii" odmítali. Učení s vubec nepodílí, jak oni predpokládají, na každém elementu chování, neexistuje však žádný účelný proces učení, jehož základem by nebyl fylogeneticky programovaný mechanizmus, který obsahuje velké množství vrozené informace."

... and many more arguments against the Nature v. Nurture debate. For me, this was beautifully stating what I was arguing with my classmates. I think Konrad Lorenz is a genius of his time - he outran debates in behavioral sciences that take place to this day. On other hand, it's easy to call somebody a genius when he agrees with your point of view :D