Konrad Lorenz
Encyclopedia
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austria
n zoologist
, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize
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 jackdaw
s. Working with geese, he rediscovered the principle of imprinting
(originally described by Douglas Spalding
in the 19th century) in the behavior of nidifugous
birds. In later life his interest shifted to the study of humans in society.
He wrote numerous books, some of which, such as King Solomon's Ring
, On Aggression
and Man Meets Dog
became popular reading. His last work "Here I Am - Where Are You?" is a summary of his life's work and focuses on his famous studies of greylag geese.
's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
, which filled him with a great enthusiasm about wild geese.
At the request of his father, Adolf Lorenz
, he began a premedical curriculum in 1922 at Columbia University
, but he returned to Vienna in 1923 to continue his studies at the University of Vienna
. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1928 and became an assistant professor at the Institute of Anatomy until 1935. He finished his zoological studies in 1933 and received his second doctorate (PhD).
In 1936, at an international scientific symposium on instinct, Lorenz met his great friend and colleague Nikolaas Tinbergen
. Together they studied geese - wild, domestic, and hybrid. One result of these studies was that Lorenz "realized that an overpowering increase in the drives of feeding as well as of copulation and a waning of more differentiated social instincts is characteristic of very many domestic animals." Lorenz began to suspect and fear "that analogous processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity."
In 1940 he became a professor of psychology
at the University of Königsberg
. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht
in 1941. He sought to be a motorcycle mechanic, but instead he was assigned as a medic. He was sent to the Russian front in 1944 and quickly became a prisoner of war
in the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1948. In captivity he continued to work as a medic and "got quite friendly with some Russians, mostly doctors." When he was repatriated, he was allowed to keep the manuscript of a book he had been writing, and his pet starling. He arrived back in Altenberg "with manuscript and bird intact." The manuscript became his book Behind the Mirror
. The Max Planck Society
established the Lorenz Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Buldern, Germany
, in 1950.
In 1958, Lorenz transferred to the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
in Seewiesen. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
"for discoveries in individual and social behavior patterns" with two other important early ethologists, Nikolaas Tinbergen
and Karl von Frisch
. In 1969, he became the first recipient of the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
.
Lorenz retired from the Max Planck Institute in 1973 but continued to research and publish from Altenberg (his family home, near Vienna) and Grünau im Almtal
in Austria.
Lorenz died on February 27, 1989, in Altenberg.
Lorenz was also a friend and student of renowned biologist Sir Julian Huxley (grandson of "Darwin's bulldog", Thomas Henry Huxley). Famed psycho-anatomist Ralph Greenson
and Sir Peter Scott were good friends.
in 1938 and accepted a university chair under the Nazi regime
. In his application for membership to the Nazi-party NSDAP
he wrote in 1938: "I'm able to say that my whole scientific work is devoted to the ideas of the National Socialists
." His publications during that time led in later years to allegations that his scientific work had been contaminated by Nazi sympathies: his published writing during the Nazi period included support for Nazi ideas of "racial hygiene
" couched in pseudoscientific metaphors.
However, later in his Biography he wrote:
"I was frightened - as I still am - by the thought that analogous genetical processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity. Moved by this fear, I did a very ill-advised thing soon after the Germans had invaded Austria: I wrote about the dangers of domestication and, in order to be understood, I couched my writing in the worst of nazi-terminology. I do not want to extenuate this action. I did, indeed, believe that some good might come of the new rulers. The precedent narrow-minded catholic regime in Austria induced better and more intelligent men than I was to cherish this naive hope. Practically all my friends and teachers did so, including my own father who certainly was a kindly and humane man. None of us as much as suspected that the word "selection", when used by these rulers, meant murder. I regret those writings not so much for the undeniable discredit they reflect on my person as for their effect of hampering the future recognition of the dangers of domestication." Autobiography
During the final years of his life Lorenz supported the fledgling Austrian Green Party
and in 1984 became the figurehead of the Konrad Lorenz Volksbegehren
, a grass-roots movement that was formed to prevent the building of a power plant at the Danube near Hainburg an der Donau
and thus the destruction of the surrounding woodland.
Together with Nikolaas Tinbergen
, Lorenz developed the idea of an innate releasing mechanism to explain instinctive behaviors (fixed action pattern
s). They experimented with "supernormal stimuli" such as giant eggs or dummy bird beaks which they found could release the fixed action patterns more powerfully than the natural objects for which the behaviors were adapted. Influenced by the ideas of William McDougall
, Lorenz developed this into a "psychohydraulic" model of the motivation
of behavior, which tended towards group selection
ist ideas, which were influential in the 1960s. Another of his contributions to ethology is his work on imprinting
. His influence on a younger generation of ethologists; and his popular works, were important in bringing ethology to the attention of the general public.
Lorenz claimed that there was widespread contempt for the descriptive sciences. He attributed this to the denial of perception as the source of all scientific knowledge: "a denial that has been evaluated to the status of religion." He wrote that in comparative behavioral research, "it is necessary to describe various patterns of movement, record them, and above all, render them unmistakably recognizable."
There are three Konrad Lorenz Institutes in Austria; one is housed in his family mansion at Altenberg http://www.kli.ac.at/, and another at his field station in Grünau.
Lorenz, like other ethologists, performed research largely by observation, or when experiments were conducted, they were conducted in a natural setting. Occasionally there were long-term problems from his research, for example when geese, which had been imprinted
on baby buggies as goslings, were later released into Vienna's parks, some displayed an unforeseen propensity for attempting to mate with baby buggies and similar objects . Nevertheless, animal welfare
advocates like to point out that Lorenz won a Nobel Prize without ever using invasive techniques.
Lorenz adopts an ecological model to attempt to grasp the mechanisms behind this contradiction. Thus "all species... are adapted to their environment... including not only inorganic components... but all the other living beings that inhabit the locality." p31.
Fundamental to Lorenz' theory of ecology is the function of feedback mechanisms, especially negative ones which, in hierarchical fashion, dampen impulses that occur beneath a certain threshold. The thresholds themselves are the product of the interaction of contrasting mechanisms. Thus pain and pleasure act as checks on each other:
In nature, these mechanisms tend towards a 'stable state' among the living beings of an ecology:
Lorenz states that humanity is the one species not bound by these mechanisms, being the only one that has defined its own environment:
Lorenz does not see human independence from natural ecological processes as necessarily bad. Indeed, he states that:
However, the principle of competition, typical of Western societies, destroys any chance of this:
In this book, Lorenz proposes that the best hope for mankind lies in our looking for mates based on the kindness of their hearts rather than good looks or wealth. He illustrates this with a Jewish story, explicitly described as such.
Lorenz was one of the early scientists who recognised the significance of overpopulation. The number one deadly sin of civilized man in his book is overpopulation, what leads to aggression.
, Lorenz considers the old philosophical question of whether our senses correctly inform us about the world as it is, or provide us only with an illusion. His answer comes from evolutionary biology. Only traits that help us survive and reproduce are transmitted. If our senses gave us wrong information about our environment, we would soon be extinct. Therefore we can be sure that our senses give us correct information, for otherwise we would not be here to be deceived.
and On Aggression
, both written for a popular audience. His scientific work appeared mainly in journal articles, written in German
; they became widely known to English-speaking scientists through the descriptions of it in Tinbergen's 1951 book
The Study of Instinct, though many of his papers were later published in English translation in the two volumes titled Studies in Animal and Human Behavior.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n zoologist
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
with Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
and Karl von Frisch
Karl von Frisch
Karl Ritter von Frisch was an Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz....
. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology
Ethology
Ethology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....
, developing an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth
Oskar Heinroth
Oskar Heinroth was a German biologist who was one of the first to apply the methods of comparative morphology to animal behaviour, and was thus one of the founders of ethology...
.
Lorenz studied instinctive behavior
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
in animals, especially in greylag geese
Greylag Goose
The Greylag Goose , Anser anser, is a bird with a wide range in the Old World. It is the type species of the genus Anser....
and jackdaw
Jackdaw
The Jackdaw , sometimes known as the Eurasian Jackdaw, European Jackdaw or Western Jackdaw, is a passerine bird in the crow family. Found across Europe, western Asia and North Africa, it is mostly sedentary, although northern and eastern populations migrate south in winter. Four subspecies are...
s. Working with geese, he rediscovered the principle of imprinting
Imprinting (psychology)
Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
(originally described by Douglas Spalding
Douglas Spalding
Douglas Alexander Spalding was an English biologist. He was born in Islington in London in 1841, and began life as a manual labourer. Subsequently he lived in Scotland, near Aberdeen; the philosopher Alexander Bain persuaded the University of Aberdeen to allow him to attend courses without charge....
in the 19th century) in the behavior of nidifugous
Nidifugous
Nidifugous organisms are those that leave the nest shortly after hatching or birth. It is derived from Latin nidus for "nest" and fugere meaning "to flee". The terminology is most often used to describe birds and was introduced by Lorenz Oken in 1916...
birds. In later life his interest shifted to the study of humans in society.
He wrote numerous books, some of which, such as King Solomon's Ring
King Solomon's Ring (nonfiction)
King Solomon's Ring is a zoological book for the general audience, written by the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. The first English-language edition appeared in 1952....
, On Aggression
On Aggression
On Aggression is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz written in 1963. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." According to Lorenz, animals, particularly...
and Man Meets Dog
Man Meets Dog
Man Meets Dog is a zoological book for the general audience, written by the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. The first English-language edition appeared in 1954....
became popular reading. His last work "Here I Am - Where Are You?" is a summary of his life's work and focuses on his famous studies of greylag geese.
Biography
In his autobiographical essay, published in 1973 in Les Prix Nobel (winners of the prizes are requested to provide such essays), Lorenz credits his career to his parents, who "were supremely tolerant of my inordinate love for animals," and to his childhood encounter with Selma LagerlofSelma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....
's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is a work of fiction by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. It was published in two books, The Wonderful Adventures of Nils in 1906 and Further Adventures of Nils in 1907...
, which filled him with a great enthusiasm about wild geese.
At the request of his father, Adolf Lorenz
Adolf Lorenz
Adolf Lorenz was an Austrian orthopedic surgeon who was a native of Weidenau, Austrian Silesia . He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and subsequently worked as an assistant to surgeon Eduard Albert in Vienna. In 1901 he was one of the founders of the German Society of Orthopaedic...
, he began a premedical curriculum in 1922 at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, but he returned to Vienna in 1923 to continue his studies at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1928 and became an assistant professor at the Institute of Anatomy until 1935. He finished his zoological studies in 1933 and received his second doctorate (PhD).
In 1936, at an international scientific symposium on instinct, Lorenz met his great friend and colleague Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
. Together they studied geese - wild, domestic, and hybrid. One result of these studies was that Lorenz "realized that an overpowering increase in the drives of feeding as well as of copulation and a waning of more differentiated social instincts is characteristic of very many domestic animals." Lorenz began to suspect and fear "that analogous processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity."
In 1940 he became a professor of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the University of Königsberg
University of Königsberg
The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....
. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
in 1941. He sought to be a motorcycle mechanic, but instead he was assigned as a medic. He was sent to the Russian front in 1944 and quickly became a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
in the Soviet Union from 1944 to 1948. In captivity he continued to work as a medic and "got quite friendly with some Russians, mostly doctors." When he was repatriated, he was allowed to keep the manuscript of a book he had been writing, and his pet starling. He arrived back in Altenberg "with manuscript and bird intact." The manuscript became his book Behind the Mirror
Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge
Behind the mirror, a search for a natural history of human knowledge was published by Konrad Lorenz in 1973 as Die Rückseite des Spiegels, Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens. The direct translation of the German title is "The of the mirror"...
. The Max Planck Society
Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....
established the Lorenz Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Buldern, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, in 1950.
In 1958, Lorenz transferred to the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, ForMemRS, was a German physicist who actualized the quantum physics, initiating a revolution in natural science and philosophy. He is regarded as the founder of the quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.-Life and career:Planck came...
in Seewiesen. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
"for discoveries in individual and social behavior patterns" with two other important early ethologists, Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
and Karl von Frisch
Karl von Frisch
Karl Ritter von Frisch was an Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz....
. In 1969, he became the first recipient of the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca
The Prix mondial Cino Del Duca is an international literary award.-Origins and operations:It was established in 1969 in France by Simone Del Duca to continue the work of her husband, publishing magnate Cino Del Duca .Designed to recognize and reward an author whose work constitutes, in a...
.
Lorenz retired from the Max Planck Institute in 1973 but continued to research and publish from Altenberg (his family home, near Vienna) and Grünau im Almtal
Grünau im Almtal
Grünau im Almtal is a village in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. The village had a population of 2,115 as of 2002.Grünau is surrounded by mountains with a central river that runs throughout the valley....
in Austria.
Lorenz died on February 27, 1989, in Altenberg.
Lorenz was also a friend and student of renowned biologist Sir Julian Huxley (grandson of "Darwin's bulldog", Thomas Henry Huxley). Famed psycho-anatomist Ralph Greenson
Ralph Greenson
Dr. Ralph Greenson was a prominent American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. While working with Mrs Eunice Murray, Greenson is famous for being Marilyn Monroe's psychiatrist. and the basis for Leo Rosten's 1963 novel, Captain Newman, M.D...
and Sir Peter Scott were good friends.
Politics
Lorenz joined the Nazi PartyNational Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
in 1938 and accepted a university chair under the Nazi regime
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. In his application for membership to the Nazi-party NSDAP
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
he wrote in 1938: "I'm able to say that my whole scientific work is devoted to the ideas of the National Socialists
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
." His publications during that time led in later years to allegations that his scientific work had been contaminated by Nazi sympathies: his published writing during the Nazi period included support for Nazi ideas of "racial hygiene
Racial hygiene
Racial hygiene was a set of early twentieth century state sanctioned policies by which certain groups of individuals were allowed to procreate and others not, with the expressed purpose of promoting certain characteristics deemed to be particularly desirable...
" couched in pseudoscientific metaphors.
However, later in his Biography he wrote:
"I was frightened - as I still am - by the thought that analogous genetical processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity. Moved by this fear, I did a very ill-advised thing soon after the Germans had invaded Austria: I wrote about the dangers of domestication and, in order to be understood, I couched my writing in the worst of nazi-terminology. I do not want to extenuate this action. I did, indeed, believe that some good might come of the new rulers. The precedent narrow-minded catholic regime in Austria induced better and more intelligent men than I was to cherish this naive hope. Practically all my friends and teachers did so, including my own father who certainly was a kindly and humane man. None of us as much as suspected that the word "selection", when used by these rulers, meant murder. I regret those writings not so much for the undeniable discredit they reflect on my person as for their effect of hampering the future recognition of the dangers of domestication." Autobiography
During the final years of his life Lorenz supported the fledgling Austrian Green Party
Austrian Green Party
The Greens – The Green Alternative is a political party in the Austrian parliament.The party was formed in 1986 with the name Grüne Alternative, following the merger of the more conservative Green party Vereinte Grüne Österreichs and the more progressive party Alternative Liste Österreichs The...
and in 1984 became the figurehead of the Konrad Lorenz Volksbegehren
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
, a grass-roots movement that was formed to prevent the building of a power plant at the Danube near Hainburg an der Donau
Hainburg an der Donau
Hainburg an der Donau is a town in the Bruck an der Leitha district, Lower Austria, Austria.-Geography:The city Hainburg is located next to the Danube river and Bratislava in Slovakia and 50 km east of Vienna. It is part of the Industrial Quarter Industrieviertel in Lower Austria.45.87% of the...
and thus the destruction of the surrounding woodland.
Contributions and legacy
Nikolaas Tinbergen
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
, Lorenz developed the idea of an innate releasing mechanism to explain instinctive behaviors (fixed action pattern
Fixed action pattern
In ethology, a fixed action pattern , or modal action pattern, is an instinctive behavioral sequence that is indivisible and runs to completion...
s). They experimented with "supernormal stimuli" such as giant eggs or dummy bird beaks which they found could release the fixed action patterns more powerfully than the natural objects for which the behaviors were adapted. Influenced by the ideas of William McDougall
William McDougall (psychologist)
William McDougall FRS was an early twentieth century psychologist who spent the first part of his career in the United Kingdom and the latter part in the United States...
, Lorenz developed this into a "psychohydraulic" model of the motivation
Motivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
of behavior, which tended towards group selection
Group selection
In evolutionary biology, group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the alleles' effect on the fitness of individuals within that group....
ist ideas, which were influential in the 1960s. Another of his contributions to ethology is his work on imprinting
Imprinting (psychology)
Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
. His influence on a younger generation of ethologists; and his popular works, were important in bringing ethology to the attention of the general public.
Lorenz claimed that there was widespread contempt for the descriptive sciences. He attributed this to the denial of perception as the source of all scientific knowledge: "a denial that has been evaluated to the status of religion." He wrote that in comparative behavioral research, "it is necessary to describe various patterns of movement, record them, and above all, render them unmistakably recognizable."
There are three Konrad Lorenz Institutes in Austria; one is housed in his family mansion at Altenberg http://www.kli.ac.at/, and another at his field station in Grünau.
Lorenz, like other ethologists, performed research largely by observation, or when experiments were conducted, they were conducted in a natural setting. Occasionally there were long-term problems from his research, for example when geese, which had been imprinted
Imprinting (psychology)
Imprinting is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior...
on baby buggies as goslings, were later released into Vienna's parks, some displayed an unforeseen propensity for attempting to mate with baby buggies and similar objects . Nevertheless, animal welfare
Animal welfare
Animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of animals.The term animal welfare can also mean human concern for animal welfare or a position in a debate on animal ethics and animal rights...
advocates like to point out that Lorenz won a Nobel Prize without ever using invasive techniques.
Lorenz's vision of the challenges facing humanity
Lorenz also predicted the relationship between market economics and the threat of ecological catastrophe. In his 1973 book, Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins, Konrad Lorenz addresses the following paradox:- "All the advantages that man has gained from his ever-deepening understanding of the natural world that surrounds him, his technological, chemical and medical progress, all of which should seem to alleviate human suffering... tends instead to favor humanity's destruction"
Lorenz adopts an ecological model to attempt to grasp the mechanisms behind this contradiction. Thus "all species... are adapted to their environment... including not only inorganic components... but all the other living beings that inhabit the locality." p31.
Fundamental to Lorenz' theory of ecology is the function of feedback mechanisms, especially negative ones which, in hierarchical fashion, dampen impulses that occur beneath a certain threshold. The thresholds themselves are the product of the interaction of contrasting mechanisms. Thus pain and pleasure act as checks on each other:
- "To gain a desired prey, a dog or wolf will do things that, in other contexts, they would shy away from: run through thorn bushes, jump into cold water and expose themselves to risks which would normally frighten them. All these inhibitory mechanisms... act as a counterweight to the effects of learning mechanisms... The organism cannot allow itself to pay a price which is not worth paying". p53.
In nature, these mechanisms tend towards a 'stable state' among the living beings of an ecology:
- "A closer examination shows that these beings... not only do not damage each other, but often constitute a community of interests. It is obvious that the predator is strongly interested in the survival of that species, animal or vegetable, which constitutes its prey. ... It is not uncommon that the prey species derives specific benefits from its interaction with the predator species..." pp31–33.
Lorenz states that humanity is the one species not bound by these mechanisms, being the only one that has defined its own environment:
- "[The pace of human ecology] is determined by the progress of man's technology (p35)... human ecology (economy) is governed by mechanisms of POSITIVE feedback, defined as a mechanism which tends to encourage behavior rather than to attenuate it (p43). Positive feedback always involves the danger of an 'avalanche' effect... One particular kind of positive feedback occurs when individuals OF THE SAME SPECIES enter into competition among themselves... For many animal species, environmental factors keep... intraspecies selection from [leading to] disaster... But there is no force which exercises this type of healthy regulatory effect on humanity's cultural development; unfortunately for itself, humanity has learned to overcome all those environmental forces which are external to itself" p44.
Lorenz does not see human independence from natural ecological processes as necessarily bad. Indeed, he states that:
- "A completely new [ecology] which corresponds in every way to [humanity's] desires... could, theoretically, prove as durable as that which would have existed without his intervention (36).
However, the principle of competition, typical of Western societies, destroys any chance of this:
- "The competition between human beings destroys with cold and diabolic brutality... Under the pressure of this competitive fury we have not only forgotten what is useful to humanity as a whole, but even that which is good and advantageous to the individual. [...] One asks, which is more damaging to modern humanity: the thirst for money or consuming haste... in either case, fear plays a very important role: the fear of being overtaken by one's competitors, the fear of becoming poor, the fear of making wrong decisions or the fear of not being up to snuff..." pp45–47.
In this book, Lorenz proposes that the best hope for mankind lies in our looking for mates based on the kindness of their hearts rather than good looks or wealth. He illustrates this with a Jewish story, explicitly described as such.
Lorenz was one of the early scientists who recognised the significance of overpopulation. The number one deadly sin of civilized man in his book is overpopulation, what leads to aggression.
Philosophical speculations
In his 1973 book Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human KnowledgeBehind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge
Behind the mirror, a search for a natural history of human knowledge was published by Konrad Lorenz in 1973 as Die Rückseite des Spiegels, Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens. The direct translation of the German title is "The of the mirror"...
, Lorenz considers the old philosophical question of whether our senses correctly inform us about the world as it is, or provide us only with an illusion. His answer comes from evolutionary biology. Only traits that help us survive and reproduce are transmitted. If our senses gave us wrong information about our environment, we would soon be extinct. Therefore we can be sure that our senses give us correct information, for otherwise we would not be here to be deceived.
Works
Lorenz's best-known books are King Solomon's RingKing Solomon's Ring (nonfiction)
King Solomon's Ring is a zoological book for the general audience, written by the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. The first English-language edition appeared in 1952....
and On Aggression
On Aggression
On Aggression is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz written in 1963. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." According to Lorenz, animals, particularly...
, both written for a popular audience. His scientific work appeared mainly in journal articles, written in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
; they became widely known to English-speaking scientists through the descriptions of it in Tinbergen's 1951 book
1951 in science
The year 1951 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Computer science:* February - Ferranti deliver their first Mark 1 computer to the University of Manchester . It is the world's first commercially-available general-purpose electronic computer.* March 30 -...
The Study of Instinct, though many of his papers were later published in English translation in the two volumes titled Studies in Animal and Human Behavior.
- King Solomon's RingKing Solomon's Ring (nonfiction)King Solomon's Ring is a zoological book for the general audience, written by the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. The first English-language edition appeared in 1952....
(1949) (Er redete mit dem Vieh, den Vögeln und den Fischen, 1949) - Man Meets DogMan Meets DogMan Meets Dog is a zoological book for the general audience, written by the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. The first English-language edition appeared in 1954....
(1950) (So kam der Mensch auf den Hund, 1950) - Evolution and Modification of Behaviour (1965)
- On AggressionOn AggressionOn Aggression is a book by ethologist Konrad Lorenz written in 1963. As he writes in the prologue, "the subject of this book is aggression, that is to say the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." According to Lorenz, animals, particularly...
(1966) (Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Agression, 1963) - Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Volume I (1970)
- Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Volume II (1971)
- Motivation of Human and Animal Behavior: An Ethological View. With Paul Leyhausen (1973). New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. ISBN 0-442-24886-5
- Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human KnowledgeBehind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human KnowledgeBehind the mirror, a search for a natural history of human knowledge was published by Konrad Lorenz in 1973 as Die Rückseite des Spiegels, Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens. The direct translation of the German title is "The of the mirror"...
(1973) (Die Rückseite des Spiegels. Versuch einer Naturgeschichte menschlichen Erkennens, 1973) - Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins (1974) (Die acht Todsünden der zivilisierten Menschheit, 1973)
- The Year of the Greylag Goose (1979) (Das Jahr der Graugans, 1979)
- The Foundations of Ethology (1982)
- The Waning of Humaneness (1987) (Der Abbau des Menschlichen, 1983)
- Here I Am - Where Are You? - A Lifetime's Study of the Uncannily Human Behaviour of the Greylag Goose. (1988). Translated by Robert D. Martin from Hier bin ich - wo bist du?.
- The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research - The Russian Manuscript (1944–1948) (1995)
External links
- Short Autobiography on the Nobel Foundation website
- A chapter from On Aggression (1963)
- Review of Biologists Under Hitler
- Konrad Lorenz Institutes:
- Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition ResearchKonrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition ResearchThe Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research is an international center for advanced studies in theoretical biology. It supports the articulation, analysis, and integration of biological theories and the exploration of their wider scientific and cultural significance...
- Konrad Lorenz Research Station, Grünau im AlmtalGrünau im AlmtalGrünau im Almtal is a village in the Austrian state of Upper Austria. The village had a population of 2,115 as of 2002.Grünau is surrounded by mountains with a central river that runs throughout the valley....
- Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology
- Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research