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Konrad Lorenz

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Human Scientists

   Konrad Zacharias Lorenz ( November 7, 1903 in Vienna – February 27,
   1989 in Vienna) was an Austrian zoologist, animal psychologist, and
   ornithologist. 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
   behaviour in animals, especially in greylag geese and jackdaws. Working
   with geese, he rediscovered the principle of imprinting (originally
   described by Douglas Spalding in the 19th century) in the behaviour of
   nidifugous birds.

   At the request of his father, Lorenz 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 until 1928. At this
   university he became an assistant professor from 1928 to 1935. In 1940
   he became a professor of psychology at the Immanuel Kant University in
   Königsberg (later the Soviet port of Kaliningrad). 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 a prisoner of war in the
   Soviet Union from 1944 to 1948. The Max Planck Society established the
   Lorenz Institute for Behavioural Physiology in Buldern, Germany, in
   1950.

   In 1958, Lorenz transferred to the Max Planck Institute for Behavioural
   Physiology in Seewiesen. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology
   or Medicine "for discoveries in individual and social behaviour
   patterns" with two other important early ethologists, Niko 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.

   Konrad Lorenz died on February 27, 1989, in Altenberg.

   Lorenz was also a friend and student of renowned biologist Sir Julian
   Sorell Huxley (grandson of "Darwin's bulldog," Thomas Henry Huxley).

Politics

   Lorenz joined the Nazi Party 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.

   When accepting the Nobel Prize, he apologized for a 1940 publication
   that included Nazi views of science, saying that "many highly decent
   scientists hoped, like I did, for a short time for good from National
   Socialism, and many quickly turned away from it with the same horror as
   I." It seems highly likely that Lorenz's ideas about an inherited basis
   for behaviour patterns were congenial to the Nazi authorities, but
   there is no evidence to suggest that his experimental work was either
   inspired or distorted by Nazi ideas.

   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 yet untouched woodland surrounding the
   planned site.

Contributions and legacy

   Together with Nikolaas Tinbergen, Lorenz developed the idea of an
   innate releasing mechanism to explain instinctive behaviors ( fixed
   action patterns). Influenced by the ideas of William McDougall, Lorenz
   developed this into a " psychohydraulic" model of the motivation of
   behaviour. These ideas were influential as ethology became more popular
   in the 1960s, but they are now regarded as outdated because of their
   use of an energy flow metaphor; the nervous system and the control of
   behaviour are now normally treated as involving information
   transmission rather than energy flow. Lorenz's writings about evolution
   are also now regarded as outdated , because he tended towards group
   selectionist ideas which have been heavily reinterpreted since the rise
   of sociobiology in the 1970s. Lorenz's most enduring contributions thus
   seem to be his empirical work, especially on imprinting; his influence
   on a younger generation of ethologists; and his popular works, which
   were enormously important in bringing ethology to the attention of the
   general public.

   There are three Konrad Lorenz Institutes in Austria; one is housed in
   his family mansion at Altenberg, and another at his field station in
   Grünau.

The Example of his Methodology

   Some would say that Lorenz' most significant contribution and legacy
   does not lie in any of his theories but in the good example he set with
   his methodology. He never deprived the animals of basic physical or
   emotional needs. He never killed them, mutilated them or tortured them.
   All these cruel methods were once considered indispensable for animal
   studies, but Lorenz proved it was possible to win a Nobel Prize without
   using them.

Lorenz's Plan for Improving the Human Race

   In his 1974 book, Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins, Konrad Lorenz
   addressed, among other things, the question of how the human race can
   be genetically improved. His answer comes from a Jewish story about a
   rich handsome young man who visited a Marriage Broker to look for a
   wife. He was offered very beautiful potential brides. He replied that
   he and his family already were good looking enough, and his future wife
   did not need to be beautiful. The same with wealth - his family had a
   plethora of money, and the bride could just as well be poor as a
   synagogue mouse. And of course, the same for a distinguished ancestry.
   So what was he looking for? A good and kind heart. That was not so
   common in his family - or anywhere. Lorenz concludes that the best hope
   for humanity is for all of us to imitate this wise rich young man, and
   to not look for good looks or wealth or distinguished lineage in our
   mates, but just for goodness and kindness.

His contribution to philosophy

   In his 1973 book Behind 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.

Bekoff on Lorenz

   "I remember meeting Lorenz at an ethological conference in Parma,
   Italy, and his passion and enthusiasm were incredibly contagious. For
   hours, he told stories of the animals with whom he had shared his life
   and never once repeated himself. He clearly loved what he did and loved
   his animal friends." Marc Bekoff, Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues"
   (2006), ISBN 1-59213-347-9

Works

   Lorenz's best-known books are King Solomon's Ring 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 Behaviour.
     * King Solomon's Ring ( 1952)
     * Man Meets Dog ( 1954)
     * Evolution and Modification of Behaviour ( 1965)
     * On Aggression ( 1966)
     * Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour, Volume I ( 1970)
     * Studies in Animal and Human Behaviour, Volume II ( 1971)
     * Behind the Mirror ( 1973)
     * Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins ( 1974)
     * The Foundations of Ethology ( 1982)
     * The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to
       Comparative Behavioural Research - The Russian Manuscript
       (1944-1948)( 1995)

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