The Science Book

249

See also: Charles Darwin 142–49 ■ Gregor Mendel 166–71 ■

Thomas Hunt Morgan 224–25

A

mong the first to conduct

scientific experiments on

the behavior of animals

was 19th-century English biologist

Douglas Spalding, who studied

birds. The prevailing view was that

complex behavior in birds was

learned, but Spalding thought that

some behavior was innate: it

was inherited and essentially

“hardwired”—such as the tendency

of a hen to incubate her eggs.

Modern ethology—the study

of animal behavior—accepts that

behavior includes both learned and

innate components: innate

behavior is stereotypical and,

because it is inherited, it can

evolve by natural selection, whereas

learned behavior can be modified

by experience.

Imprinting geese

In the 1930s, Austrian biologist

Konrad Lorenz focused on a form of

learned behavior in birds that he

called “imprinting.” He studied the

way that greylag geese imprint on,

or follow, the first eligible moving

stimulus they see—usually their

mother—within a critical period

after hatching. The mother’s

example triggers an instinctive

behavior known as a “fixed action

pattern” in her offspring.

Lorenz demonstrated this with

goslings, which adopted him as

their mother and followed him

everywhere. They would even

imprint on inanimate objects, and

followed a model train in circles

on its track. Together with Dutch

biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen,

Lorenz was awarded the Nobel

Prize in Physiology in 1973. ■

A PARADIGM SHIFT

LIFE ITSELF IS

A PROCESS OF

OBTAINING

KNOWLEDGE

KONRAD LORENZ (1903–1989)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Biology

BEFORE
1872 Charles Darwin
describes inherited behavior
in The Expression of the
Emotions in Man and Animals.

1873 Douglas Spalding
makes a distinction between
innate (genetic) and learned
behavior in birds.

1890s Russian physiologist
Ivan Pavlov demonstrates
that dogs can be conditioned
to salivate in a simple form
of learning.

AFTER
1976 British zoologist
Richard Dawkins publishes
The Selfish Gene, in which he
emphasizes the role of genes
in driving behavior.

2000s New research reveals
growing evidence of the
importance of teaching among
many species of animal, from
insects to killer whales.

These cranes and geese, hatched and

raised by Christian Moullec, imprinted

on him and follow him everywhere.

Taking to the air in his microlight, he

teaches them their migratory routes.