Gadagkar, R (2018) What Do Ethologists Wish to Know? In: Resonance – Journal of Science Education, 23 (8). pp. 841-843.
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PDF (Gadagkar, R. (2018). What Do Ethologists Wish to Know ? Resonance – Journal of Science Education, 23 (8), 841-843. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-018-0686-z)
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Abstract
This issue celebrates the life and work of one of the founders of ethology and Nobel Laureate, Niko Tinbergen. Readers of Resonance will be aware that we celebrate the contributions of one scientist in every issue and in doing so, we reprint for the benefit of our young readers, one of the more important papers of the scientist being celebrated. In this issue, we wished to do the same and reprint what is perhaps Tinbergen’s most important paper and certainly his most enduring legacy. However, the publishers of the original paper decided to charge us an unreasonably high amount of money which this not-for-profit educational journal cannot afford. It is a tragedy of our times that intellectual material, even when very old, is hidden inside vaults of commercial publishers and unavailable to young students who were not born when they were first published. I will, therefore, whet your appetite by providing a glimpse into the main theme of the paper in question and give a reference so that some of you may be able to find some way to read the original paper. On the occasion of the 60th birthday of another founder of ethology and also Nobel Laureate, Konrad Lorenz, Tinbergen wrote a paper entitled, ‘On the Aims and Methods of Ethology’ [1]. In this paper, Tinbergen did what scientists do not do as often as they should, namely to sit back, reflect and re-examine the foundations of his discipline of study. Tinbergen evocatively called this process ‘soul-searching’. Thus, Tinbergen searched his soul and asked what were the aims and methods of ethology. In doing so, Tinbergen created a map of the conceptual space of ethology and asked what ethologists really wish to know and how they go about it? Based on previous work and his own reflection, Tinbergen created an ethologist’s wish list in the form of four fundamental questions namely, 1) What makes a behaviour happen (causation), 2) what is the survival value of the behaviour (function), 3) how does a behaviour develop within the lifetime of an individual organism (ontogeny), and 4) how has the behaviour changed over evolutionary time, across species (evolution)? This framework has endured and has come to be known as ‘Tinbergen’s Four Questions’. I will illustrate Tinbergen’s four questions using the example of birdsong. Many species of birds, especially the males (also females in some species), produce remarkably melodious songs which are not only fascinating to biologists but have long captured the imagination of writers, poets and lovers. The song of our own koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) is a familiar example [2].
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Resonance – Journal of Science Education |
| Publisher: | Indian Academy of Sciences |
| Keywords: | Bird song, Niko Tinbergen, Ethology |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Jan 2021 07:19 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Jan 2021 07:19 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/67653 |
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