Konrad Lorenz Quotes

Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.

There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog

The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this Earth can ever be.

The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it.

I have found the missing link between the higher ape and civilized man: It is we.

The human soul is very much older than the human mind.

Barking dogs occasionally bite, but laughing men hardly ever shoot.

The missing link between animals and the real human being is most likely ourselves.

Every scientist should, after all, regard it as his duty to tell the public, in a generally intelligible way, about what he is doing

Every danger loses some of its terror once its causes are understood.

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.

Scientific truth is universal, because it is only discovered by the human brain and not made by it, as art is.

Inferiority is not banal or incidental even when it happens to women. It is not a petty affliction like bad skin or circles under the eyes. It is not a superficial flaw in an otherwise perfect picture. It is not a minor irritation, nor is it a trivial inconvenience, an occasional aggravation, or a regrettable but (frankly) harmless lapse in manners. It is not a “point of view” that some people with soft skins find “ offensive. ” It is the deep and destructive devaluing of a person in life, a shredding of dignity and self-respect, an imposed exile from human worth and human recognition, the forced alienation of a person from even the possibility of wholeness or internal integrity. Inferiority puts rightful self-love beyond reach, a dream fragmented by insult into a perpetually recurring nightmare; inferiority creates a person broken and humiliated inside. The fragments— scattered pieces and sharp slivers of someone who can never be made whole—are then taken to be the standard of what is normal in her kind: women are like that. The insult that hurt her—inferiority as an assault, ongoing since birth—is seen as a consequence, not a cause, of her so-called nature, an inferior nature. In English, a graceful language, she is even called a piece. It is likely to be her personal experience that she is insufficiently loved. Her subjectivity itself is second-class, her experiences and perceptions inferior in the world as she is inferior in the world. Her experience is recast into a psychologically pejorative judgment: she is never loved enough because she is needy, neurotic, the insufficiency of love she feels being in and of itself evidence of a deep-seated and natural dependency. Her personal experiences or perceptions are never credited as having a hard core of reality to them. She is, however, never loved enough. In truth; in point of fact; objectively: she is never loved enough. As Konrad Lorenz wrote: “ I doubt if it is possible to feel real affection for anybody who is in every respect one’s inferior. ” 1 There are so many dirty names for her that one rarely learns them all, even in one’s native language.

More than any other product of human scientific culture scientific knowledge is the collective property of all mankind.

Human aggression is instinctual. Humans have not evolved any ritualised aggression-inhibiting mechanisms to ensure the survival of the species. For this reason man is considered a very dangerous animal.

Human aggression is instinctual. Humans have not evolved any ritualized aggression-inhibiting mechanisms to ensure the survival of the species. For this reason man is considered a very dangerous animal. KONRAD LORENZ

But man should abstain from judging his innocently cruel fellow creatures, for even if nature sometimes “shrieks against his creed”, what pain does he himself not inflict upon the living creatures that he hunts for pleasure and not for food?

Visualize yourself confronted with the task of killing, one after the other, a cabbage, a fly, a fish, a lizard, a guinea pig, a cat, a dog, a monkey and a baby chimpanzee. In the unlikely case that you should experience no greater inhibitions in killing the chimpanzee than in destroying the cabbage or the fly, my advice to you is to commit suicide at your earliest possible convenience, because you are a weird monstrosity and a public danger.

No such thing as a false analogy exists: an analogy can be more or less detailed and hence more or less informative.

Konrad Lorenz, a zoologist, pointed out—and this is part of what won him a Nobel Prize—that attachment can be understood within an evolutionary context in that the mother provides safety for the infant. Attachment is adaptive, enhancing the infant’s chance of survival, and is therefore hard-wired into the brain. A baby needs to be held, loved, and cuddled by the mother.

Since my first discussions of ecological problems with Professor John Day around 1950 and since reading Konrad Lorenz's “King Solomon's Ring,” I have become increasingly interested in the study of animals for what they might teach us about man, and the study of man as an animal. I have become increasingly disenchanted with what the thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment tell us about the nature of man, and with what the formal religions and doctrinaire political theorists tell us about the same subject.

Devo tuttavia confessare che, nel mio sentimentalismo, sono profondamente commosso e ammirato di fronte a quel lupo che “non può” azzannare la gola dell’avversario, e ancor più di fronte all’altro animale, che conta proprio su questa sua reazione! Un animale che affida la propria vita alla correttezza cavalleresca di un altro animale! C’è proprio qualcosa da imparare anche per noi uomini! Io per lo meno ne ho tratto una nuova e più profonda comprensione di un meraviglioso detto del Vangelo che spesso viene frainteso, e che finora aveva suscitato in me solo una forte resistenza istintiva: «Se qualcuno ti dà uno schiaffo sulla guancia destra...». L’illuminazione mi è venuta da un lupo: non per ricevere un altro schiaffo devi offrire al nemico l’altra guancia, no, devi offrirgliela proprio per impedirgli di dartelo!

House cats are blessed with a killer set of what Austrian ethnologist Konrad Lorenz calls “baby releasers”: physical traits that remind us of human young and set off a hormonal cascade. These features include a round face, chubby cheeks, big forehead, big eyes, and a little nose.

It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

Az a hétköznapi tény, hogy a kutyám jobban szeret engem, mint én őt, egyszerűen letagadhatatlan, és engem mindig bizonyos szégyennel tölt el.

The caretaking has to be done. “Somebody’s got to be the mommy,” Individually, we underestimate this need, and as a society we make inadequate provision for it. Women take up the slack, making the need invisible as we step in to fill it. The ethologist Konrad Lorenz used to talk about the number of eggs laid by the same species of songbird when nesting at different latitudes. As you go farther north, the hours of daylight in summer are longer, so a given parental pair could gather food adequate for a larger number of fledglings. As you go south, the available daylight decreases, as does the average number of eggs. For the songbirds, surviving and raising the next generation fill the entire day. What is amazing about humans is that we seem able to do so much else; yet much of what we do is caretaking in another form or involves tasks that would be done better if they were understood in that way.

In the almost film-like flitting-by of modern life, a man needs something to tell him, from time to time, that he is still himself, and nothing can give him this assurance in so comforting a manner as the “four feet trotting behind”.

Puesto que el que contempla con sus ojos la belleza, no es ya tributario de la muerte, como dice Platen, sino de la Naturaleza, cuya belleza ha comprendido. Y si sus ojos sirven realmente para ver, llegará a ser, inexcusablemente, naturalista.

What is a job interview? It’s a ritual where you prove to the master – the wolf – that you’re tame and harmless. You metaphorically bare your neck to them, the sign, according to ethologist Konrad Lorenz, of submission and appeasement that dogs make to show that they are entirely at the mercy of a stronger dog or wolf. If you snarl at the interviewers, bare your teeth and tell them to fuck off, you definitely won’t get the job, no matter how talented you are. You have deselected yourself by being insufficiently deferential.

It must be the duty of racial hygiene to be attentive to a more severe elimination of morally inferior human beings than is the case today .... We should literally replace all factors responsible for selection in a natural and free life .... In prehistoric times of humanity, selection for endurance, heroism, social usefulness, etc. was made solely by hostile outside factors. This role must be assumed by a human organization; otherwise, humanity will, for lack of selective factors, be annihilated by the degenerative phenomena that accompany domestication.

¡Cuán reconocido estaría a mi destino con tal de que en mi vida hubiese logrado abrir un solo sendero, que, varias generaciones después, siguiera siendo pisado por seres humanos, y cuánto más si dejara un algo que en un futuro lejano ayudara también a otros seres humanos, fueran quienes fuesen, a "elevarse un poco hacia las alturas"!

Hiszen az már megmásíthatatlan törvény, hogy az ember élete során minden öröméért valami fájdalommal fizet, és voltaképpen szánalmas kuporgatónak tekintem azokat, akik lemondanak az emberi élet egyébként is oly kevés, etikailag kifogástalan öröméről, puszta félelemből, hogy fizetniök kell majd a számlát, amelyet a sors előbb-utóbb benyújt.

Love and aggressiveness are interconnected and love depends on aggressiveness. In principle, a bond is formed as a consequence of the existence of something in common, something that must be defended against those from outside. In all these cases, aggression is necessary to consolidate the bond. All cases of true love contain a large part of latent aggressiveness that this bond can only hide and, at the moment such a bond is broken, hate may be generated. There is not love without aggression, but also there is not hate without love.

Третье великое препятствие человеческого самопознания — по крайней мере в нашей западной культуре — это наследие идеалистической философии. Она делит мир на две части: мир вещей, который идеалистическое мышление считает в принципе индифферентным в отношении ценностей, и мир человеческого внутреннего закона, который один лишь заслуживает признания ценности. Такое деление замечательно оправдывает эгоцентризм человека, оно идёт навстречу его антипатии к собственной зависимости от законов природы — и потому нет ничего удивительного в том, что оно так глубоко вросло в общественное сознание. Насколько глубоко — об этом можно судить по тому, как изменилось в нашем немецком языке значение слов «идеалист» и «материалист»; первоначально они означали лишь философскую установку, а сегодня содержат и моральную оценку. Необходимо уяснить себе, насколько привычно стало, в нашем западном мышлении, уравнивать понятия «доступное научному исследованию» и «в принципе оценочно-индифферентное». Меня легко обвинить, будто я выступаю против этих трех препятствий человеческого самопознания лишь потому, что они противоречат моим собственным научным и философским воззрениям, — я должен здесь предостеречь от подобных обвинений. Я выступаю не как закоренелый дарвинист против неприятия эволюционного учения, и не как профессиональный исследователь причин — против беспричинного чувства ценности, и не как убеждённый материалист — против идеализма. У меня есть другие основания. Сейчас естествоиспытателей часто упрекают в том, будто они накликают на человечество ужасные напасти и приписывают ему слишком большую власть над природой. Этот упрёк был бы оправдан, если бы учёным можно было поставить в вину, что они не сделали предметом своего изучения и самого человека. Потому что опасность для современного человечества происходит не столько из его способности властвовать над физическими процессами, сколько из его неспособности разумно направлять процессы социальные. Однако в основе этой неспособности лежит именно непонимание причин, которое является — как я хотел бы показать — непосредственным следствием тех самых помех к самопознанию.

And how does a human being go about finding meaning? As Charlotte Bühler has stated: "All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about as against those who have not."In addition to such a biographical approach, however, we may as well embark on a biological approach. Logotherapy conceives of conscience as a prompter which, if need be, indicates the direction in which we have to move in a given life situation. In order to carry out such a task, conscience must apply a measuring stick to the situation one is confronted with, and this situation has to be evaluated in the light of a set of criteria, in the light of a hierarchy of values. These values, however, cannot be espoused and adopted by us on a conscious level - they are something that we are. They have crystallized in the course of the evolution of our species; they are founded on our biological past and are rooted in our biological depth. Konrad Lorenz might have had something similar in mind when he developed the concept of a biological a priori, and when both of us recently discussed my own view on the biological foundation of the valuing process, he enthusiastically expressed his accord. In any case, if a pre-reflective axiological self-understanding exists, we may assume that it is ultimately anchored in our biological heritage.

The missing link between animals and the real human being is most likely ourselves”. Konrad Lorenz “Nothing exists except atoms and space; everything else is opinion”. Democritus of Abdera “The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity”. Edward de Bono.

Yabani bir hayvanın içgüdüselliğini tetikleyen itkilerin tamamı, yarattıkları etki itibarıyla, her zaman için, hayvanın ve onun ait olduğu türün lehine sonuçlanma zorunluluğu taşır. Onun yaşam alanında doğal eğilimler ile zorunluluklar arasında bir çatışkı yoktur, içten gelen her dürtü 'iyi'dir. İnsanoğlu bu cennetsi uyumu kaybetti.

There is no greater sin against the spirit of true art, no more contemptible dilettanism than to use artistic license as a specious cover for ignorance of fact.

Chi ha contemplato una volta con i propri occhi la bellezza della natura non è destinato alla morte come pensa Platen, bensì alla natura stessa, di cui ha intravisto le meraviglie.

Il principiante che non comprende ancora molto dell'animo del cane non non compri mai un cane con un lungo pedigree. Insomma, per dirla nel modo più brutale, le probabilità che il cane sia nervoso, pazzoide, psichicamente tarato, sono enormemente minori in un bastardo che in un discendente da otto antenati premiati.

Gli uccelli allevati in isolamento, che non hanno mai visto un loro simile, nella maggior parte dei casi non <> a quale specie appartengono, e perciò il loro istinto sociale e il loro desiderio sessuale si rivolgono verso le creature con le quali hanno trascorso determinate fasi evolutive particolarmente importanti: quindi, nella maggior parte dei casi, vero l'uomo.

The bond with a dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth can ever be. KONRAD LORENZ

The animal literature is filled with examples of normal behavior under unusual circumstances. Followed by a single file of goslings, Konrad Lorenz demonstrated the tendency of these birds to imprint on the first moving object they lay their eyes on. He thus permanently confused their sense of speciesbelonging. Niko Tinbergen saw stickleback fish in a row of tanks in front of his laboratory window, in Leiden, make furious territorial displays at the mail delivery van in the street below. At the time, Dutch mail vans were bright red, the same color as the male stickleback's underbelly during the breeding season, and the fish mistook the van for an intruder of their own species. Artificial situations sometimes help us see more clearly how behavior is regulated. When goslings do the normal thing, following their mom around all day, one might think that they share our exalted view of motherhood. We are quickly disabused of this notion, however, when they follow a bearded zoologist with equal devotion. And when sticklebacks defend their territory, we might think that they want to keep competitors out, whereas in reality they are only reacting to a speciestypical red flag. What animals really are after is not always evident, and tinkering with conditions is a way to find out.

Unreasoning and unreasonable human nature causes two nations to compete, though no economic necessity compels them to do so; it induces two political parties or religions with amazingly similar programmes of salvation to fight each other bitterly and it impels an Alexander or a Napoleon to sacrifice millions of lives in his attempt to unite the world under his sceptre. We have been taught to regard some of the persons who have committed these and similar absurdities with respect, even as ‘great’ men, we are wont to yield to the political wisdom of those in charge, and we are all so accustomed to these phenomena that most of us fail to realize how abjectly stupid and undesirable the historical mass behaviour of humanity actually is.

What we are mistaking for a voluntary attraction of animals to humans can be explained by the “imprint phenomenon.” This biological process, first described by Konrad Lorenz, is responsible for the fact that animals, including humans, learn species-specific information, behaviours, and skills at specific points in their development. Imprinting is how animals learn early to attach to their mothers and identify with members of their own species. It is the mechanism that allows us to domesticate animals and nurture intimate relationships with them; as long as we integrate or selves into young animals’ lives before the attachment period ends, we can divert their identification with their own families and species onto ourselves.

As the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined”,

Desde há muito que se sabe que é perigoso para uma pessoa «que tudo lhe corra demasiado bem», que tenha demasiado sucesso no seu esforço natural em adquirir prazer e evitar a dor. Aprendemos excessivamente bem a evitar situações de infortúnio; a técnica e a farmacologia ajudam-nos a isso. Nós, pessoas civilizadas, tornamo-nos cada vez mais incapazes de suportar a dor e o sofrimento. Este medo perante o infortúnio - e todos os métodos que usamos para evitá-lo - atinge as fronteiras do vício. (...) A crescente intolerância do homem civilizado face ao infortúnio transforma os naturais altos e baixos da vida humana numa superfície chata, artificialmente alisada, de um cinzento uniforme, sem contraste de sombras luz. Em suma, gera aborrecimento e é, por isso mesmo, causa da grande necessidade de entretenimento que muita gente tem.

Um homem normal segue estes Mandamentos por inclinação natural, sempre que se trate de uma relação com os seus amigos pessoais. Ninguém rouba ou mente a um amigo, muito menos alguém desejará a sua mulher e menos ainda ousará matá-lo. Os Dez Mandamentos só começam a perder a sua eficácia fundamental através do crescente anonimato da sociedade humana. (…) Num grupo de pessoas amigas, cada um seguirá com relativa fidelidade os Dez Mandamentos. Será até capaz de se expor a grandes perigos para salvar um amigo de uma má situação, a custo da própria vida. Um sociólogo americano calculou que o número ideal para um grupo, unido por laços de profunda amizade, é o onze. (…) O homem, mais do que perverso desde a sua juventude, é sim suficientemente bom para uma sociedade de onze pessoas, mas não “bastante bom” para se inserir numa sociedade de massas, como membro anónimo e pessoalmente desconhecido, do mesmo modo que se integraria no pequeno grupo como indivíduo que todos conhecem e estimam.

ROA, KONRAD LORENZ’S RAVEN, raided clotheslines to steal ladies’ underwear. Roa had been exploring a neighbor’s laundry hung on the line just when he was called. He came, taking a small transportable item with him, a pair of panties. When he got a reward of tasty food, he made the association of panties and food. Henceforth, as expected according to classical conditioning theory, he brought these items on his own to redeem them for savory snacks.

¡Cuán pobre e interiormente mutilado nos resulta un mono, un prosimio o un gran papagayo, acostumbrado a vivir en una jaula, y cómo contrasta con la increíble movilidad, diversión e interés del mismo animal cuando goza de absoluta libertad!

Pero no se comprende tan claramente cómo semejante ritualización es en el hombre fruto de la transmisión histórica de un pueblo, mientras que en el animal representa un desarrollo filogenético de formas de movimiento innatas y hereditarias.

Cuando uno presta atención a las reacciones del público que visita un parque zoológico, advierte el despilfarro de una piedad sentimental, en la conmiseración que despiertan animales que se encuentran perfectamente, mientras que casi nadie se da cuenta del verdadero sufrimiento, que también existe en la mayor parte de los jardines zoológicos.

Sólo hay un ser que dispone de armas que no han crecido con su cuerpo y de las cuales, por tanto, nada saben sus formas innatas de comportamiento; de aquí que no existan las consabidas y eficaces inhibiciones. Este ser es el hombre.

El cortejo de un ganso gris nos parece irresistiblemente cómico, porque los jóvenes de nuestra especie se comportan de manera muy parecida.

But even if, as Johnson argues, power and dominance serve no meaningful purpose, they always incur costs. In biology, the cost can be painfully visible. During courtship, the argus cock pheasant spreads his large secondary wing feathers, which are decorated with beautiful eye spots; the bigger they are, the more they stimulate the female. And the longer the feathers, the more progeny the cock will produce. So the more beautiful cocks produce more descendants. That should be a competitive advantage. But the evolution of the argus pheasant has run itself into a blind alley because the most gorgeous cock has feathers so huge and unwieldy that they may cause him to be eaten by a predator, because he can’t fly away fast enough. Oskar Heinroth, the teacher of Konrad Lorenz, commented: ‘Next to the wings of the argus pheasant, the hectic life of western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection!

Konrad Lorenz: Takozvano zlo (prirodoslovni korijeni agresivnosti) Navika, obred, čarolija Novonastala motorika ritualiziranog obrasca ponašanja i te kako ima karakter samostalne instinktivne kretnje, a poticajna situacija koja je najvećim dijelom određena odgovorom pripadnika vrste, poprima obilježja konačne situacije koja zadovoljava nagone. Drugim riječima, niz radnji koji je izvorno služio drugim objektivnim i subjektivnim svrhama postaje sam sebi svrha, kao što je postao autonoman obred. ... Navika je važan zajednički element koji dijeli jednostavne živoinjske tradicije i čovjekova najviša kulturna dostignuća. Ona sa svojim trajnim zadržavanjem znanja stečenog ponašanjem ima sličnu ulogu kao i nasljedna masa kod evolucijski nastalog obreda. ... Posve je ispravno i legitimno da ponašanje kojem su nas naučili naši roditelji smatramo “dobrim”, te da društvene norme i obrede koji su nam dani tradicijom i kulturnom predajom, držimo svetima. No, moramo se svom snagom odgovornog razuma čuvati da popustimo prirodnoj sklonosti da društvene obrede i norme drugih kultura smatramo manje vrijednima. Tamna strana pseudo-specijacije jest prijeteća opasnost da članove prividnih vrsta više ne gledamo kao ljude, što mnoga primitivna plemena čine; u njihovim je jezicima riječ za vlastito pleme sinonim za “čovjeka”. S njihova stanovišta ne radi se o pravom kanibalizmu kad pojedu poginule ratnike nekog neprijateljskog plemena. Moralna posljedica prirodne povijesti pseudo-specijacije jest da moramo naučiti tolerirati drugekulture, odbaciti našu vlastitu kulturnu inacionalnu aroganciju te da moramo sami sebi razjasniti da društvene norme i obredi drugih kultura, čiji su članovi vjerni svojoj kulturi kao i mi svojoj, imaju isto pravo biti štovane i smatrane svetima. Bez tolerancije koja izrasta iz te spoznaje, ljudima je vrlo lako vidjeti personifikaciju zla u onome što je njegovome susjedu svetinja. Upravo nerazorivost društvenih normi i obreda, u čemu i leži njihova najviša vrijednost, može dovesti do najgoreg od svih ratova, do vjerskog rata - a upravo nam on danas prijeti!

Острая конкуренция из‑за удобных мест гнездования порой приводит к тому, что очень сильная птица нападает на одну из самых слабых, нарушая границы её владений и безжалостно третируя собственника территории. Именно в таких случаях вступает в действие та самая «уип‑реакция», о которой я уже упоминал, Циканье оскорблённого домовладельца постепенно усиливается, меняет свою тональность и звучит теперь как «уип, уип». Если жена собственника участка не присутствовала при нападении агрессора, она немедленно является и, взъерошив оперение, присоединяется к супругу, чтобы во всем повторять его поступки. Если все это не оказывает должного воздействия на нарушителя спокойствия и он не исчезает немедленно, случается нечто невероятное. Со всех сторон, из всех закоулков, находящихся в пределах слышимости, появляются галки я несутся к атакованному гнезду. Все они громко выкрикивают своё «уип, уип», и наши зачинщики немедленно теряются в сплошной массе своих собратьев, которые в пароксизме ярости исполняют этот неистовый концерт – крещендо и фортиссимо всеобщего гама. Излив таким образом всё своё недовольство, птицы спустя некоторое время успокаиваются и оставляют место происшествия. Лишь собственник гнезда ещё некоторое время тихо цикает в дверях своего освобождённого жилища. Когда возникает подобный галочий митинг, этого уже достаточно, чтобы остановить драку хотя бы по той самой причине, что агрессор и сам принимает посильное участие в общей шумихе. Наблюдателю, который наделяет птиц человеческими качествами, может показаться, что хитрый захватчик отводит от себя подозрение тем, что вместе со всеми вопит: «Держи вора!». В действительности же он волей‑неволей вовлекается в общее настроение, кричит то же самое «уип, уип» и при этом даже не знает, что он сам и является причиной всей неурядицы. Вместе с другими галками агрессор поворачивается во все стороны, словно выискивая преступника, и делает это, как ни странно, абсолютно искренне.

«Los científicos saben cada vez más y más sobre menos y menos hasta que finalmente lo saben todo acerca de nada». Konrad Lorenz302

Love and aggressiveness are interconnected and love depends on aggressiveness. In principle, a bond is formed as a consequence of the existence of something in common, something that must be defended against those from outside. In all these cases, aggression is necessary to consolidate the bond.

All cases of true love contain a large part of latent aggressiveness that this bond can only hide and, at the moment such a bond is broken, hate may be generated. There is not love without aggression, but also there is not hate without love.

The personal bond, the individual friendship, can only be found in animals in which intraspecific aggressiveness is quite developed. The bond is even stronger in the most aggressive species. A few fishes are more aggressive than the cichlids, a few birds are more aggressive than geese and the mammal famous for its aggressiveness, the wolf, is the best and most loyal of friends. In animals which are alternatively territorial and aggressive or non-aggressive and social, depending on the reproductive season, a personal bond is restricted to the periods of aggressiveness.

Intraspecific aggression is much older (millions of years) than personal friendship and love. There is intraspecific aggression without its opposite, love. But, on the contrary, there is not love without aggression. Hate, however, is a behavioral mechanism quite different from aggression. Hate, the younger brother of love, is always directed against an individual, exactly as love. So, it is not possible to hate without the previous existence of love and when, despite all negations, love is still present.

The London psychoanalyst John Bowlby was one of the first to propose evolutionary functions for low mood. Thanks to conversations with the German ethologist Konrad Lorenz and the English biologist Robert Hinde, he turned an evolutionary eye toward the behaviors of babies separated from their mothers.5 After a short separation, some reconnected with the mother quickly, others acted distant, and a few acted angry. A longer separation led to a reliable sequence: initial wails of protest, followed by silent rocking and huddling in a ball that looks for all the world like an adult in a state of despair.6,7 Bowlby saw that crying motivated mothers to retrieve their infants. He also saw that extended crying would waste energy and attract predators, so if the mother did not return soon, inconspicuous withdrawal would be more useful. These ideas developed into attachment theory,8 which provides the foundation for understanding mother-infant bonding and the pathologies that result when it goes awry. Bowlby deserves recognition as a founder of evolutionary psychiatry for his insight that attachment evolved because it increases the fitness of both mother and baby. More explicitly evolutionary analyses in recent decades have challenged the idea that only secure attachment is normal. In some situations, babies who use avoidant or anxious attachment styles may motivate their mothers to provide more care.9,10,11 If regular smiling and cooing don’t work, it may work better to scream indefinitely when she leaves or to give her the cold shoulder when she returns.

Mais on ne peut pas compter sur un tel hasard et je ne blâme pas les gens sensibles qui reculent devant l'acquisition d'un chien en pensant à la douleur d'une séparation inévitable. Et en fait, si, je les blâme. C'est une loi immuable de la vie humaine que toute joie se paie avec une douleur et, pour moi, l'homme qui renonce aux quelques plaisirs éthiquement irréprochables de l'existence par peur de la note qu'un jour ou l'autre le destin lui présentera, est un déserteur.

The Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz told us that we lack control over our aggressive instincts. Not long afterward the British biologist Richard Dawkins stated that our chief purpose on earth is to obey our “selfish genes.

What is thought is not always said; what is said is not always heard; what is heard is not always understood; what is understood is not always agreed; what is agreed is not always done; what is done is not always done again.” Konrad Lorenz

Compare el centro antiguo de cualquier ciudad de Europa con sus modernos suburbios que proliferan por el campo. A continuación, compare la sección histológica de un tejido orgánico sano con la de un tumor maligno ¡Encontraremos analogías sorprendentes!

the zoologist Konrad Lorenz, whose studies of animal behavior (the best known is On Aggression) stressed Haeckel’s notion that animal and habitat—including man and his environment—form a single unit

Il timore che un cane possa far del male a un bambino è addirittura ridicolo; molto più giustificata è, semmai, la preoccupazione opposta che cioè il cane si lasci tropo strapazzare dai bambini, contribuendo così a educarli a una totale mancanza di riguardo nei suoi confronti.

La fedeltà di un cane è un dono prezioso che impone obblighi morali non meno impegnativi dell’amicizia con un essere umano. Il legame con un cane fedele è altrettanto ‘eterno’ quanto possono esserlo, in genere, i vincoli fra esseri viventi su questa terra.

Dacă ar trebui să-l consider pe om imaginea definitivă a lui Dumnezeu, m-aș îndoi de Dumnezeu.

Konrad Lorenz, who won a Nobel Prize in 1973 for his work on the organization of social behavior in animals, often spoke of his Greylag geese “falling in love.” Occasionally, his colleagues took him to task for being anthropomorphic, and he would reply, “It is the accurate term for a real phenomenon for which there is no other name. I consider the term appropriate to any species, if that is in fact what they do.

The maestro of observation, Konrad Lorenz, believed that one could not investigate animals effectively without an intuitive understanding grounded in love and respect. He saw such intuitive insight as quite separate from the methodology of the natural sciences. To marry it productively with systematic research is both the challenge and the joy of studying animals. Promoting what he called the Ganzheitsbetrachtung (holistic contemplation), Lorenz urged us to grasp the whole animal before zooming in on its various parts.

I believe I have found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.” Konrad Lorenz

En la Naturaleza, la verdad supera en belleza a todo lo que puedan imaginar nuestros poetas, que son los únicos encantadores que existen.

El deseo de tener algún animal suele brotar siempre de un mismo y viejísimo motivo: el que impulsó también a Kipling a escribir sus libros de la jungla. Nace de una pasión del hombre civilizado, que añora el paraíso perdido de la Naturaleza salvaje.

Il est parfaitement juste et légitime de considérer comme "bonne" les manières que nos parents nous ont apprises et comme sacrées les normes sociales et les rites qu'ils nous ont légués par les traditions de notre culture. Mais ce dont nous devons nous garder, avec toute la puissance de notre responsabilé rationnelle, c'est notre penchant naturel de croire inférieurs les normes sociales et les rites des autres cultures. - Konrad Lorenz, L'agression - une histoire naturelle du mal

No existe ningún buen biólogo, cuyos trabajos fueran coronados por el éxito, que no haya sido llevado hacia su profesión por aquel placer interior que deriva de contemplar las bellezas de las criaturas vivas, y que al mismo tiempo no sienta aumentar su placer en la Naturaleza y en el trabajo, a medida que se amplían sus conocimientos profesionales.