Special Issue: Animal Behaviour: A Historical ApproachInsights found in century-old writings on animal behaviour and some cautions for today
Section snippets
Some consequences of repeating twice-told tales
Of course, there is a caveat: just because an idea proposed in the past becomes widely accepted in a field does not necessarily mean that it is correct or valid. Historical attitudes and preconceptions about reptile social behaviour is a case in point. Always interested in reptiles, snakes especially, I realized in the early 1960s that there was little behavioural research interest in them, either ethological or psychological. Thus, I began to study aspects of their behaviour and development
The sway of old writings on a career in animal behaviour
We can also step back into the early history of animal behaviour in a more positive manner and focus on early writers that helped shape scientific careers. I remember like yesterday where I was, and the setting, when I first heard that those three pioneers of animal behaviour, Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen were to receive the Nobel Prize in 1973. This was a major validation of the field of animal behaviour in the scientific community. The story of the important contributions
Idols and inconvenient truths
I hope I have shown how, for this scientist, the writings of long dead persons stimulated my conceptual and experimental work. I encourage readers to explore these writings and draw their own conclusions. However, what about recent developments and challenges in our field that historians of the future will look back upon as either missteps or breakthroughs?
What is the best way to promote creativity in science, especially in experimental fields? How do we balance the ‘tinkering’ that may
Final thoughts
Over 55 years ago, Ernst Mayr made a call not to jettison the classical areas of biology in favour of new areas that then receive the most funding and attract the best students. For example, important areas in taxonomic and organismal biology lose ‘trained and intelligent specialists’ in areas deemed ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘passé’ such as invertebrate zoology (Mayr, 1963). My call is for us not to neglect scientists and scholars whose thoughtful writings predate many recent findings and methods,
Acknowledgments
I thank Zuleyma Tang-Martínez for the opportunity to present at the ABS 2018 meeting and the editorial review that greatly improved the manuscript. I also want to acknowledge all the mentors, colleagues and students I have worked with over my career. I also collaborated with many fine zoos, museums, libraries and research institutions and have been supported by federal, state, foundation and private research funding, including funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the
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