Lorenz Nobel Prize. Konrad Lorenz and his teachings. Main scientific results and scientific views

Konrad Zacharias Lorenz(German Konrad Zacharias Lorenz; November 7, 1903, Vienna - February 27, 1989, ibid) - an outstanding Austrian zoologist and zoopsychologist, one of the founders of ethology - the science of animal behavior, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1973, together with Karl von Frisch and Nicholas Tinbergen). In 2015, he was posthumously stripped of his honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg due to his "commitment to the ideology of Nazism."

Biographical milestones

Konrad Lorenz was born on November 7, 1903 in Austria. He was the last child in the family. His father, orthopedist Adolf Lorenz, was almost fifty, and his mother is already 41 years old.

Konrad Lorenz grew up in Altenberg near Vienna in his parents' house. In 1909 he entered primary school and in 1915 to the Vienna Scots Grammar School, where in 1921 he received his Abitur with honors. He was a childhood friend of Karl Popper.

After graduating from the medical faculty of the University of Vienna, he received a medical degree, but did not practice medicine, but devoted himself to the study of animal behavior. In the 1920s, he completed an internship in England under the guidance of the famous biologist and philosopher Julian Huxley. Then he began independent research in Austria.

After the Nazis came to power in Germany, and the subsequent annexation of Austria to Germany, in 1938 he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party. In his application for joining this party, he wrote: "As a German thinker and naturalist, of course, I have always been a National Socialist" ("Ich war als Deutschdenkender und Naturwissenschaftler selbstverstndlich immer Nationalsozialist").

In 1940 he became a professor at Königsberg University. During the Second World War, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served for two years in the logistics hospital in Poznań. On October 10, 1941, he was called up for mobilization and sent to Eastern front as part of the 2nd sanitary company of the 206th infantry division. Having fought for several years, on June 20, 1944, during the retreat of the German army, he fell into Soviet captivity near Vitebsk. He spent more than a year in a prisoner of war camp in the city of Kirov, then on March 2, 1946 he was transferred to a work camp in Armenia. In 1947 he was transferred to Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, and in December 1947 he was repatriated to his homeland. In captivity, he began work on the book The Other Side of the Mirror and renounced his Nazi beliefs. In 1948 he returned to Germany and brought home his manuscript. In 1950 he founded the Institute of Physiology in Bavaria. In 1963 he published a book on aggression.

Apart from scientific research Konrad Lorenz worked literary activity. His books are very popular today.

Main scientific results and scientific views

Having devoted many years to studying the behavior of gray geese, Lorentz discovered the phenomenon of imprinting in them. Using this and other species as an example, Lorentz also studied many aspects of the aggressive and sexual behavior of animals, including human behavior in the comparative ethological analysis of these forms of behavior.

In his scientific views, Lorentz was a consistent evolutionist, a supporter of the theory of natural selection.

Below are some of Lorenz's conclusions.

Spontaneity of aggression

After analyzing the behavior of many animal species, Lorenz confirmed Freud's conclusion that aggression is not just a reaction to external stimuli. If these stimuli are removed, then aggressiveness will accumulate, and the threshold value of the triggering stimulus may decrease down to zero. An example of such a situation in humans is expeditionary rabies, which occurs in isolated small groups of people in which it comes to killing best friend for an insignificant reason.

Redirecting Aggression

If aggression is nevertheless caused by an external stimulus, then it does not splash out on the irritant (say, an individual located higher in the hierarchy), but is redirected to individuals located lower in the hierarchy or inanimate objects.

Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (German Konrad Zacharias Lorenz, November 7, 1903, Vienna - February 27, 1989, ibid) - an outstanding Austrian zoologist and animal psychologist, one of the founders of ethology - the science of animal behavior, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1973, with Carl von Frisch and Nicholas Tinbergen).

In 2015, he was posthumously stripped of his honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg due to his "commitment to the ideology of Nazism".

He was the last child in the family. His father, orthopedist Adolf Lorenz, was almost fifty, and his mother is already 41 years old.

Konrad Lorenz grew up in Altenberg near Vienna in his parents' house. In 1909 he entered primary school and in 1915 at the Vienna Scots Grammar School, where in 1921 he received his Abitur with honors. He was a childhood friend of Karl Popper.

50 shillings 1998 - Austrian commemorative coin dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Konrad Lorenz's Nobel Prize

In 1940 he became a professor at Königsberg University. During the Second World War, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served for two years in the logistics hospital in Poznań. On October 10, 1941, he was called up for mobilization and sent to the Eastern Front as part of the 2nd sanitary company of the 206th Infantry Division. Having fought for several years, on June 20, 1944, during the retreat of the German army, he was captured by the Soviets near Vitebsk. He spent more than a year in a prisoner of war camp in the city of Kirov, then on March 2, 1946 he was transferred to a work camp in Armenia. In 1947 he was transferred to Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, and in December 1947 he was repatriated to his homeland. In captivity, he began work on the book The Other Side of the Mirror and renounced his Nazi beliefs. In 1948 he returned to Germany and brought home his manuscript. In 1950 he founded the Institute of Physiology in Bavaria. In 1963 he published a book on aggression.

In addition to scientific research, Konrad Lorenz was engaged in literary activities. His books are very popular today.

Books (8)

Aggression

Arguing that aggressiveness is an innate, instinctively determined property of all higher animals - and proving this with many convincing examples - the author concludes:

Eight deadly sins of civilized mankind

This is essentially a jeremiad, a call to repentance and correction addressed to all mankind, a call that one would expect not from a naturalist, but from a stern preacher like the famous Viennese Augustinian Abraham of Santa Clara. We live, however, in a time when certain dangers are seen most clearly by the naturalist. Therefore, preaching becomes his duty.

year of the gray goose

The book of the famous Austrian ethologist, Nobel Prize winner, was created based on the author's observations of gray geese.

The text is accompanied by beautiful photographs of Sibylla and Klaus Kalas. The strict framework of the scientific approach, which by no means interferes with the free development of the plot, as well as well-chosen photographs, put the book among the best works about wildlife.

Kant's concept a priori in the light of modern biology

Konrad Lorenz laid the foundations of evolutionary epistemology, which he called "evolutionary theory of knowledge".

The beginning of this process was laid back in 1941, when his pioneering article "Kant's conception a priori in the light of modern biology" was published. This article has been translated into Russian from the English edition: L. von Bertalanffi & Rapoport (Eds.) General Systems. Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research, Vol. VII. - N.Y., 1962. P. 23-35.

Translation into English from the original language was carried out under the editorship of D. T. Campbell with the participation of K. Lorenz himself. The original version of the article was published: Kant's Lehre vom apriorichen im Lichte gegenwartiger Biologie. // Blatter fur Deutsche Philosophie, 1941, 15, S. 94-125. The author of the Russian translation is Ph.D. n. Tolstov A.B.

Ring of King Solomon

The inestimable merit of the book by Konrad Lorenz, written a quarter of a century ago and enjoying continued popularity, is that it tells about scientific research, awakening in the reader the desire for a deep knowledge of the world around us.

[…] Place of Birth Date of death February 27(1989-02-27 ) […] (85 years old) A place of death The country Scientific sphere ethology And philosophy Place of work

University of Vienna
University of Munich

Alma mater

Columbia University
University of Vienna

Academic degree M.D.( ) And Ph.D ( ) Awards and prizes Konrad Lorenz at Wikimedia Commons

In 2015, he was posthumously deprived of an honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg due to his "commitment to the ideology of Nazism".

Biographical milestones

Konrad Lorenz was born on November 7, 1903 in Austria and was the late child in the family. His father, orthopedist Adolf Lorenz, was almost fifty, and his mother was already 41 years old.

He grew up in Altenberg near Vienna, in his parents' house. In 1909 he entered elementary school, and in 1915 he entered the Vienna Scottish Gymnasium, where in 1921 he received a matriculation certificate with honors. Was a childhood friend of Karl Popper.

After the Nazis came to power in Germany and the Anschluss that followed in 1938, he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party. In his application for joining this party, he wrote: "As a German thinker and naturalist, of course, I have always been a National Socialist" ("Ich war als Deutschdenkender und Naturwissenschaftler selbstverständlich immer Nationalsozialist").

In addition to scientific research, Konrad Lorenz was engaged in literary activities. His books are very popular today.

Main scientific results and scientific views

Having devoted many years to studying the behavior of gray geese, Lorentz discovered the phenomenon of imprinting in them. Using this and other species as an example, Lorentz also studied many aspects of the aggressive and sexual behavior of animals, including human behavior in a comparative ethological analysis of these forms of behavior.

In his scientific views, Lorentz was a consistent evolutionist, a supporter of the theory of natural selection.

Below are some of Lorenz's conclusions.

Spontaneity of aggression

After analyzing the behavior of many animal species, Lorenz confirmed Freud's conclusion that aggression is not just a reaction to external stimuli. If these stimuli are removed, then aggressiveness will accumulate, and the threshold value of the triggering stimulus may decrease down to zero. An example of such a situation in humans is expeditionary rabies, which occurs in small isolated groups of people, the situation in which sometimes comes to killing even the best friend for an insignificant reason.

Redirecting Aggression

If aggression is nevertheless caused by an external stimulus, then it does not splash out on the irritant (say, an individual higher in the hierarchy), but is redirected to individuals lower in the hierarchy or inanimate objects.

Balance between weaponry and morale

After analyzing the behavior of more than 50 species, Lorenz concluded that in heavily armed species, evolutionary selection also developed a strong innate morality - an instinctive prohibition to use all their weapons in intraspecific skirmishes, especially if the defeated demonstrates humility. Conversely, weakly armed species have weak innate morality, since strong innate morality is evolutionarily useless for such species. Man is by nature a weakly armed species (the attacker could only scratch, harmlessly hit, bite or choke, and the victim had enough opportunities to escape). With the invention of artificial weapons, man became the most armed species on Earth, and morality remained at the same level.

The author's view of modernity

In the book The Eight Deadly Sins of Civilized Mankind, Lorentz criticizes contemporary capitalist society from the standpoint of a natural scientist. He identifies 8 main trends that distinguish an industrial society from a traditional one and make it unstable and unnatural for human life. These include: overpopulation; devastation of living space; the high pace of life imposed by universal competition; increased intolerance for discomfort; genetic degeneration; break with tradition; indoctrination; the threat of nuclear weapons.

Lorentz points out that a person, adapted by evolution to survive in a small team (which is already evident from the fact that it is difficult to remember more than two or three dozen people and maintain close relationships with them), in the conditions of a metropolis cannot, without additional mental stress, restrain his natural aggression. As examples of the two extremes, the hospitality of people who live far from cities, and the explosive nervousness of concentration camps, where a careless glance can lead to a fight, are given. The concentration of people in cities is usually associated with the destruction of nature, which leads to the aesthetic and ethical degradation of the inhabitant. An aerial photograph of the city looks like a histological picture of a cancer cell, which indicates a loss of diversity in both systems. The main motive of business is to obtain instant financial benefits. Thus, society loses long-term goals, as a result of which each of its members is forced to work much more intensively than is required for survival. This unrestricted process leads to a “race against oneself” that causes a number of chronic diseases in the most active citizens. Highly organized organisms are characterized by the ability to set goals that are distant in time, the achievement of which is associated with possible discomfort. According to Lorenz, modern medicine and good living conditions deprive a person of the habit of enduring, which undermines this ability.

The media develops in people the habit of uncritical perception of information, which was previously compensated by the presence of traditional beliefs. Many of them, despite their possible contradiction to scientific views, have developed evolutionarily, that is, they have proved their indispensability for society and therefore, according to Lorentz, cannot be forgotten with impunity. Compassion, which a modern civilized person is obliged to express to all people without exception (including criminal elements), weakens the natural selection that was strictly acting before and leads to genetic degeneration. [ ]

The author designates nuclear weapons as the least dangerous of all the above problems, since in order to prevent nuclear war it is enough not to use nuclear weapons, while the fight against the rest is very difficult. The situation is aggravated by the fact that these "diseases" of capitalist societies exist in a complex and mutually reinforce each other. However, the author also offers some ways to deal with these systemic problems. [ ]

Philosophical views

In 1941, Lorentz published The Kantian Conception of the A priori in the Light of Modern Biology, in which he outlined his "evolutionary theory of knowledge". Entering into a correspondence dialogue with Kant, Lorenz argues that a priori forms of thinking and intuition should be understood as adaptation, since a priori it is based on the apparatus of the central nervous system, which acquired its expedient species-preserving form due to interaction with reality in the course of genealogical evolution, which lasted many epochs.

Lorentz gives a detailed presentation of his views on the problems of cognition in the book The Reverse Side of the Mirror. In it, he consistently considers life as a process of cognition, combining a broad overview of the behavior of animals and humans with a general picture of modern biology and going to the problems of cognitive activity, the formation and development of culture as a living system.

Awards and distinctions

Bibliography

Konrad Lorenz was an outstanding popularizer of science. Generations of biologists have been brought up on his popular science books (“The Ring of King Solomon”, “A Man Finds a Friend”, “The Year of the Gray Goose”), which were and are still having great success.

Books

Er redete mit dem Vieh, den Vögeln und den Fischen: [German] ]. - (year of writing, not published).
- King Solomon's Ring : [English] ]. - .
- Ring of King Solomon: trans. with him. - .
So kam der Mensch auf den Hund: [German] ]. - .
- Man Meets Dog : [English] ]. - .
- A man finds a friend: lane with him. - .
Das sogenannte Bose: [German] ]. - .
- On Aggression : [English] ]. - .
- Aggression (the so-called "evil") / per. with him. G. F. Shveinik. - M.: Progress; Univers, 1994. - ISBN 5-01-004449-8.
- The so-called evil / per. with him. A. I. Fedorova. - M.: Cultural Revolution, 2008. - ISBN 978-5-250-06032-5.
- The so-called evil // The reverse side of the mirror: Sat. works / per. with him. and foreword. A. I. Feta; edited by A. V. Gladky; note A. I. Fet and A. V. Gladky. - Nyköping (Sweden): Philosophical arkiv, 2016. - P. 95-326. - ISBN 978-91-983073-1-3.
Evolution and Modification of Behavior: [English] ]. - .
Studies in Animal and Human Behavior: in 2 volumes: [English] ]. - - .
Die Ruckseite des Spiegels. Versuch einer Naturgeschichte des menschlichen Erkennens: [German] ]. - München: Piper Verlag, . - 338 S. - ISBN 978-3-492-02030-5.
- Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge : [English] ]. - Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, . - 261p. - ISBN 978-0-15-111699-7.
- The reverse side of the mirror / lane with it. A. I. Fedorova; ed. A. V. Gladky; comp. A. V. Gladky, A. I. Fedorov; post-last A. I. Fedorova. - Moscow: Republic, . - 393 p. - (Thinkers of the XX century). - ISBN 5-250-02644-3.
- The reverse side of the mirror / per. with him. and foreword. A. I. Feta; edited by A. V. Gladky; note A. I. Fet and A. V. Gladky. - Nyköping (Sweden): Philosophical arkiv, 2016. - 635 p. - ISBN 978-91-983073-1-3.
Motivation of Human and Animal Behavior: An Ethological View: [English] ]/ Konrad Lorenz, Paul Leyhausen. - New York, . - 423p. - ISBN 0-442-24886-5.
Das Jahr der Graugans: [German] ]. - .
- The Year of the Greylag Goose: [English] ]. - .
- Year of the gray goose / trans. with him. I. Gurova. - .
The Foundations of Ethology: [English] ]. - .
Der Abbau des Menschlichen: [German] ]. - .
- The Waning of Humanity: [English] ]. - .
Die Naturwissenschaft vom Menschen. Eine Einführung in die vergleichende Verhaltensforschung. Das russische Manuskript (1944-1948): [German] ]. - .
- The Natural Science of the Human Species: An Introduction to Comparative Behavioral Research - The Russian Manuscript (1944-1948) : [English] ]. - .

Articles

The evolution of the ritual in the biological and cultural spheres // Nature: journal. - 1969. -

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Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (German Konrad Zacharias Lorenz; November 7, 1903, Vienna - February 27, 1989, Vienna) - an outstanding Austrian zoologist and zoopsychologist, one of the founders of ethology - the science of animal behavior, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1973, jointly with Carl von Frisch and Nicholas Tinbergen). In 2015, he was posthumously stripped of his honorary doctorate from the University of Salzburg due to his "commitment to the ideology of Nazism."

Konrad Lorenz was born on November 7, 1903. He was the last child in the family. His father, orthopedist Adolf Lorenz, was almost fifty, and his mother is already 41 years old.

Whoever avoids suffering deprives himself of an essential part of human life.

Lorenz Konrad

In 1940 he became a professor at Königsberg University. During the Second World War, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served for two years in the logistics hospital in Poznań. On October 10, 1941, he was called up for mobilization and sent to the Eastern Front as part of the 2nd sanitary company of the 206th Infantry Division. After fighting for several months, on June 20, 1944, during the retreat of the German army, he was captured by the Soviets near Vitebsk. He spent more than a year in a prisoner of war camp in the city of Kirov, then on March 2, 1946 he was transferred to a work camp in Armenia. In 1947 he was transferred to Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, and in December 1947 he was repatriated to his homeland. In captivity, he began work on the book The Other Side of the Mirror and renounced his Nazi beliefs. In 1948 he returned to Germany and brought home his manuscript. In 1950 he founded the Institute of Physiology in Bavaria. In 1963 he published a book on aggression.

Konrad Lorenz is a Nobel Prize winner, a famous zoologist and animal psychologist, writer, popularizer of science, one of the founders of a new discipline - ethology. He devoted almost his entire life to the study of animals, and his observations, conjectures and theories changed the course of development. scientific knowledge. However, it is known and appreciated not only by scientists: the books of Konrad Lorenz are able to turn the worldview of anyone, even a person far from science.

Biography

Konrad Lorenz lived a long life - when he died, he was 85 years old. The years of his life: 11/07/1903 - 02/27/1989. He was practically the same age as the century, and turned out to be not only a witness to large-scale events, but sometimes also a participant in them. There was a lot in his life: world recognition and painful periods of lack of demand, membership in Nazi Party and later repentance, long years in the war and in captivity, students, grateful readers, a happy sixty-year marriage and a favorite thing.

Childhood

Konrad Lorenz was born in Austria in a fairly wealthy and educated family. His father was an orthopedic doctor who came from a rural environment, but reached heights in the profession, universal respect and world fame. Konrad is the second child; he was born when his older brother was almost an adult, and his parents were over forty.

He grew up in a house with a large garden and early years interested in nature. This is how the love of Konrad Lorenz's life appeared - animals. His parents reacted to his passion with understanding (albeit with some anxiety), and allowed him to do what he was interested in - to observe, explore. Already in childhood, he began to keep a diary in which he recorded his observations. His nurse had a talent for breeding animals, and with her help Conrad once had offspring from a spotted salamander. As he later wrote about this incident in an autobiographical article, “this success would have been enough to determine my future career.” One day, Conrad noticed that a newly hatched duckling was following him like a duck mother - this was the first acquaintance with a phenomenon that later, already as a serious scientist, he would study and call imprinting.

feature scientific method Konrad Lorenz was attentive to real life animals, which, apparently, was formed in his childhood, filled with attentive observations. Reading scientific works in his youth, he was disappointed that researchers did not truly understand animals and their habits. Then he realized that he had to transform the science of animals and make it what he thought it should be.

Youth

After the gymnasium, Lorenz thought to continue the study of animals, but at the insistence of his father he entered the Faculty of Medicine. After graduation, he became a laboratory assistant in the department of anatomy, but at the same time began to study the behavior of birds. In 1927, Konrad Lorenz married Margaret Gebhardt (or Gretl, as he called her), whom he had known since childhood. She also studied medicine and later became an obstetrician-gynecologist. Together they will live until their death, they will have two daughters and a son.

In 1928, after defending his dissertation, Lorenz received his medical degree. Continuing to work at the department (as an assistant), he began to write a thesis in zoology, which he defended in 1933. In 1936 he became assistant professor at the Zoological Institute, and in the same year he met the Dutchman Nicholas Timbergen, who became his friend and colleague. From their passionate discussions, joint research and articles of this period, what would later become the science of ethology was born. However, soon there will be upheavals that put an end to their joint plans: after the occupation of Holland by the Germans, Timbergen ends up in a concentration camp in 1942, while Lorenz finds himself on the other side, which caused many years of tension between them.

Maturity

In 1938, after Austria was incorporated into Germany, Lorenz became a member of the National Socialist Workers' Party. He believed that the new government would have a beneficial effect on the situation in his country, on the state of science and society. This period is associated with a dark spot in the biography of Konrad Lorenz. At that time, one of the topics of interest to him was the process of "domestication" in birds, in which they gradually lose their original properties and complex social behavior, inherent in their wild relatives, and become simpler, interested mainly in food and mating. Lorentz saw in this phenomenon the danger of degradation and degeneration and drew parallels with how civilization affects a person. He writes an article about this, arguing in it about the problem of “domestication” of a person and what can be done about it - to bring struggle into life, to strain all one’s strength, to get rid of inferior individuals. This text was written in line with the Nazi ideology and contained the appropriate terminology - since then, Lorenz has been accompanied by accusations of “adherence to the ideology of Nazism”, despite his public repentance.

In 1939, Lorenz headed the Department of Psychology at the University of Königsberg, and in 1941 he was recruited into the army. At first he ended up in the department of neurology and psychiatry, but after some time he was mobilized to the front as a doctor. He had to become, among other things, a field surgeon, although before that he had no experience in medical practice.

In 1944, Lorenz was captured by the Soviet Union, from which he returned only in 1948. There, in his spare time from performing medical duties, he observed the behavior of animals and people and reflected on the topic of knowledge. Thus was born his first book, The Other Side of the Mirror. Konrad Lorenz wrote it with a solution of potassium permanganate on scraps of cement paper bags, and during the repatriation, with the permission of the head of the camp, he took the manuscript with him. This book (in a heavily modified form) was not published until 1973.

Returning to his homeland, Lorenz was happy to find that none of his family had died. However, the situation in life was difficult: there was no work for him in Austria, and the situation was aggravated by his reputation as a supporter of Nazism. By that time, Gretl had left her medical practice and was working on a farm providing them with food. In 1949, a job was found for Lorenz in Germany - he began to lead a scientific station, which soon became part of the Max-Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology, and in 1962 he headed the entire institute. During these years he wrote books that brought him fame.

Last years

In 1973, Lorenz returned to Austria and worked there at the Institute for Comparative Ethology. In the same year, he, together with Nicholas Timbergen and Karl von Frisch (the scientist who discovered and deciphered the bee dance language), received the Nobel Prize. During this period, he gives popular radio lectures on biology.

Konrad Lorenz died in 1989 from kidney failure.

scientific theory

The discipline finally shaped by the work of Konrad Lorenz and Nicholas Timbergen is called ethology. This science studies the genetically determined behavior of animals (including humans) and is based on the theory of evolution and field research methods. These features of ethology largely intersect with the scientific predispositions inherent in Lorentz: he met Darwin's theory of evolution at the age of ten and was a consistent Darwinist all his life, and the importance of directly studying the real life of animals was obvious to him from childhood.

Unlike scientists who work in laboratories (such as behaviorists and comparative psychologists), ethologists study animals in their natural, rather than artificial, environment. Their analysis is based on observations and a thorough description of the behavior of animals under typical conditions, the study of congenital and acquired factors, and comparative studies. Ethology proves that behavior is largely determined by genetics: in response to certain stimuli, an animal performs some stereotyped actions characteristic of its entire species (the so-called “fixed motor pattern”).

Imprinting

However, this does not mean that the environment does not play any role, which is demonstrated by the phenomenon of imprinting discovered by Lorenz. Its essence lies in the fact that ducklings hatched from an egg (as well as other birds or newborn animals) consider their mother the first moving object that they see, and not even necessarily animate. This affects all their subsequent relationship to this object. If the birds during the first week of life were isolated from individuals of their own species, but were in the company of people, then in the future they prefer the company of a person to their relatives and even refuse to mate. Imprinting is possible only during a brief period, but it is irreversible and does not die out without further reinforcement.

Therefore, all the time that Lorenz was exploring ducks and geese, the birds followed him.

Aggression

Another famous concept of Konrad Lorenz is his theory of aggression. He believed that aggression is innate and has internal causes. If you remove external stimuli, then it does not disappear, but accumulates and sooner or later will come out. Studying animals, Lorenz noticed that those of them who have great physical strength, sharp teeth and claws, have developed “morality” - a ban on aggression within the species, while the weak do not have this, and they are able to cripple or kill their relative. People are originally weak view. In his famous book on aggression, Konrad Lorenz compares man to a rat. He proposes to conduct a thought experiment and imagine that somewhere on Mars there is an alien scientist observing the life of people: “He must draw the inevitable conclusion that the situation with human society is almost the same as with the society of rats, which are just as social and peaceful within a closed clan, but real devils in relation to a kindred who does not belong to their own party.” Human civilization, says Lorenz, gives us weapons, but does not teach us to control our aggression. However, he expresses the hope that one day culture will still help us cope with this.

The book "Aggression, or the so-called evil" by Konrad Lorenz, published in 1963, still causes heated debate. His other books focus more on his love of animals and in one way or another try to infect others with it.

Man finds a friend

Konrad Lorenz's book "A Man Finds a Friend" was written in 1954. It is intended for the general reader - for anyone who loves animals, especially dogs, who wants to know where our friendship came from and understand how to deal with them. Lorenz talks about the relationship between people and dogs (and a little - cats) from antiquity to the present day, about the origin of breeds, describes stories from the life of his pets. In this book, he returns to the topic of "domestication" again, this time in the form of inbrinding - the degeneration of purebred dogs, and explains why mongrels are often smarter.

As in all his work, with the help of this book, Lorenz wants to share with us his passion for animals and life in general, because, as he writes, “only that love for animals is beautiful and instructive, which gives rise to love for all life and in the basis which must lie love for people.

Ring of King Solomon

year of the gray goose

The Year of the Gray Goose is the last book written by Konrad Lorenz a few years before his death, in 1984. She talks about a research station that studies the behavior of geese in their natural environment. Explaining why the gray goose was chosen as the object of study, Lorenz said that its behavior is in many ways similar to that of a person in family life.

He advocates the importance of understanding wild animals so that we can understand ourselves. But “in our time, too much of humanity is alienated from nature. Everyday life so many people pass among the dead products of human hands, so that they have lost the ability to understand living creatures and communicate with them.

Conclusion

Lorentz, his books, theories and ideas help to look at man and his place in nature from the other side. His all-consuming love for animals inspires and makes him look with curiosity into unfamiliar areas. I would like to finish with another quote from Konrad Lorenz: “Trying to restore the lost connection between people and other living organisms living on our planet is a very important, very worthy task. Ultimately, the success or failure of such attempts will decide whether humanity will destroy itself along with all living beings on earth or not.”