Evolution And Modification Of Behavior
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
At the crossroads of genetics and ethology stands one of the twentieth century's most provocative scientific arguments: that the rigid boundary between innate and learned behavior is, at its core, a scientific illusion. In Evolution and Modification of Behavior, Nobel Prize-winning zoologist and ethologist Konrad Lorenz presents a rigorous and pointed critique of the behaviorist school of thought, challenging the then-dominant American psychological tradition that dismissed instinct as a meaningful category of scientific inquiry. Lorenz argues with characteristic precision that behavior, like anatomy, is shaped by evolutionary forces, and that the phylogenetic origins of any behavioral act cannot be separated from a complete understanding of it. This landmark work sits at the heart of the nature-versus-nurture debate and illustrates with scientific authority how the two are inextricably intertwined — not opposing forces, but collaborative architects of animal and human conduct. Lorenz's prose is characteristically direct and authoritative, grounding abstract theoretical disputes in concrete biological evidence drawn from decades of fieldwork and comparative study. His challenge to purely environmentalist models of behavior helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the modern science of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. For anyone seeking to understand how the science of animal behavior came to reshape our understanding of human nature, this essential text remains as vital and contentious as the day it was written.
Author: Konrad Lorenz
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
At the crossroads of genetics and ethology stands one of the twentieth century's most provocative scientific arguments: that the rigid boundary between innate and learned behavior is, at its core, a scientific illusion. In Evolution and Modification of Behavior, Nobel Prize-winning zoologist and ethologist Konrad Lorenz presents a rigorous and pointed critique of the behaviorist school of thought, challenging the then-dominant American psychological tradition that dismissed instinct as a meaningful category of scientific inquiry. Lorenz argues with characteristic precision that behavior, like anatomy, is shaped by evolutionary forces, and that the phylogenetic origins of any behavioral act cannot be separated from a complete understanding of it. This landmark work sits at the heart of the nature-versus-nurture debate and illustrates with scientific authority how the two are inextricably intertwined — not opposing forces, but collaborative architects of animal and human conduct. Lorenz's prose is characteristically direct and authoritative, grounding abstract theoretical disputes in concrete biological evidence drawn from decades of fieldwork and comparative study. His challenge to purely environmentalist models of behavior helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the modern science of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. For anyone seeking to understand how the science of animal behavior came to reshape our understanding of human nature, this essential text remains as vital and contentious as the day it was written.