FOUR QUESTIONS ON BEHAVIOR

Tinbergen's goal in his paper “On aims and methods of Ethology” (1963, this volume) was to define the field of ethology and demonstrate the close affinity between ethology and the rest of biology. He also wanted to show the ways in which ethology was similar to, and different from, other life sciences. His definition was simple: Ethology is “the biological study of behaviour.” He elaborated his meaning of “biological study” by stating that “the biological method is characterized by the general scientific method, and in addition by the kind of questions we ask (…).” The questions were those of causation, survival value, and evolution, as stated by Huxley (1914), plus that of ontogeny, added by Tinbergen. In the body of the paper, Tinbergen discusses and illustrates each question using examples from then-current ethological work. Further, he notes that most ethologists at that time had concentrated their efforts on asking causal questions, and pleads for more studies that ask the other questions as well. It was his opinion that answers to all four questions would lead to a much greater understanding of behavior. One other point is important to mention: Tinbergen's statement that his classification of problems is pragmatic rather than logical (Tinbergen, 1963, p. 426) may have contributed to some of the confusions we discuss below, as well as to extensions of these questions discussed in later chapters of this book.