Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-2h6rp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T22:31:00.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Behavior, Biology, and Information Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Dennis M. Senchuk
Dennis M. Senchuk*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Konrad Lorenz does not view behaviors as innate; he does not even regard differences among behaviors (of different species) as innate. Rather, he construes information (about the environment to which the behavior is adapted) as the innate component of (some) behavior. His noted deprivation experiments are intended to withhold environmental sources of that information from the organism: should the organism nevertheless exhibit behavior evidencing possession of such information, then that information must be innate. Lorenz interprets this conclusion to mean that the information is transmitted to the organism genetically, by way of a sort of blueprint in the genome.

D.S. Lehrman quarrels with the figure of a blueprint:

A blueprint is isomorphic with the structure that it represents…. It is not true that each structure and character in the phenotype is “represented” in a single gene or well defined groups of genes; it is not the case that each gene refers solely or even primarily, to a single structure or character; and it is not the case that the topographical or topological relationships among the genes are isomorphic with the structural or topographical relationships among phenotypic structures to which the genes refer. (Lehrman 1970, p. 34).

Type
Part III. Biology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 141 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayala, F.J. (1978) “The Mechanisms of Evolution”, Scientific American: 56-69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, W. (1918) “Appetites and Aversions as Constituents of Instincts”, Biological Bulletin 34: 91–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehrman, D.S. (1970) “Semantic and Conceptual Issues in the Nature-Nuture Problem”, in Development and Evolution of Behavior: Essays in Memory of T.C. Schneirla Aronson, L.R., et al. (eds.). San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company.Google Scholar
Lewontin, R.C. (1978) “Adaptation”, Scientific American: 213-230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorenz, K. (1965) Evolution and Modification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1971) Biology and Knowledge. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1978) Behavior and Evolution. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Ryle, G. (1949) The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson & Co., Ltd.Google Scholar
Tinbergen, N. (1951) The Study of Instinct. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weaver, W. (1951) “Information Theory to 1951—A Non-technical Review”, Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders XVII: 160–175.Google Scholar