On Aims and Methods of Cognitive Ethology (with Marc Bekoff)

Abstract In 1963 Niko Tinbergen published a paper, “On Aims and Methods of Ethology”, dedicated to his friend Konrad Lorenz. This essay is a landmark in the development of ethology. Here Tinbergen defines ethology as “the biological study of behavior” and seeks to demonstrate the “close affinity between Ethology and the rest of Biology” (p. 411). Building on Huxley (1942), Tinbergen identifies four major problems of ethology: causation, survival value, evolution, and ontogeny. Concern with these problems, under different names (mechanism, adaptation, phylogeny, and development), has dominated the study of animal behaviour during the last half century.