Patrick Bateson

University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Zoology

The capacity of organisms to respond in their own lifetimes to new challenges in their environments probably appeared early in biological evolution. At present few studies have shown how such adaptability could influence the inherited characteristics of an organism's descendants. In part, this has been because organisms have been treated as passive...

The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bat...

Like the game of chess, the overall development of human behavior is highly regulated, and also many finer points of any particular individual life depend on early moves. The robust mechanisms that make species different from each other also impact processes that make individuals distinct from one another. Children both influence their environment...

Much of human behaviour, including violence and those activities thought to be characteristic of each sex, has been attributed to the heritage of human evolution. These ideas have stimulated much discussion but have been criticised for playing down the interplay between the developing individual and the environment. In modern times, their clearest...

Ethologists have focused on behavior that is characteristic of the species and adapted to its biological requirements. They have attempted to integrate the four separate problems identified by Tinbergen, namely those to do with current processes, current utility, evolution and development. Studies of development have brought ethologists together wi...

Playful play is undoubtedly fun. Even so, many people think, incorrectly, that as they get older, they are no longer capable of such frivolous activity. They should heed George Bernard Shaw's advice: "We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing." The motivation to be playful comes from within. No external bribes a...

An important contributor to the differences between individuals derives from their plasticity. Such plasticity is widespread in organisms from the simple to the most complex. Adaptability plasticity enables the organism to cope with a novel challenge not previously encountered by its ancestors. Conditional plasticity appears to have evolved from re...

All the collaborative work described in this review was on the process of behavioural imprinting occurring early in the life of domestic chicks. Finding a link between learning and a change in the brain was only a first step in establishing a representation of the imprinting object. A series of overlapping experiments were necessary to eliminate al...

Many forms of developmental plasticity have been observed and these are usually beneficial to the organism. The Predictive Adaptive Response (PAR) hypothesis refers to a form of developmental plasticity in which cues received in early life influence the development of a phenotype that is normally adapted to the environmental conditions of later lif...

This article investigates whether self-reports about playfulness are related to self-reports about creativity and the alternate uses of objects. An on-line survey was conducted of how people think about themselves. One thousand, five hundred and thirty-six people completed the survey. They were asked whether a variety of statements were very charac...

Play, as defined by biologists and psychologists, is probably heterogeneous. On the other hand, playfulness may be a unitary motivational state. Playful play as opposed to activities that merge into aggression is characterized by positive mood, intrinsic motivation, occurring in a protected context and easily disrupted by stress. Playful play is a...

Explanations for biological evolution in terms of changes in gene frequencies refer to outcomes rather than process. Integrating epigenetic studies with older evolutionary theories has drawn attention to the ways in which evolution occurs. Adaptation at the level of the gene is givingway to adaptation at the level of the organism and higher-order a...

The most commonly kept domestic animal in the developed world, the cat has been a part of human life for thousands of years. Cats have been both worshipped and persecuted over this long period - either loved or hated for their enigmatic self-reliance and the subject of numerous myths and fables. Highlighting startling discoveries made over the last...

When a cat behaves socially towards a human, the person has been treated as though he or she were a cat, although very possibly a particular type of cat. Anybody who loves cats is irresistibly drawn to treat them as though they had some of the characteristics of humans. Cat owners project themselves into the heads of cats and, in so doing, empathis...

The most commonly kept domestic animal in the developed world, the cat has been a part of human life for thousands of years. Cats have been both worshipped and persecuted over this long period - either loved or hated for their enigmatic self-reliance and the subject of numerous myths and fables. Highlighting startling discoveries made over the last...

tions, and two different objects of explanation. Two of the questions are about proximate mechanisms, and two are about evolution. Two of the objects of explanation are about the current trait, and two are about the sequences that result in the trait. This suggests a two-by-two table that illustrates how the questions are related (Table 1). When I...

This year is the 50th anniversary of Tinbergen's (1963) article 'On aims and methods of ethology', where he first outlined the four 'major problems of biology'. The classification of the four problems, or questions, is one of Tinbergen's most enduring legacies, and it remains as valuable today as 50 years ago in highlighting the value of a comprehe...

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The article focuses on the active role of the organism in the subsequent evolution of its descendants. Choice, control of the environment, adaptability, and mobility all play their part. This growth area in biology and other active centres of research on epigenetics and different forms of inheritance are re-invigorating evolutionary biology. Many e...

Explanations for biological evolution in terms of changes in gene frequencies refer to outcomes rather than process. Integrating epigenetic studies with older evolutionary theories has drawn attention to the ways in which evolution occurs. Adaptation at the level of the gene is givingway to adaptation at the level of the organism and higher-order a...

• High standards of individual animal welfare is central to conservation science • As Draper and Bekoff note, considering individual animals is essential • Bateson's cube explicitly acknowledges this and promotes animal welfare

Historically, evolutionary biologists have taken the view that an understanding of development is irrelevant to theories of evolution. However, the integration of several disciplines in recent years suggests that this position is wrong. The capacity of the organism to adapt to challenges from the environment can set up conditions that affect the su...

In order to understand imprinting from a behavioral standpoint, the neurophysiological subprocesses involved in such learning must be clear. The timing of the imprinting process, the features that most readily trigger learning, and the motor systems that are linked to representations stored as a result of learning are all specific to the functional...

Adaptability;Telos;Veterinary and animal ethics

Wildlife scientists are increasingly encountering difficulties conducting research on wild animals due to opposition from animal welfare proponents. Given the current biodiversity crisis, research into animal biology and ecology is urgently needed. Collecting such information may involve invasive research on individual animals, which to some partie...

Behavioural biologists have typically combined interests in the control, function, development and evolution of behaviour. They have used observational and experimental methods, and their findings have been both attractive and scientifically invigorating. A future to be hoped for is that they will continue to combine an understanding of behaviour w...

As a category of behavior, play can be readily recognized and measured in mammals at least. However, it is easy to project onto children and other animals adult human notions of what is going on. It is also easy for everybody to suppose that the category called play is unitary. Solitary play and social play, imaginary play and object play are not t...

The ethical positions on which attacks on the use of animals in research are based have depended most commonly on treating the preferences of non-human animals as worthy of equal respect to those of humans. More radically, animals are believed to hold the same rights as humans. Such simplistic views are readily criticized and do not capture all the...

How do we understand and explain the apparent dichotomy between plasticity and robustness in the context of development? Can we identify these complex processes without resorting to ‘either/or’ solutions? Written by two leaders in the field, this is the first book to fully unravel the complexity of the subject, explaining that the epigenetic proces...

The concept of innateness is often used in explanations and classifications of biological and cognitive traits. But does this concept have a legitimate role to play in contemporary scientific discourse? Empirical studies and theoretical developments have revealed that simple and intuitively appealing ways of classifying traits (e.g. genetically spe...

All the collaborative work described in this review was on the process of behavioural imprinting occurring early in the life of domestic chicks. Finding a link between learning and a change in the brain was only a first step in establishing a representation of the imprinting object. A series of overlapping experiments were necessary to eliminate al...

What role does playful behaviour and playful thought take in animal and human development? How does play relate to creativity and, in turn, to innovation? Unravelling the different meanings of 'play', this book focuses on non-aggressive playful play. The authors emphasise its significance for development and evolution, before examining the importan...

This contribution is part of a special issue on History and Human Nature, comprising an essay by G.E.R. Lloyd and fifteen invited responses.

Most biologists are struck by the many close fits between organisms' characteristics and the environments which they inhabit. The adaptations look as they have been designed, but their origins are explained in terms of Charles Darwin's natural selection. Nick Thompson, to whom this essay is dedicated, frequently wrote about design and insisted that...

Charles Darwin has had an extraordinary impact on many aspects of human affairs apart from revolutionizing biology. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, the Cambridge Darwin Festival in July 2009 celebrated these contributions to the humanities, philosophy and religion and the approach to medicine, economics and the social sciences. He is a man t...

Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) have finely-tuned kin-recognition abilities that may serve a role in mate choice. To investigate whether these abilities are expressed in other life stages, we examined patterns of association among quail chicks in the laboratory four days after hatching. Hatchlings were reared either in mixed-family grou...

The interaction between genotype and environment is an important feature of the process of development. We investigate this interaction by examining the influence of postnatal cross-fostering and post-weaning cross-housing on the behavioral development of 129S and B6 mice. Following cross-fostering, we found significant alterations in the frequency...

Lemur Behaviour: A Madagascar Field Study by JollyAlison. University of Chicago Press, 52s. - Volume 9 Issue 6 - P. P. G. Bateson

Across species there is evidence that the quality of the early social environment can have a profound impact on neurobiology and behavior. In the present study we explore the effect of communal rearing conditions (three dams with three litters per cage) during the postnatal period on offspring (F1) and grand-offspring (F2) anxiety-like and maternal...

The faces of individual Bewick's swans (Cygnus columbianus bewickii) are highly distinctive. Similarities between the faces of parents and their offspring in 12 families living in the wild were examined using a code that gave a value to 29 features of each individual's face. The similarities between the faces of 22 wild–living mated pairs were also...

focusing mainly on short-term outcomes such as infant survival and stunting. 2 However, the longer term eff ects on adult health 3 of a poor start to life suggest a further perspective. Developmental eff ects have been viewed traditionally in the context of major disruptions such as caused by teratogens, prematurity and growth retardation, but ther...

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An attractive feature of Neuroconstructivism, Vol. I: How the Brain Constructs Cognition is its emphasis on the active role of the individual in neural and behavioural development and the importance of the interplay with the environment. Certain aspects of development are omitted, however, such as specializations for the distinctive ecologies of in...

1. Two parties studied migration in several parts of Greece between 18 August and 11 September 1960. 2. Moon-watching between 1 and 7 September revealed a large southward migration across both Northern and Southern Greece; also smaller groups of birds flying in directions centred around east, W.S.W. (only in Northern Greece) and N.N.E. (only in Sou...

Cues received from mothers may have important effects on early development in mammals. We examined the behavioural development of genetically wild-type mice, Mus musculus, offspring born to wild-type or mutant Peg3+/− (paternally expressed gene 3) mothers who are impaired in various aspects of maternal care during both the pre- and the postnatal pe...

Much of human behaviour, including violence and those activities thought to be characteristic of each sex, has been attributed to the heritage of human evolution. These ideas have stimulated much discussion but have been criticized for playing down the interplay between the developing individual and the environment. In modern times, their clearest...

Do animals have privileged access to lower level sensory information before it is packaged into concepts, as it has been argued for autistic savants?

The idea of the innate and the acquired is a part of folk-biology but is also used by biologists, psychologists and cognitive scientists in their disciplines. Are they right to do so? Innateness is often defined by appealing to the role of genes in development, to the role of Darwinian evolution in shaping developmental processes, to the non-involv...

Explanations of where our behaviour comes from are frequently presented in terms of the exclusive importance of one set of factors, either genetic or environmental. Unravelling the external and internal sources of individual differences is a useful first step in analysing behavioural development. Nevertheless, the analytical method that was well de...

Measuring Behaviour has established itself as a standard text. Largely rewritten, updated and reorganised, this third edition is, as before, a guide to the principles and methods of quantitative studies of behaviour, with an emphasis on techniques of observation, recording and analysis. It provides the basic knowledge needed to measure behaviour, d...

The role of maternal care in mediating variation in offspring phenotype has been examined in the rat and demonstrates that mother-infant interactions are critical for inducing long-term changes in behavior. Though phenotypic differences between mice strains are often attributed to genetic factors, the influence of early maternal environment has not...

Gilbert Gottlieb, a pioneer in developmental psychobiology, died on July 13, 2006. We pay tribute to the man, to his career, and to his dedication to developmental science.

Fetal experience determines some of the characteristics of human adults. Well-nourished mothers have offspring who are adapted to affluent conditions; mothers on a low level of nutrition have offspring who are adapted to lean environments. If the mother's forecast of her offspring's future environment is incorrect, the health of her offspring may s...

A multitude of scientific disciplines study the development of behavior. Their use of different methodological and conceptual approaches makes integration of findings difficult. In a symposium at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology in Washington DC, the question was discussed if a general theory of d...

If temperature does not vary from one generation from to the next but its value is crucial for the development of particular phenotypic characteristics, a long-term change in its value may trigger major evolutionary changes of the organism. If a bird's nest maintains the critical temperature, then a statement that the bird is the nest's way of maki...

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The concept of innateness is a part of folk wisdom but is also used by biologists and cognitive scientists. This concept has a legitimate role to play in science only if the colloquial usage relates to a coherent body of evidence. We examine many different candidates for the post of scientific successor of the folk concept of innateness. We argue t...

Three groups of factors which might affect the blood biochemistry of red deer (Cervus elaphus) were examined. These were the wounding site (head/neck versus chest), the stalker who collected the blood (coupled with the geographical area where each deer was shot), and the sex and nutritional status of the deer. The activities of muscle enzymes, crea...

The ethical positions, on which attacks on the use of animals in research are based, have depended most commonly on treating the preferences of non-human animals as worthy of equal respect to those of humans. More radically, animals are believed to hold the same rights as humans. Such simplistic views are readily criticized and do not capture all t...

Early experience has a particularly great effect on most organisms. Normal development may be disrupted by early environmental influences; individuals that survive have to cope with the damaging consequences. Additionally, the responses required to cope with environmental challenges in early life may have long-term effects on the adult organism. A...

The long trend towards analysis at lower and lower levels is starting to reverse. The new integrative studies must make use of the resources uncovered by molecular biology but should also use the characteristics of whole organisms to measure the outcomes of developmental processes. Two examples are given of how movement between levels of analysis i...

Many plants and animals are capable of developing in a variety of ways, forming characteristics that are well adapted to the environments in which they are likely to live. In adverse circumstances, for example, small size and slow metabolism can facilitate survival, whereas larger size and more rapid metabolism have advantages for reproductive succ...