Nikolaas Tinbergen
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{{Infobox_Scientist
| name = Niko Tinbergen [[Image:Nobel_prize_medal.svg|20px]]
| image = Nikolass_Tinbergen.gif
| imagesize = 140
| caption = Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen''' (1907-1988)
| birth_date = {{birth date|1907|4|15|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[The Hague]], [[Netherlands]]
| residence = [[UK]]
| nationality = [[Netherlands|Dutch]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1988|12|21|1907|4|15}}
| death_place = <!--insert location of death-->
| field = [[Zoology|Zoologist]], [[Ethology|ethologist]]
| work_institution = [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]]
| alma_mater = [[Leiden University]]
| doctoral_advisor = <!--please insert-->
| doctoral_students = [[Richard Dawkins]] <br> [[Desmond Morris]]
| known_for = Hawk/goose effect
| prizes = [[Image:Nobel_prize_medal.svg|20px]] [[Nobel Prize]] (1973)
| religion =
| footnotes =
}}
'''Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen''' ([[April 15]], [[1907]] – [[December 21]], [[1988]]) was a [[Netherlands|Dutch]] [[ethology|ethologist]] and [[ornithologist]] who shared the [[1973]] [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] with [[Karl von Frisch]] and [[Konrad Lorenz]] for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in [[animal]]s.
In the 1960s he collaborated with filmaker [[Hugh Falkus]] on a series of wildlife films, including ''The Riddle of the Rook'' (1972) and ''Signals for Survival'' (1969), which won the Italia prize in that year and the American blue ribbon in 1971.
== Origins ==
Born in [[The Hague]], [[Netherlands]], he is also noted as the brother of [[Jan Tinbergen]], who won the first [[Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel]]. He had a third eminent brother, [[Luuk Tinbergen]].
Tinbergen's interest in nature manifested itself when he was young. He studied [[biology]] at [[Leiden University]] and was a prisoner of war during [[World War II]]. Tinbergen's experience as a prisoner of the Nazis led to some friction with longtime intellectual collaborator [[Konrad Lorenz]], and it was several years before the two reconciled. After the war, Tinbergen moved to England, where he taught at the [[University of Oxford]]. [[Richard Dawkins]] was one of his students.
He married Elisabeth Rutten and they had five children. Tinbergen died December 21, 1988, after suffering a stroke at his home in Oxford, England.
== Contributions ==
{{main|Tinbergen's four questions}}
He is well known for originating the four questions he believed should be asked of any animal behaviour, which were:
'''Proximate mechanisms:'''
* 1. [[Causality|'''Causation''']] (Mechanism): what are the stimuli that elicit the response, and how has it been modified by recent [[learning]]? How do behaviour and psyche "function" on the molecular, physiological, neuro-ethological, cognitive and social level, and what do the relations between the levels look like? (compare: [[Nicolai Hartmann]]: "The laws about the levels of complexity")
* 2. [[Developmental biology|Development]] ('''[[Ontogeny]]'''): how does the behaviour change with age, and what early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown? Which developmental steps (the ontogenesis follows an "inner plan") ''and'' which environmental factors play when / which role? (compare: [[Recapitulation theory]])
'''Ultimate mechanisms:'''
* 3. [[Evolution]] ('''[[Phylogeny]]'''): how does the behaviour compare with similar behaviour in related [[species]], and how might it have arisen through the process of phylogeny? Why did structural associations (behaviour can be seen as a "time space structure") evolve in this manner and not otherwise?*
* 4. Function ('''[[Adaptation]]'''): how does the [[behaviour]] impact on the animal's chances of survival and reproduction?
In [[ethology]] and [[sociobiology]] '''causation''' and '''ontogeny''' are summarized as the "proximate mechanisms" and adaptation and phylogeny as the "ultimate mechanisms".
They are still considered as the cornerstone of modern ethology, sociobiology and [[transdisciplinarity]] in Human Sciences.
'''References concerning the four questions:'''
''Lorenz, Konrad'' 1937: Biologische Fragestellungen in der Tierpsychologie (in English: Biological Questions in Animal Psychology). Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 1: 24-32
''Tinbergen, Niko'' 1963: On Aims and Methods in Ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20: 410-433;
== Autism ==
Tinbergen applied his observational methods to the problems of children with [[autism]]. He recommended a "holding therapy" in which parents hold their autistic children for long periods of time while attempting to establish eye contact, even when a child resists the embrace.<ref>{{cite book |author= Tinbergen N, Tinbergen EA |title= Autistic Children: New Hope for a Cure |publisher= Routledge |date=1986 |edition= new edition |isbn=0041570111}}</ref> However, his interpretations of autistic behavior, and the holding therapy that he recommended, lacked scientific support.<ref>{{cite journal |journal= Q J Exp Psychol |date=2008 |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=16–26 |title= Forty years on: Uta Frith's contribution to research on autism and dyslexia, 1966–2006 |author= Bishop DVM |doi=10.1080/17470210701508665 |pmid=18038335 |url=http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a787077604&fulltext=713240928}}</ref>
== References ==
* [[Hans Kruuk]] ([[2003]]) ''Niko's Nature: The Life of Niko Tinbergen and His Science of Animal Behaviour'' ISBN 0-19-851558-8
* Marian Stamp Dawkins ([[1991]]) ''The Tinbergen Legacy'' ISBN 0-412-39120-1
* Richard W. Burkhardt Jr. ([[2005]]) ''Patterns of Behavior : Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology'' ISBN 0-226-08090-0
*{{Citation
|id = [[PMID]]:14584992
|url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14584992
|last=Dewsbury
|first=Donald A
|publication-date=2003 Sep
|year=[[2003]]
|title=The 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine: recognition for behavioral science?
|volume=58
|issue=9
|periodical=The American psychologist
|pages=747–52
|doi = 10.1037/0003-066X.58.9.747
|journal=American Psychologist
}}
*{{Citation
|id = [[PMID]]:10509540
|url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10509540
|last=Raju
|first=T N
|publication-date=1999 Sep 25
|year=[[1999]]
|title=The Nobel chronicles. 1973: Karl von Frisch (1886-1982); Konrad Lorenz (1903-89); and Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-88).
|volume=354
|issue=9184
|periodical=Lancet
|pages=1130
}}
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1973/tinbergen-autobio.html Autobiography]
*[http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1973/index.html The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973: von Frisch, Lorenz and Tinbergen]
* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1973/tinbergen-lecture.pdf Nobel Lecture]
*Diagram on [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/fourquestions.pdf The Four Areas of Biology]
* Further Diagrams on [http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c720126/humanethologie/ws/medicus/block1/inhalt.html The Four Areas of Biology (Documents No. 5, 6 and 7 in English)]
{{Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Laureates 1951-1975}}
{{NeuroethologyNavbox}}
<!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]] -->
{{Persondata
|NAME= Tinbergen, Niko
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
|SHORT DESCRIPTION= [[Zoologist]], [[ethologist]]
|DATE OF BIRTH= [[April 15]], [[1907]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH= [[The Hague]], [[Netherlands]]
|DATE OF DEATH= [[December 21]], [[1988]]
|PLACE OF DEATH=
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tinbergen, Nikolaas}}
[[Category:1907 births]]
[[Category:1988 deaths]]
[[Category:Dutch biologists]]
[[Category:Dutch ornithologists]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine]]
[[Category:Dutch Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Ethologists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Leiden University alumni]]
[[Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany]]
[[Category:People from The Hague]]
[[Category:Dutch prisoners of war]]
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