The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1973 Karl von Frisch,
Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen Karolinska Institutet has
decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for
1973 Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen for
their discoveries concerning "organization and elicitation of
individual and social behaviour patterns". During the first
decades of this century research concerning animal behaviour was
on its way to be stuck in a blind alley. The vitalists believed
in the instincts as mystical, wise and inexplicable forces
inherent in the organism, governing the behaviour of the
individual. On the other hand reflexologists interpreted
behaviour in an one-side mechanical way, and behaviourists were
preoccupied with learning as an explanation of all behavioural
variations. The way out of this dilemma was indicated by
investigators who focused on the survival value of various
behaviour patterns in their studies of species differences.
Behaviour patterns become explicable when inter