Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

Living as we do in a major period of transition, the arguments of impending doom are reviewed but cast aside by the author, provided we continue to improve our natural knowledge, thus altering the patterns of our lives and those of our children. Threats to the freedom of scientific research and insufficient high-level environmental research are other problems facing science; the task of the scientist is to provide the evidence for rational decisions and these should be made known, widely and fully, to government and the public.

Research may be considered wasteful if its objectives are intrinsically unattainable – as, for example, the alchemists’ search for transmutation of base metals into gold. In our own times, despite lavish encouragement of research over many decades, cancer is still a biological mystery, an instance of how obstacles inherent in Nature can frustrate the attainment of a research objective. Human failings include repeating research work already described in the literature, lapse by neglect, bandwaggon research and politically motivated trendy research, best exemplified by Lysenko. Efforts at economic assessment of research effort, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry and in military research, are discussed. Machinations by a ‘scientific estate’ with vested interests call for vigilance.

The science of animal behaviour is still evolving from its pre-scientific past. It rests on exact description, but is an experimental discipline. Techniques of experiment and mathematical procedures are well advanced; but, in Wittgenstein's phrase, ‘conceptual confusion’ remains. The confusion is especially prominent in the analysis of social behaviour. It is worst when generalizations are extended to man.

In this review I discuss, in an ethological framework, some of the principles of method that lie behind concepts such as those of altruism, crowding, dominance, stress and territory; and I try to replace the illusion that ethology can solve the problems that face us with a statement of what ethology can actually do. I hope in this way to contribute to the use of exact and rational methods in the sciences of behaviour.

Social ethology analyses the species-typical signals of animals, and can provide methods for studying human non-verbal communication. It has suggested useful ideas about human behaviour in infancy, and about relationships between parents and children. But human languages are argumentative and reflexive, and are quantitatively superior to other signal systems by several orders of magnitude.

Findings on animals, especially rodent populations, have led to no valid conclusions on how their numbers are regulated; but they have suggested testable hypotheses about man. The expected ill effects of crowding have not been found, but other sources of human malaise notably isolation, have been revealed by researches based on such hypotheses. The physiological concept of stress, though vague and excessively general, has also inspired useful studies both of animal and of human groups.

The concepts of territory and of dominance and subordination have been valuable in the study of the species-typical conduct of animals; but as knowledge grows these simple notions are giving way to a more plural account of social behaviour. They are of little use in the analysis of human societies.

Detailed statements on the course or causes of the evolution of behaviour can be only surmise. The concept of homology has little application to behavioural features. General laws may be sought on the relationship of existing animal social systems with habitat or mode of life, but have still to be established.

Man is uniquely versatile and has no single habitat or mode. Hence the human species must fall outside any analysis in which habitat and species-typical conduct are related. Human societies rest on verbal traditions maintained not only by imitation but also by teaching—a neglected facet of social behaviour and distinctive of man.

Current fashionable comparisons of man with other species reflect the prejudices of the writers, and have no scientific validity. The notion that men are ineradicably violent among themselves is a recent version of a pessimistic outlook which has been expressed repeatedly throughout history. Biological findings have been used, unjustifiably, to support both this view and its opposite. The concept of innate behaviour, and of genetically fixed patterns of conduct, is being replaced by an epigenetic interpretation: behaviour, like other features, is a product of an ontogeny in which genotype and environment interact. Human diversity creates immense problems for man, but also provides means of solving them by conscious, voluntary action.

The theory of fundamental complexity is defined and its applicability tested.

The lives of multicellular organisms wholly depend on the ability of their cells to communicate with each other. For the most part, one cell signals another by secreting specific substances which bind to complementary receptors located on the surface membranes of target cells; the receptors then transduce these extracellular signals into intracellular ones. The study of membrane receptors has provided new insights into the fluid structure of biological membranes which in turn have increased our understanding of how membrane receptors work.

The global aspects of soil cover in the biosphere of our planet is reviewed here. This irreplaceable asset of a normal and healthy circulation of chemical elements and biomass through the soil, so vital to man's well-being is now threatened by excessive exploitation of the land. Proper management, effective reclamation, and sensible soil utilization, based on an understanding of its nature and function, can prevent degradation and improve the environment.

In this brief survey, the author sketches his hopes and the difficulties of introducing an interdisciplinary approach to the academic training of health personnel. The solution would appear to be an organizing framework in which the many medical and health disciplines, their values and end results, could be synthesized into a single interdisciplinary approach. Our quality of life depends on this.

Physiographic features in estuaries and marshes are deeply influenced by differences in climate. The study of these contrasts demands interdisciplinary teams of climatologists, botanists, hydrologists, geochemists, oceanographers, human geographers, geomorphologists and geologists. In temperate countries a dense carpet of herbaceous vegetation grows on high marshes, while low marshes bear plants which disappear in winter; mud-flats have no flowering plants. In colder regions, for example Quebec and the surrounding areas in north-east America, sea waters freeze for a long time every winter. This results in a particular evolution of tidal marshes, as ice rafts either pick up blocks of sediment from marshes, or, conversely, drop on them stones of foreign origin. In intertropical areas mangrove trees grow instead of herbaceous vegetation, although in some places true marshes can be found.