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Applied ethology and the macroanalytical method
Applied Animal Ethology, 4 (1978) 201-203 0 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands
201
Editorial APPLIED
ETHOLOGY
AND THE MACROANALYTICAL
METHOD
A.F. FRASER Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies, Western College of Veterinary University of Saskatchewan, Sask. (Canada) Editor-in-Chief, Applied Animal Ethology
Medicine,
Contemporary ethology is geared to different operations. As a primary discipline it functions in pure instruction. Broader peripheral activities range through natural philosophy, sociobiology, ecology, the principles of animal welfare and production to global issues of controlled animal life. Its main and central work, however, is now, in the words of this journal’s subtitle, its application to the animals used by man. Implicit in this work is a relevant role in the animal industries. Ethology, therefore, increasingly becomes an industrial study. From this applied role it now draws more merit. In a former era ethologists could edge themselves into animal worlds where the excitement of on-going life vibrated. Their discoveries of functional animal behaviour gave enormous rewards of satisfaction. All of this, of course, gave that private pleasure of primary discovery which is the reward of pioneers. These days are not completely gone, but they are few in the workshop of applied ethology where the industrial product is forged, where the action is now centred. Anecdotes emerged from early studies of animal behaviour. Scientific standards rejected these as inadmissible reports. Early interpretation of animal behaviour was based on human values. This also was declared invalid. Behavioural observations and interpretation then took refuge in their conversion to a mathematical code. Ethological study progressively followed numerical methods to good advantage; scientific respectability was gained. The price of this was considerable; it was, in a word, constraint. Carefully assembled and tested observations were necessarily of given, manageable, limits and sometimes lacked impact as a result. When statistical levels of significance were acquired, numbers were adequate, de facto. The experimental product was sometimes more important than its natural analogue in the animal world, in such a code. Arbitrary interpretation of observations could be avoided in the interest of ready acceptability of the constrained observer’s data. In hard times of unyielding research, results could sometimes be produced from minutiae while generalia could be ignored. Dipping into shallow waters, selectively, with a fine net could be a studious exercise, if not industrious fishing. All this made a status quo, but the status quo in ethology has lost its status.
202
Fortunately, the exciting, dynamic nature of ethology has always kept it alive and well, even when it was subject to constraint. Periodic discoveries of major behavioural phenomena sometimes burst upon the scene. Often they owed as much to the force of descriptive report as to experimental revela. tion. However, scientific routine work, like any other important show, must go on. One requirement of routine work in ethology is the use of arithmetic probability. It is a cold fact that this method has kept ethological knowledge moving inexorably forward, laboriously making progress and improving retrospective vision. This hard labour has taken behaviour understanding far, and the debt to this conventional scientific method and to its workers is great. The nature of this working method is tedious and has unfortunately put it beyond the willing grasp of some potential producers until now, but numerical working techniques are about to change. Microanalysis of experimentally derived data is no longer the ultimate in ethological science. Today mass data, of previously unmanageable quantity, are regularly distilled to yield very precise information in commerce. The ubiquitous computer will do as much for ethology. The computer mills will do mathematical chores, and can do so on a scale to give ethologists incentive and freedom to seek heavy quantities of data in expansive field studies. With input on a large scale, hard facts will emerge and speak for themselves. The ethologist can even conduct a continuous and penetrating discourse with the computer, supplied adequately with appropriate data. Gathering primary data is almost the stock-in-trade of the ethologist, but there has been a tendency to accumulate these up to a quantity adequate for limited statistical testing. Now observations can be profitably accumulated in almost unlimited volume. With a systematic design of records, the data can then be banked as they become collected. Accumulation of specific raw data can be pursued as a progressive method in the certain knowledge that its volume will be welcome scientific grist to the computer millers. Computers are not new, one might say; their installations were commonplace over a decade ago. Ethologists, however, appeared to have held back their material, modestly suffering still from constraint, but the mathematical brokers today welcome ethologists, for they see them as a profitable resource people. The ethologist is no&-after all, confined to the laboratory for data. The vast animal enterprises are where ethologists can now work and gather facts. Large volumes of data are there for the systematic taking and the doors to computers are now open to such favoured researchers. The era of ethological constraint is passing and with it will surely go interpretive inhibitions. Assertive attitudes hopefully will return. These should bring brisk but healthy dialogue and debate. Apprenticeship in the school of pedantic restraint may have been a necessary educational discipline, but graduation from it is offered for those who would venture into the realm of macroanalytic ethology where the greater challenges of scientific freedom can be met. In ethology, one form of macroanalysis is represented by the banking of behavioural observations. Relevant data, common to a given ethological
203
problem, can then be computer-processed to define the problem, measure it and penetrate it to show relationships among its associated factors. This form of proficiency can reduce highly complex problems to the component parts making them more amenable to comprehension. By appraising statistically established facts individually and then associating them collectively, the perspective and the nature of whole problems may become more easily appreciated. Within a great storage of data, saved by diligent goal-oriented work, significant relationships can await to be revealed, making pregnant with possibility the method of mass data banking. As a standard ethological procedure for ambitious studies, data banking would appear to have a secure future. Needless to say, this level of study can be preceded by pilot study to indicate the necessary tailoring of records. Useful records are akin to disciplined observation. The well known flaw in computer use “garbage-in, garbage-out” should be foremost in the mind of the ethological banker whose data gathering can be sustained but seldom repeated. Instant reports are not obtained by this method but the sterling nature of the ultimate results can give the work true and lasting value. What scientific author could wish for more. Ambitiously progressive ethologists move increasingly to another form of ethological macroanalysis, one which almost appears designed for ethology alone, one which is an empirical scientific method; this basic method is essentially circumstantial study. The circumstances are of animal behaviour in the settings of the animal industries. These have proved to be difficult to grasp by other means. They might become much of the field work in applied ethology. The field test methods which have evolved recently in-applied ethology are suited to use in a style and on a scale representative of industrial circumstances. They constitute more potential in the macroanalytic method. Through macroanalysis ethology can espouse realism, which is, after all, the brave objective of applied science generally.
201
Editorial APPLIED
ETHOLOGY
AND THE MACROANALYTICAL
METHOD
A.F. FRASER Department of Veterinary Clinical Studies, Western College of Veterinary University of Saskatchewan, Sask. (Canada) Editor-in-Chief, Applied Animal Ethology
Medicine,
Contemporary ethology is geared to different operations. As a primary discipline it functions in pure instruction. Broader peripheral activities range through natural philosophy, sociobiology, ecology, the principles of animal welfare and production to global issues of controlled animal life. Its main and central work, however, is now, in the words of this journal’s subtitle, its application to the animals used by man. Implicit in this work is a relevant role in the animal industries. Ethology, therefore, increasingly becomes an industrial study. From this applied role it now draws more merit. In a former era ethologists could edge themselves into animal worlds where the excitement of on-going life vibrated. Their discoveries of functional animal behaviour gave enormous rewards of satisfaction. All of this, of course, gave that private pleasure of primary discovery which is the reward of pioneers. These days are not completely gone, but they are few in the workshop of applied ethology where the industrial product is forged, where the action is now centred. Anecdotes emerged from early studies of animal behaviour. Scientific standards rejected these as inadmissible reports. Early interpretation of animal behaviour was based on human values. This also was declared invalid. Behavioural observations and interpretation then took refuge in their conversion to a mathematical code. Ethological study progressively followed numerical methods to good advantage; scientific respectability was gained. The price of this was considerable; it was, in a word, constraint. Carefully assembled and tested observations were necessarily of given, manageable, limits and sometimes lacked impact as a result. When statistical levels of significance were acquired, numbers were adequate, de facto. The experimental product was sometimes more important than its natural analogue in the animal world, in such a code. Arbitrary interpretation of observations could be avoided in the interest of ready acceptability of the constrained observer’s data. In hard times of unyielding research, results could sometimes be produced from minutiae while generalia could be ignored. Dipping into shallow waters, selectively, with a fine net could be a studious exercise, if not industrious fishing. All this made a status quo, but the status quo in ethology has lost its status.
202
Fortunately, the exciting, dynamic nature of ethology has always kept it alive and well, even when it was subject to constraint. Periodic discoveries of major behavioural phenomena sometimes burst upon the scene. Often they owed as much to the force of descriptive report as to experimental revela. tion. However, scientific routine work, like any other important show, must go on. One requirement of routine work in ethology is the use of arithmetic probability. It is a cold fact that this method has kept ethological knowledge moving inexorably forward, laboriously making progress and improving retrospective vision. This hard labour has taken behaviour understanding far, and the debt to this conventional scientific method and to its workers is great. The nature of this working method is tedious and has unfortunately put it beyond the willing grasp of some potential producers until now, but numerical working techniques are about to change. Microanalysis of experimentally derived data is no longer the ultimate in ethological science. Today mass data, of previously unmanageable quantity, are regularly distilled to yield very precise information in commerce. The ubiquitous computer will do as much for ethology. The computer mills will do mathematical chores, and can do so on a scale to give ethologists incentive and freedom to seek heavy quantities of data in expansive field studies. With input on a large scale, hard facts will emerge and speak for themselves. The ethologist can even conduct a continuous and penetrating discourse with the computer, supplied adequately with appropriate data. Gathering primary data is almost the stock-in-trade of the ethologist, but there has been a tendency to accumulate these up to a quantity adequate for limited statistical testing. Now observations can be profitably accumulated in almost unlimited volume. With a systematic design of records, the data can then be banked as they become collected. Accumulation of specific raw data can be pursued as a progressive method in the certain knowledge that its volume will be welcome scientific grist to the computer millers. Computers are not new, one might say; their installations were commonplace over a decade ago. Ethologists, however, appeared to have held back their material, modestly suffering still from constraint, but the mathematical brokers today welcome ethologists, for they see them as a profitable resource people. The ethologist is no&-after all, confined to the laboratory for data. The vast animal enterprises are where ethologists can now work and gather facts. Large volumes of data are there for the systematic taking and the doors to computers are now open to such favoured researchers. The era of ethological constraint is passing and with it will surely go interpretive inhibitions. Assertive attitudes hopefully will return. These should bring brisk but healthy dialogue and debate. Apprenticeship in the school of pedantic restraint may have been a necessary educational discipline, but graduation from it is offered for those who would venture into the realm of macroanalytic ethology where the greater challenges of scientific freedom can be met. In ethology, one form of macroanalysis is represented by the banking of behavioural observations. Relevant data, common to a given ethological
203
problem, can then be computer-processed to define the problem, measure it and penetrate it to show relationships among its associated factors. This form of proficiency can reduce highly complex problems to the component parts making them more amenable to comprehension. By appraising statistically established facts individually and then associating them collectively, the perspective and the nature of whole problems may become more easily appreciated. Within a great storage of data, saved by diligent goal-oriented work, significant relationships can await to be revealed, making pregnant with possibility the method of mass data banking. As a standard ethological procedure for ambitious studies, data banking would appear to have a secure future. Needless to say, this level of study can be preceded by pilot study to indicate the necessary tailoring of records. Useful records are akin to disciplined observation. The well known flaw in computer use “garbage-in, garbage-out” should be foremost in the mind of the ethological banker whose data gathering can be sustained but seldom repeated. Instant reports are not obtained by this method but the sterling nature of the ultimate results can give the work true and lasting value. What scientific author could wish for more. Ambitiously progressive ethologists move increasingly to another form of ethological macroanalysis, one which almost appears designed for ethology alone, one which is an empirical scientific method; this basic method is essentially circumstantial study. The circumstances are of animal behaviour in the settings of the animal industries. These have proved to be difficult to grasp by other means. They might become much of the field work in applied ethology. The field test methods which have evolved recently in-applied ethology are suited to use in a style and on a scale representative of industrial circumstances. They constitute more potential in the macroanalytic method. Through macroanalysis ethology can espouse realism, which is, after all, the brave objective of applied science generally.