ABSTRACT
Biologists are drawn to study events which seem to contradict what we have been taught to expect on the basis of our knowledge of non-living things … Like a stone released in mid-air, a bird ought to fall; yet it flies away. An animal resists, evades, utilizes its environment instead of meekly submitting to its influences; rather than move toward increasing probability, it survives, reproduces, grows and evolves. Yet we do not believe that it does all this against all the ‘laws’ of physics — our faith is that upon closer investigation it will turn out to be a special case …. (Tinbergen, 1972, p. 20)
