9. Ethology

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Stanford University.

Let's get started.

Let's see.

Once again, game plan for the coming week or so.

Next three lectures will be the TA overviews-- introductions

to nervous system, endocrinology.

Once again-- what I emphasized the other day is--

if you're not sure if you've got enough background exposure

to these topics for it to be worth coming,

I would suggest you assume that you don't.

Because it could do nothing more than

help, even if you've had a lot of this before.

Following that, some more advanced topics in the subject,

and then barreling on into the midterm.

OK.

Today we leap yet another discipline

into yet another one, this one being concerned with basically

the same exact issues that we've had before-- nature, nurture,

interaction, behavior.

And this one, as you will see, with a completely different

approach than all the prior ones.

Now the other day, when going through what heritability means

and doesn't mean, one of the key points that came out at the end

was that whole business of, the more different environments

you study something in, the lower your heritability term

is going to be.

So what's one of the punch lines that comes out of that?

If you want to understand the genetics of behavior,

you've got to go look at the behavior in lots

of different environments.

What today's discipline is about is

taking that one step broader.

If you want to understand anything

about the biology of behavior, number one,

you want to study it in lots of different environments.

Number two, you want to study it in as natural of environments

as possible.

And number three, go in there assuming