Rupert Riedl (22 February 1925 – 18 September 2005) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

Biography

Riedl was a scientist with broad interests, whose influence in

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

grounded in evolutionary theory was notable, although less in English-speaking circles than in German or even Spanish speaking ones. His 1984 work, ''Biology of Knowledge: The evolutionary basis of reason'' examined

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

abilities and the increasing

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interaction, interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generall ...

of biological diversification over the immense periods of

evolutionary Evolution is change in the heredity, heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the Gene expression, expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to ...

time. Riedl built upon the work of the Viennese school of thought initially typified by

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded ...

, and continued in Vienna by Gerhard Vollmer, Franz Wuketits, and in Spain by Nicanor Ursura. Riedl was skeptical of German idealism, and nourished by the tradition that produced the scientists and philosophers of science

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...

Ludwig Boltzmann Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics, and the statistical explanation of the second law of thermodyn ...

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theory ...

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...

Hans Reichenbach Hans Reichenbach (September 26, 1891 – April 9, 1953) was a leading philosopher of science, educator, and proponent of logical empiricism. He was influential in the areas of science, education, and of logical empiricism. He founded the ''Gesel ...

and

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

. Lorenz believed that the

Kantian Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...

framework of cognitive concepts such as

three-dimensional space Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of an element (i.e., Point (m ...

and time were not fixed but built up over

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

history, potentially subject to further developments. Lorenz’s position, as expanded by Riedl, attempted to make it easier to assimilate non-common sense areas of physics such as

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...

and

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

. Riedl drew clear distinctions between the

deductive Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false ...

and inductive (non conscious) cognitive processes characteristic of the left and right

cerebral hemisphere The vertebrate cerebrum (brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres ...

s. His analysis of what he called "the pitfalls of reason" deserves special attention. He, like Lorenz, was concerned with cognitive processes that might endanger the future of civilization. Riedl had less direct influence on academic philosophy than his profound influence on the thinking of investigators in neuroscience such as

Michael Gazzaniga Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the USA, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive ...

Antonio Damasio Antonio Damasio ( pt, António Damásio) is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist. He is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, ...

, and

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a disti ...

, whose investigations combine synergistically with those of more physiologically-oriented scientists such as

Eric Kandel Eric Richard Kandel (; born Erich Richard Kandel, November 7, 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surge ...

and

Rodolfo Llinás Rodolfo Llinás Riascos (born 16 December 1934) is a Colombian-born American neuroscientist. He is currently the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the NYU ...

, as well as computational models that take advantage of the techniques of

systems dynamics System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays. Overview System dynamics is a methodology and mathematical ...

as practiced by the physiologists

Denis Noble Denis Noble (born 16 November 1936) is a British biologist who held the Burdon Sanderson Chair of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 2004 and was appointed Professor Emeritus and co-Director of Computational Phy ...

and P. Read Montague. Riedl contributed to

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of Regeneration (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

(a systems approach) and

evolutionary epistemology Evolutionary epistemology refers to three distinct topics: (1) the biological evolution of cognitive mechanisms in animals and humans, (2) a theory that knowledge itself evolves by natural selection, and (3) the study of the historical discovery ...

. He was the Founder President of the

Club of Vienna The Club of Vienna is an international association which has 24 members and interested in social, scientific, economic and ecological issues. Areas of Focus Particular attention is given to:modern synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...

of the mid-20th century had ignored the role of development and

in evolution. He argued that the modern synthesis had failed to explain the origin of

body plan A body plan, ( ), or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many. This term, usually applied to animals, envisages a "blueprin ...

s and patterns at the

macroevolution Macroevolution usually means the evolution of large-scale structures and traits that go significantly beyond the intraspecific variation found in microevolution (including speciation). In other words, macroevolution is the evolution of taxa abov ...

ary level. He presented his evolutionary theory in ''Order in Living Organisms: A Systems Analysis of Evolution'' (translated, 1978). He called for an

extended evolutionary synthesis The extended evolutionary synthesis consists of a set of theoretical concepts argued to be more comprehensive than the earlier modern synthesis of evolutionary biology that took place between 1918 and 1942. The extended evolutionary synthesis was ...

to integrate processes from

and macroevolutionary perspectives. Riedl and

Michael Conrad Michael Conrad (October 16, 1925November 22, 1983) was an American actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of veteran cop Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on ''Hill Street Blues'', in which he ended the introductory roll call to each week's show with "Le ...

in the 1970s were the first two scientists to propose explicit mechanisms for the evolution of

evolvability Evolvability is defined as the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution. Evolvability is the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate ''adaptive'' genetic diversity, and thereby evolve throu ...

Education and teaching

* 1945: Riedl started studies in fine arts, medicine, anthropology but at the end he obtained a degree in Biology with specialization in zoology at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in 1951. * 1956: assistant professor, University of Vienna * 1960: State doctorate and professor at the University of Vienna * 1967 guest professor at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

in Chapel Hill * from 1968: full professor und research professor of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina * From 1971: chief of the Institute of Zoology and Temporary chief of the Institut of Human biology, both at the University of Vienna, and Visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina * 1983-1990: chief of the Institute of Zoology und Anthropology at the University of Vienna

Works

* Riedl, R. (1978) ''Order in Living Organisms: A Systems Analysis of Evolution''. New York: Wiley. * Riedl, R. (1983) (ed.) ''Flora und Fauna des Mittelmeeres''. Hamburg: P. Parey. * Riedl, R. (1984) ''Biology of Knowledge: The Evolutionary Basis of Reason''. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Biography

Education and teaching

Works

See also