Adolf Heschl

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Adolf Heschl (* 1959 in Graz ) is an Austrian zoologist , primate researcher and author.

Life

Heschl studied zoology and ethology in Graz as well as genetic epistemology in Geneva and evolutionary epistemology in Vienna . As a postdoc, he went to the Jean Piaget Center at the University of Geneva, where he took part in experiments on the development of causal understanding in children. He then did research as a university assistant at the Institute of Zoology at the University of Vienna on the intelligence of the ground squirrel . Since 1996 he has been the managing director of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognitive Research in Altenberg near Vienna. Initial work with primates examined the behavior of marmosets in front of the mirror. From 2005 to 2012 he was a lecturer at the Zoological Institute of the University of Graz with a lecture on cognition in primates, which dealt with the fundamental relationship between self-confidence and higher intelligence. From 2013 to 2016 he was director of the Science Park at Ökopark Hartberg, where he dealt with the problem of successful knowledge transfer from natural sciences and technology (specializing in bionics ). Since 2016 he has been a freelancer in the zoological department of the Universalmuseum Joanneum .

Positions

According to Heschl, humans are entirely genetically programmed. He consistently traces all human behavior back to the question of how it contributes to maintaining the genetic fitness of the individual. He is convinced that all moral and cognitive behavior has evolved through mutation and selection and is anchored in our genes. Among other things, critics object to Heschl's “fundamentalist” point of view, which equates animal and human behavior.

Fonts

  • The intelligent genome. About the origin of the human mind through mutation and selection . Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-540-64202-1 .
  • Darwin's Dream , The Origin of Human Consciousness, 2009, ISBN 3-527-32433-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Review in Bild der Wissenschaft .
  2. ^ Heschl, The intelligent genome, p. 333.
  3. ↑ Joachim Moras, Hans Paeschke, Merkur, Volume 53, Issues 7-12, pp. 1018ff.
  4. ↑ Review see: New Scientist , Volume 173 (2002), Issue 2332 - Volume 174, Issue 2340.
personal data
SURNAME Heschl, Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian zoologist, primate researcher and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz