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Bad pug breeding »

Konrad Lorenz was a Nazi scientist

September 13, 2013 by SWestfall3

neoteny and anti-semtism lorenz

Lorenz was a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1939 when he drew this sketch to show the “degenerative” effects of domestication.

His “wild type” of human has exaggerated “Semitic” features.  He was a firm believer in Nazi “racial hygiene” policies, and although I’ve not found anything he ever wrote about Jews, this sketch speaks volumes about his views on that subject.

I don’t think I’m ever going to look at one of these diagrams showing pedomorphosis in domestic animals the same way again.

I find Lorenz’s later writings on dogs very insightful.

But he was a person of his time and culture.

***

I should note here that pugs are not “degenerated” because they are domesticated.

They are degenerated because they have been selectively bred by human caprice and vanity.

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Posted in domestic animals | Tagged Konrad Lorenz | 31 Comments

31 Responses

  1. on September 13, 2013 at 9:00 am massugu

    I do find it interesting though, how quickly some morphological characteristics in domestic swine change to a more wild conformation when the swine go feral.


  2. on September 13, 2013 at 9:20 am M.R.S.

    My recollection from reading many years ago, was that it was basically a case of either join the Party or lose his job, lose his position as a researcher. This was true of many at that time and place, unfortunately.

    It is often difficult for us in this country, in this era, to understand the world that was, back then.


    • on September 13, 2013 at 9:21 am retrieverman

      Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with Lorenz.

      He really did believe in this stuff.


    • on September 13, 2013 at 8:51 pm Dave

      Whether or not people is genuinely a Nazi follower does not matter. America was strongly into eugenics long before the Germans did. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States. In fact, the Nazi ideology is deeply rooted in the works of Alexander Graham Bell.

      So, Konrad Lorenz would had been a believer even if Nazis never existed.


      • on September 14, 2013 at 3:03 pm Jen Robinson

        Not to mention that many of the founding fathers were slave owners, and a good fraction of the country went to war over their right to own slaves . . . or bounties put on Native Americans with payment for scalps . . . and deliberate distribution of blankets infected with the smallpox virus.
        Most people won’t stand up against a dominant ideology/institution, even if it is deeply evil. We should celebrate the brave ones who buck the tide and take a moral stand.


  3. on September 13, 2013 at 12:07 pm Adam

    Most animals seem to revert to a wild type if left feral and allowed to breed naturally.
    Mustangs started out as Spanish horses (quite refined) and are now quite removed from it, more like the original wild horse I expect.
    If you look at images of feral dogs in the Chernobyl area, these were abandoned domestic dogs and now are quite wolf/Spitz like. They may have interbred with wolves though.

    Adam


    • on September 13, 2013 at 12:12 pm retrieverman

      From what I’ve seen of Eastern European feral dogs, German shepherd plays a huge role in their ancestry. Of course, they will look more wolf-like, but that’s founder effect, not a reversion to wild type. Feral dogs in Africa don’t look like this at all.


  4. on September 13, 2013 at 12:49 pm Jennifer Robinson

    I’m confused (again / still). The pot belly endomorph . . . is that supposed to be Arian or Semitic? I’d group him with Homer Simpson and the increasingly fat, physically inactive, average American. I don’t see exaggerated ‘Semitic’ features on either sketch. Perhaps too many of my friends are Jewish.

    I wonder if these sketches were in the back of SJ Gould’s mind when her wrote on the evolution of Mickey Mouse.

    Some people are geniuses, despite holding abhorrent beliefs. Lorenz is one of that group.


    • on September 13, 2013 at 12:58 pm retrieverman

      It’s not the endomorph. It’s the other one that looks like Trotsky in White Russian propaganda.


      • on September 14, 2013 at 7:07 am bearcoatpei

        To my eye it looks like Adolf Hitler without his characteristic tache. Maybe Lorenz was a subversive specializing in irony, or maybe he was just a rabid nazi after all.


        • on September 15, 2013 at 9:49 am M.R.S.

          I think that may well be the case. Lorenz does have a sense of humor/irony/sarcasm that probably escaped many. Especially those to whom he was required to defer.


  5. on September 13, 2013 at 3:10 pm jescargill

    But our Germans are better than their Germans!


  6. on September 13, 2013 at 4:29 pm Peggy Richter

    I believe that even though he predated the rise to power, Von Stephanitz also held many of the same views. It’s always a little disturbing when one runs across science that is based or funded on some very objectionable beliefs. Some opt not to use that data. I think that we can’t go back in time and prevent the harm done by those with objectionable views, so we have to look at the science and determine if it is falsified or apparently true. If it’s apparently true, then I think the best we can do is see to it that some good is derived out of it. It’s not dog related, but I doubt we would have telecommunications or Hubble (and it’s successor telescopes) if there had never been a V2.
    P. Richter.


    • on September 16, 2013 at 5:12 pm UrbanCollieChick

      I agree but the political correctness of the times we live in make this tougher than ever. If a geneticist or astrophysicist or what have you, wants to use this info objectively, they have to make all the more careful the case for it before some junior journalist sees a chance to make his mark with yellow-rag writing.


  7. on September 14, 2013 at 5:39 am chervilmeadow

    National consensus can evolve in either a good or a bad direction. Once upon a time Americans thought it a good idea to rain chemical weapons from B29s onto the people of Vietnam. Who, in 2013, would have believed that Americans would have let this happen?


    • on September 14, 2013 at 7:30 am bearcoatpei

      I think all the terrible things nations have done when looked at in retrospect are an extrapolation of even good people can do bad deeds. Whole nations can be swept along to a dark place and not one country on earth is immune to it’s pull. Even when it’s thought that it’s being done for the greater good. We can’t help it. We’re still the rather aggressive, highly territorial apes we’ve always been and it doesn’t mix well with our technological achievements or political structures.


    • on September 14, 2013 at 8:48 am retrieverman

      Don’t get me started on either Vietnam or Syria. LOL.


    • on September 14, 2013 at 10:13 am massugu

      Me for one. We’re all about Shock and Awe doncha know. Lets be clear, the US has always had those who abhor military diplomacy (aka bullying), but they’re usually ignored. As w/ Viet Nam, the populace is once again weary of war and turning its eyes inward. Thats what is making the real difference. If we hadn’t just finished w/ Iraq and were not still “winding-down” w/ AfPakistan, the Regressives as a body (and their sycophants) would be screaming for Syrian and Iranian blood and the Progressives would, as usual, be marginalized and/or ignored.


      • on September 14, 2013 at 10:37 am massugu

        The American People Have Spoken: No More War Abroad, More Jobs at Home
        By Senator Bernie Sanders
        September 12, 2013

        “At a time of great political division in our country President Obama has found a remarkable way to unite Americans of all political persuasions — conservatives, progressives and moderates. With a loud and clear voice, the overwhelming majority of the American people, across the political spectrum, are saying NO to another war in the Middle East — Syria’s bloody and complicated civil war.

        There are two major reasons why the people in this country are adamantly opposed to the U.S.’s military intervention in Syria.

        First, of course, is the much discussed “war weariness.” The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for 12 years, and the war in Iraq dragged on for nearly nine years. The cost of these wars has been horrendous: more than 6,700 American deaths; hundreds of thousands suffering from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder; and a financial cost of between $4 trillion to $6 trillion by the time the last war veteran receives needed care. Further, as a result of the ineptitude and dishonesty of foreign policy decisions made in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the American people worry deeply about the unintended consequences of another military venture.

        But there’s another reason why Americans are reluctant to get involved in a third Middle East war in 12 years. And that relates to the fact that Congress today has a 14 percent favorability rating and millions of Americans have absolutely no confidence that the U.S. House or Senate is even remotely concerned about their needs or views.

        Here’s the truth. The middle class in this country is collapsing. The number of Americans living in poverty is nearly the highest on record and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider. And very few people in Washington give a damn.

        Year after year the American people have begged the Congress and the president to move aggressively to protect the middle class from total collapse. And, so far, their leaders have failed to act. Today, the American people are demanding action to create jobs for their kids and retirement security for their parents.

        They are deeply worried about the state of the economy, and they have every reason to worry. Here’s what’s going on:

        Real unemployment: Counting those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part-time when they need a full time job, the real unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, not 7.3 percent.
        Average wages: Non-supervisory workers have seen their wages go down by eight cents an hour since the beginning of the so-called recovery and are now a paltry $8.77 an hour.
        Income and wealth inequality: From 2009-2012, the richest 1 percent of Americans captured 95 percent of all new income, while the typical middle class family has seen their income go down by more than2,100. The Walton family, the owners of Wal-Mart, are worth more than $100 billion and own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.
        College unaffordability: Over the past 30 years, the cost of a college education has gone up by more than 250 percent. The average American graduating from college this year is drowning in debt of more than35,000. Even worse, hundreds of thousands of high school graduates are unable to go to college each and every year not because they are unqualified, but because they can’t afford it.
        Childhood poverty: We live in the richest country in the world, yet one out of five children in the U.S. is stuck in poverty. And the reality is that children living in poverty in America today are more likely to stay in poverty when they grow up than in any other advanced country on earth.

        The lesson to be learned from the widespread opposition to the war is that the American people standing together can make a difference. Building on that momentum, now is the time to demand that Congress create millions of decent-paying jobs repairing our crumbling roads, bridges, dams, culverts, schools and housing.

        We need to end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels that are threatening the planet and move toward energy efficiency and renewable energy. We must increase the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour and lift millions of Americans out of poverty. We must fundamentally rewrite our trade policy so that American products, not American jobs, are our No. 1 export. We must stand up to the greed on Wall Street by breaking up too-big-to-fail banks that have done so much damage to the economy. And, we must make college affordable so that every qualified American can get the education they need to reclaim the American dream.

        None of this will be easy. But the American people have proven that if they speak out, if they flood Capitol Hill with phone calls and emails, they can stop a war. Now is the time to use that same energy and passion to save the middle class.”


  8. on September 14, 2013 at 10:44 am Jennifer Robinson

    Oh my! Another political discussion. I agree with the sentiments, but I get blasted with them day in and day out. Please, not here!


  9. on September 14, 2013 at 3:01 pm Adam

    Politics aside.

    I agree the eastern European dogs have a fair whack of gsd type in them. The Chernobyl feral dogs look like a light weight malamute/gsd mix to me.
    The African feral dogs tend to look like dingoes. This would fit with the environment they live in.
    So I still think domestic animals allowed to go feral breed back to a basic natural type. You don’t see feral pugs!

    Adam


    • on September 14, 2013 at 3:13 pm retrieverman

      African feral dogs don’t look like dingoes at all.

      http://www.africanis.co.za/


    • on September 14, 2013 at 3:17 pm retrieverman

      This is actually very big myth.

      It is always said– with absolutely no evidence– that if all dogs were left to breed freely, you’d have dingoes or dingo-type dogs.

      There is a principle called Dollo’s Law of Irreversibility, which states that evolution cannot be reversed. You cannot breed a wolf out of a dog, and you cannot breed a dingo-type dog out of a population full of Western dogs gone stray or from a population of village dogs that do not have those features.

      Street dogs in the US tend to look like pit bulls for a reason.


  10. on September 14, 2013 at 3:38 pm Adam

    To me they do!

    Dingo’s

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dingo&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=y7k0UonDCo-RhQfu14CQAg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=667&dpr=1

    African village dogs

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dingo&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=y7k0UonDCo-RhQfu14CQAg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=667&dpr=1#q=african+village+dog&tbm=isch

    People often mix dog breeds to create something that looks like a wolf.

    Tbh i don’t care much, this has been a diversion for me but I find your views too limited and your mind too closed. Good bye.!

    Adam


    • on September 14, 2013 at 4:00 pm retrieverman

      Wow. You sure proved me wrong.

      I am the narrow-minded one– because I offered skepticism about something I’ve read dozens of times in dog books. It just ain’t true.

      And no, you simply cannot re-invent a wolf out of domestic dog stocks. It’s been tried, but they have always had to add wolf blood to make it work.

      And they never do it through randomly mating dogs, which is what you have in Africa and Eastern Europe.

      No. I’m not narrow-minded.

      I just proved one of your little pet theories to be false, and you run away with ad hominems.

      LOL.


  11. on September 14, 2013 at 7:30 pm Elaine Ostrach Chaika, PhD

    Konrad Lorenz was an educated Nazi. He believed dogs descen ded from jackals, apparently not even trying top test this myth scientifically. In fact, he rarely sought proofs for any of his statements. There were plenty of Jews in German University before Hitler and Konrad had to have known them. Jews don’t always “look Jewish.” They don’t all have big noses and dark hair and eyes. Some of them are kind and generous, others are ill natured, even miserly, but few Jews are misers. Their religion requires them to be charitable, and, to this day, many Jewish homes have Tsedakah boxes. One put a coin in the box every day as a reminder to be charitable always When the box is full, it is given to a charity. Lorenz’s approach to HItler’s racial nonsense was like most of his approaches: believe without proving. Sorry, I can’t see him honored. His Nobel prize was a joke and so are his publications. http://smarthotoldlady.blogspot.com.


    • on September 14, 2013 at 8:07 pm retrieverman

      Niko Tinbergen deserved the prize.

      Lorenz had some nice dog observations, and that was it.

      Despite his Nazism, he did write an account of taking his dog swimming in the Danube that I think is one of the best pieces of dog literature.

      BTW, I used “Semitic” in quotation marks.

      That’s because it reminded me of the stereotype from White Russian propaganda and later from the Nazis.


  12. on September 15, 2013 at 8:25 pm Marg

    Yes, according to my husband who met Mr. Lorenz on many occasions,with the work he was assisting on Italian wolf behaviour, he was an arrogant ‘prick’ (sorry about the language).

    As for Dingoes, I love them, I have seen a few compete in Obedience, and they are absolutely gorgeous animals. unfortunately it is harder to find too many purebreds in the wild these days due to hybridisation. Thank goodness there are a number of private guardians who breed for purity, to be honest if it wasn’t for the Fraser Island population and other remote places, this animal could soon become extinct.


    • on September 16, 2013 at 5:48 am chervilmeadow

      They are ALL of them canis lupus variants, let’s not forget.


  13. on January 25, 2014 at 10:43 pm Anton

    Indeed a bit ambiguous. The morphed human is the degenerate and the beaked nose gent the superior model? So…..he was rather fond of the Jewish community? Or this is not an attempt at portraying a stereotypical Jewish gent as a wild form of human?

    The “look” was all the rage in those days, pigeon chested, aristocratic, tall “refined” equine features. Monocled Counts, Barons on tall skinny looking thoroughbred horses of the same ilk.

    Im not seeing stereotypical Jewish. Which is usually portrayed as short, fat lipped, bulging eyed with prominent broken roman nose……see Disney’s portrayal of a merchant in Sinbad the Sailor.

    I can’t say from these sketches if Mr. Lorenz was a rabid Nazi though he may very well have been one.


  14. on September 13, 2014 at 7:17 pm Douglas R Farrow

    you all seem unaware that the policy of “life not worth living” was created by psychiatrists and psychologists like Lorenz and only became an active program of euthanasia and mass murder under the German Nazis. The mass murder of alcoholics, unemployed, mentally ill, handicapped adults and children was carried out by the infamous T4 (an organization headed by and staffed by doctors of psychiatry) long before the murder of the Jews. The Death camps were first developed by “scientists” like Lorenz–who was paid 200 marks for every death certificate passed down, thousands of them. While murdering these unfortunate Germans the prototype of Dachau, etc. was developed in the suburbs of Berlin. It was there they came to the first use of gas created by the I G Farben Co. to quickly murder people and created the first ovens to dispose of the corpses. These murders continued throughout the war and after, up until 1949. Lorenz profited from this butchery and supported the racist philosophy that Hitler and his party used to carry out their murder of Jews and Gypsies.
    That Lorenz was never prosecuted is not unusual. Very few of the actual architects of the Holocaust were ever brought to trial–in fact, they continued in positions of responsibility and power after the war as judges, psychiatrists and psychologists.
    The Holocaust would have never been possible, at least not as efficiently carried out, if these mental health professionals had not first created the prototype of the death camp–all in the name of eugenics and cleansing the Aryan race and nation of undesirables.
    Some Nobel Prize dude, huh?



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