chapter 9 



THE BREEDING BEHAVIOUR OF THE FROG 



In this chapter, I leave the sure ground of cstabhshcd numerical facts 

 for the study of behaviour, in which opinion, however well founded, 

 plays a large part. It is, of course, true that the observations themselves 

 can be objective, but the analysis of the tacts is liable to be tinged by 

 the views of the author. Moreover, this is a field that is developing 

 rapidly and contains within itself a variety of apparently opposing 

 ideas, vigorously expounded by competent people. Whenever I come 

 across such scientific controversies, I look at the arguments in the light 

 of the following considerations: (i) It is unlikely that two or more 

 highly competent people, who hold different views, can be separated 

 into groups one of which is all right and the others all wrong. (2) 

 It has been shov^oi with certainty that there is no such thing as an 

 unbiased man. My expectation of meeting one is the same as my 

 expectation of meeting a headless man. (3) Scientists and many others 

 have been brought up, whether they know it or not, on the fourteenth 

 century logical principle, Occam's Razor. This in rough translation 

 reads: "Entities must not be multiplied without necessity." Shorn of 

 its last two words, this is often taken to require that one event can have 

 only one cause, and leads to the vehement rejection of alternative 

 explanations for what appears to be the same event. William of 

 Ockham, or whoever really did originate the principle (for it was not 

 Wilham), never suggested anything of the kind. If we now jump 

 forwards six centuries, and put alongside this principle a remark of a 

 modern thinker, we may be better prepared for what follows in this 

 chapter. Lady Wootton has remarked that it is unnecessary to assume 

 that all the people present in Piccadilly Circus at the same moment 

 are there for the same purpose. 



In several of the earlier chapters, it would have been possible to 

 discuss the behaviour of the tadpoles or frogs in relation to the current 

 views on animal behaviour in general, but the behaviour aspects were 

 in most cases incidental to the points being dealt with, and I have 

 preferred to postpone a discussion to this chapter, where behaviour 

 predominates. 



Ii-(T.9I4) 153 



