IVAN PAVLOV

SLIDE 1

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was an eminent Russian physiologist and psychologist

who devised the concept of the conditioned reflex. He conducted a legendary
experiment in which he trained a hungry dog to drool at the sound of a bell,
which had previously been related to the presentation of food to the animal.
Pavlov formulated a conceptual theory, highlighting the significance of
conditioning and associating human behaviour with the nervous system. He was
awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his
groundbreaking research on digestive secretions.

SLIDE 2
Ivan Pavlov was born in Ryazan, Russia on the 26 September 1849, the eldest of
eleven children. His father, Peter Dimitrievich Pavlov, was a Russian orthodox
priest and his mother was Varvara Ivanovna Uspenskaya. As a young child, he
suffered a serious injury from a fall, due to which Pavlov spent much of his
early childhood with his parents in the family home and garden. There he
acquired various practical skills and a deep interest in natural history.
Enrolling at a church school aged eleven; Pavlov continued his education at the
university of St. Petersburg where he studied physics, mathematics and natural
sciences.
Pavlov developed a strong interest in science and considered the possibility of
using science to enhance and thereby change society.

SLIDE 3

After graduating from St. Petersburg in 1875, he studied medicine at the

Imperial Academy of Medical Surgery under the famed physiologist of the time,
Sergey Petrovich Botkin, who taught him a great deal about the nervous system.
Pavlov received his medical degree in 1879, earning a gold medal award for his
research work.
Pavlov remained in St. Petersburg, conducting postgraduate research and he
obtained the position of director of the Physiological Laboratory at Botkin’s
clinic.
He married Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya, a teacher, in 1881 and they
had five children.
In 1883, he earned his doctorate with his thesis, “The centrifugal nerves of the
heart”.
After completing his doctorate, Pavlov spent two years in Germany studying
digestion in dogs.
In 1886 he returned to Russia but could not find a position until 1890 when he
was appointed to the role of professor of Pharmacology at the Military Medical
Academy. In 1895 he was appointed to the chair of physiology and remained at
the Academy until he resigned in 1924.
Pavlov also organized carried out research at the newly founded Institute of
Experimental Medicine, which under his direction spanning over four decades,
became one of the most important world centres of physiological research.

SLIDE 4

Ivan Pavlov conducted neurophysiological experiments with animals for years

after receiving his doctorate at the Academy of Medical Surgery. He became
fully convinced that human behaviour could be understood and explained best
in physiological terms rather than in mentalist terms. The legendary experiment
for which Pavlov is remembered was when he used the feeding of dogs to
establish a number of his key ideas.
Moments before feeding, a bell was rung to measure the dogs’ saliva production
when they heard the bell. Pavlov discovered that once the dogs had been trained
to associate the sound of the bell with food, they would produce saliva, whether
or not food followed. The experiment proved that the dogs’ physical response,
salivation, was directly related to the stimulus of the bell, hence the saliva
production was a stimulus response. The continued increased salivation, even
when the dogs had experienced hearing the bell without being later fed, was a
conditioned reflex.
The entire process is a prime example of classical conditioning, and it is
primarily related to a physical and spontaneous response to some particular
conditions that the organism has acquired through association. Behaviourist
theory has applied these landmark ideas for the explanation of human
behaviour.
In 1904 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for “in recognition of his work on the
physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on vital aspects of the
subject has been transformed and enlarged.”
He was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1907 and
in 1915 he received the Order of the Legion of Honor.

SLIDE 5
Ivan Pavlov died on February 27, 1936 in Leningrad, Soviet Union, from
natural causes. He was 86 years old.

EDWARD WILSON
SLIDE 1
Edward Osborne Wilson, more commonly known as E. O. Wilson, is an
American biologist who is widely considered to be the world’s leading authority
on ants. One of the leading figures in sociobiology, he is often dubbed as “the
father of sociobiology”.
A notable author and researcher, Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize twice; for his
best seller book “On Human nature” and for his 1990 book “The Ants” which
he co-authored with German entomologist Bert Hölldobler.

SLIDE 2
Born on 10th June, 1929 in Alabama, E. O. Wilson showed an interest in science
from an early age. His mother was Inez Freeman and his father and namesake
remarried when Edward was a young child. A fishing accident damaged his
right eye when he was seven years old. However, he was still able to enjoy the
natural world as he still had good near-sighted vision. He took an interest in
insects and butterflies. On a trip to the Rock Creek Park in Washington DC he
became fascinated with citronella ants that were living in a rotting tree. From a
young child, he always hoped to become a biologist.
SLIDE 3
After finishing high school, Wilson received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from
the University of Alabama.
Wilson earned his doctorate in biology from Harvard University in 1955,
completing a thorough taxonomic analysis of the ant genus Lasius. The same
year he married Irene Kelley. They had one daughter.
For the next forty years, from 1956 to 1996, Wilson worked for Harvard
University, initially continuing his work as an ant taxonomist focusing on their
evolution and how they develop into new species. Wilson discovered with
mathematician William Bossert that ants communicate mainly through the
transmission of chemical substances known as pheromones.

SLIDE 4
Wilson travelled around the world, principally to the American tropics,
Australia, and the South Pacific, studying native ants and he gained the
nickname “Dr. Ant.” He proposed the idea of a “taxon cycle” describing how
ants adapt to poor habitats and colonize new areas. His 1971 book “The Insect
Societies” was his definitive work on his ant and insect research.
In 1975 he extended his theories to cover all species and published the
controversial book “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis”, a systematic study of
the biological basis of social behaviour. He proposed that human and animal
behaviour was conditioned by genes, the environment and past experiences and
that free will was just an illusion. Wilson also suggested that it was possible for
an altruistic trait to evolve through natural selection, proposing that the survival
of a gene is more important that the survival of any particular individual (kin
selection).

SLIDE 5
Teaming up with physicist Charles Lumsden in 1980, Wilson attempted to
create mathematical models for the genetic evolution of culture. He was
awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his best seller book “On Human nature”.
The book discussed the social behaviours of aggression, sexuality and ethics.
He gained a second Pulitzer prize for his 1990 book “The Ants” which he co-
authored with German entomologist Bert Hölldobler. Wilson is also noted for
his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas related to
religious and ethical subjects. His autobiography “Naturalist” was published in
1994.