BIOLOGISTS from Austria

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Austrian Biologists of all time. This list of famous Austrian Biologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Austrian Biologists.

1. Konrad Lorenz (1903 - 1989)

With an HPI of 74.48, Konrad Lorenz is the most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 77 different languages on wikipedia.

Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁaːt tsaxaˈʁiːas ˈloːʁɛnts] ; 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 as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior. He developed an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth. Lorenz studied instinctive behavior in animals, especially in greylag geese and jackdaws. Working with geese, he investigated the principle of imprinting, the process by which some nidifugous birds (i.e. birds that leave their nest early) bond instinctively with the first moving object that they see within the first hours of hatching. Although Lorenz did not discover the topic, he became widely known for his descriptions of imprinting as an instinctive bond. In 1936, he met Tinbergen, and the two collaborated in developing ethology as a separate sub-discipline of biology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lorenz the 65th most cited scholar of the 20th century in the technical psychology journals, introductory psychology textbooks, and survey responses. Lorenz's work was interrupted by the onset of World War II and in 1941 he was recruited into the German Army as a medic. In 1944, he was sent to the Eastern Front where he was captured by the Soviet Red Army and spent four years as a German prisoner of war in Soviet Armenia. After the war, he regretted his membership in the Nazi Party. Lorenz wrote numerous books, some of which, such as King Solomon's Ring, On Aggression, and Man Meets Dog, became popular reading. His last work Here I Am – Where Are You? is a summary of his life's work and focuses on his famous studies of greylag geese.

2. Karl Landsteiner (1868 - 1943)

With an HPI of 72.29, Karl Landsteiner is the 2nd most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 82 different languages.

Karl Landsteiner (German: [kaʁl ˈlantˌʃtaɪnɐ]; 14 June 1868 – 26 June 1943) was an Austrian American biologist, physician, and immunologist. He emigrated with his family to New York in 1923 at the age of 55 for professional opportunities, working for the Rockefeller Institute. He had distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood. In 1937, with Alexander S. Wiener, he identified the Rhesus factor, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient's life. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926. In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was posthumously awarded the Lasker Award in 1946, and has been described as the father of transfusion medicine.

3. Karl von Frisch (1886 - 1982)

With an HPI of 66.98, Karl von Frisch is the 3rd most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Karl Ritter von Frisch, (20 November 1886 – 12 June 1982) was a German-Austrian ethologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. His work centered on investigations of the sensory perceptions of the honey bee and he was one of the first to translate the meaning of the waggle dance. His theory, described in his 1927 book Aus dem Leben der Bienen (translated into English as The Dancing Bees), was disputed by other scientists and greeted with skepticism at the time. Only much later was it shown to be an accurate theoretical analysis.

4. Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901 - 1972)

With an HPI of 61.72, Ludwig von Bertalanffy is the 4th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy (19 September 1901 – 12 June 1972) was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory (GST). This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living things. His mathematical model of an organism's growth over time, published in 1934, is still in use today. Bertalanffy grew up in Austria and subsequently worked in Vienna, London, Canada, and the United States. Ludwig von Bertalanffy was born and grew up in the little village of Atzgersdorf (now Liesing) near Vienna. Ludwig's mother Caroline Agnes Vogel was seventeen when she married the thirty-four-year-old Gustav. Ludwig von Bertalanffy grew up as an only child educated at home by private tutors until he was ten and his parents divorced, both remarried outside the Catholic Church in civil ceremonies. When he arrived at his Gymnasium (a form of grammar school) he was already well habituated in learning by reading, and he continued to study on his own. His neighbour, the famous biologist Paul Kammerer, became a mentor and an example to the young Ludwig. The Bertalanffy family had roots in the 16th century nobility of Hungary which included several scholars and court officials. His grandfather Charles Joseph von Bertalanffy (1833–1912) had settled in Austria and was a state theatre director in Klagenfurt, Graz and Vienna, which were important sites in imperial Austria. Ludwig's father Gustav von Bertalanffy (1861–1919) was a prominent railway administrator. On his mother's side Ludwig's grandfather Joseph Vogel was an imperial counsellor and a wealthy Vienna publisher. In 1918, Bertalanffy started his studies at the university level in philosophy and art history, first at the University of Innsbruck and then at the University of Vienna. Ultimately, Bertalanffy had to make a choice between studying philosophy of science and biology; he chose the latter because, according to him, one could always become a philosopher later, but not a biologist. In 1926 he finished his PhD thesis (Fechner und das Problem der Integration höherer Ordnung, translated title: Fechner and the Problem of Higher-Order Integration) on the psychologist and philosopher Gustav Theodor Fechner. For the next six years he concentrated on a project of "theoretical biology" which focused on the philosophy of biology. He received his habilitation in 1934 in "theoretical biology". Bertalanffy was appointed Privatdozent at the University of Vienna in 1934. The post yielded little income, and Bertalanffy faced continuing financial difficulties. He applied for promotion to the status of associate professor, but funding from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled him to make a trip to Chicago in 1937 to work with Nicolas Rashevsky. He was also able to visit the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts. Bertalanffy was still in the US when he heard of the Anschluss in March 1938. However, his attempts to remain in the US failed, and he returned to Vienna in October of that year. Within a month of his return, he joined the Nazi Party, which facilitated his promotion to professor at the University of Vienna in 1940. During the Second World War, he linked his "organismic" philosophy of biology to the dominant Nazi ideology, principally that of the Führerprinzip. Following the defeat of Nazism, Bertalanffy found denazification problematic and left Vienna in 1948. He moved to the University of London (1948–49); the Université de Montréal (1949); the University of Ottawa (1950–54); the University of Southern California (1955–58); the Menninger Foundation (1958–60); the University of Alberta (1961–68); and the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY) (1969–72). In 1972, he died from a heart attack. Bertalanffy met his wife, Maria, in April 1924 in the Austrian Alps. They were hardly ever apart for the next forty-eight years. She wanted to finish studying but never did, instead devoting her life to Bertalanffy's career. Later, in Canada, she would work both for him and with him in his career, and after his death she compiled two of Bertalanffy's last works. They had one child, a son who followed in his father's footsteps by making his profession in the field of cancer research. Today, Bertalanffy is considered to be a founder and one of the principal authors of the interdisciplinary school of thought known as general systems theory, which was pioneered by Alexander Bogdanov. According to Weckowicz (1989), he "occupies an important position in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. His contributions went beyond biology, and extended into cybernetics, education, history, philosophy, psychiatry, psychology and sociology. Some of his admirers even believe that this theory will one day provide a conceptual framework for all these disciplines". The individual growth model published by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in 1934 is widely used in biological models and exists in a number of permutations. In its simplest version the so-called Bertalanffy growth equation is expressed as a differential equation of length (L) over time (t): L ′ ( t ) = r B ( L ∞ − L ( t ) ) {\displaystyle L'(t)=r_{B}\left(L_{\infty }-L(t)\right)} when r B {\displaystyle r_{B}} is the Bertalanffy growth rate and L ∞ {\displaystyle L_{\infty }} the ultimate length of the individual. This model was proposed earlier by August Friedrich Robert Pūtter (1879-1929), writing in 1920. The dynamic energy budget theory provides a mechanistic explanation of this model in the case of isomorphs that experience a constant food availability. The inverse of the Bertalanffy growth rate appears to depend linearly on the ultimate length, when different food levels are compared. The intercept relates to the maintenance costs, the slope to the rate at which reserve is mobilized for use by metabolism. The ultimate length equals the maximum length at high food availabilities. The Bertalanffy equation is the equation that describes the growth of a biological organism. The equation was offered by Ludwig von Bertalanffy in 1969. d W d t = η S − k V {\displaystyle {\frac {dW}{dt}}=\eta S-kV} Here W is organism weight, t is the time, S is the area of organism surface, and V is a physical volume of the organism. The coefficients η {\displaystyle \eta } and k {\displaystyle k} are (by Bertalanffy's definition) the "coefficient of anabolism" and "coefficient of catabolism" respectively. The solution of the Bertalanffy equation is the function: W ( t ) = ( η c 1 − c 2 e − k 3 t ) 3 , {\displaystyle W(t)={\Big (}\eta \,c_{1}-c_{2}\,e^{-{\tfrac {k}{3}}t}{\Big )}^{3}\,,} where c 1 {\displaystyle c_{1}} and c 2 {\displaystyle c_{2}} are the certain constants. Bertalanffy couldn't explain the meaning of the parameters η {\displaystyle \eta } (the coefficient of anabolism) and k {\displaystyle k} (coefficient of catabolism) in his works, and that caused a fair criticism from biologists. But the Bertalanffy equation is a special case of the Tetearing equation, that is a more general equation of the growth of a biological organism. The Tetearing equation determines the physical meaning of the coefficients η {\displaystyle \eta } and k {\displaystyle k} . To honour Bertalanffy, ecological systems engineer and scientist Howard T. Odum named the storage symbol of his General Systems Language as the Bertalanffy module (see image right). In the late 1920s, the Soviet philosopher Alexander Bogdanov pioneered "Tektology", whom Johann Plenge referred to as the theory of "general systems". However, in the West, Bertalanffy is widely recognized for the development of a theory known as general system theory (GST). The theory attempted to provide alternatives to conventional models of organization. GST defined new foundations and developments as a generalized theory of systems with applications to numerous areas of study, emphasizing holism over reductionism, organism over mechanism. Foundational to GST are the inter-relationships between elements which all together form the whole. 1928, Kritische Theorie der Formbildung, Borntraeger. In English: Modern Theories of Development: An Introduction to Theoretical Biology, Oxford University Press, New York: Harper, 1933 1928, Nikolaus von Kues, G. Müller, München 1928. 1930, Lebenswissenschaft und Bildung, Stenger, Erfurt 1930 1937, Das Gefüge des Lebens, Leipzig: Teubner. 1940, Vom Molekül zur Organismenwelt, Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion. 1949, Das biologische Weltbild, Bern: Europäische Rundschau. In English: Problems of Life: An Evaluation of Modern Biological and Scientific Thought, New York: Harper, 1952. 1953, Biophysik des Fliessgleichgewichts, Braunschweig: Vieweg. 2nd rev. ed. by W. Beier and R. Laue, East Berlin: Akademischer Verlag, 1977 1953, "Die Evolution der Organismen", in Schöpfungsglaube und Evolutionstheorie, Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner Verlag, pp 53–66 1955, "An Essay on the Relativity of Categories." Philosophy of Science, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 243–263. 1959, Stammesgeschichte, Umwelt und Menschenbild, Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltorientierung Vol 5. Berlin: Lüttke 1962, Modern Theories of Development, New York: Harper 1967, Robots, Men and Minds: Psychology in the Modern World, New York: George Braziller, 1969 hardcover: ISBN 0-8076-0428-3, paperback: ISBN 0-8076-0530-1 1968, General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, New York: George Braziller, revised edition 1976: ISBN 0-8076-0453-4 1968, The Organismic Psychology and Systems Theory, Heinz Werner lectures, Worcester: Clark University Press. 1975, Perspectives on General Systems Theory. Scientific-Philosophical Studies, E. Taschdjian (eds.), New York: George Braziller, ISBN 0-8076-0797-5 1981, A Systems View of Man: Collected Essays, editor Paul A. LaViolette, Boulder: Westview Press, ISBN 0-86531-094-7 The first articles from Bertalanffy on general systems theory: 1945, "Zu einer allgemeinen Systemlehre", Blätter für deutsche Philosophie, 3/4. (Extract in: Biologia Generalis, 19 (1949), 139-164). 1950, "An Outline of General System Theory", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1, p. 114-129. 1951, "General system theory – A new approach to unity of science" (Symposium), Human Biology, Dec. 1951, Vol. 23, p. 303-361. Bowman–Heidenhain hypothesis Integrative level Population dynamics Sabine Brauckmann (1999). Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901--1972), ISSS Luminaries of the Systemics Movement, January 1999. Peter Corning (2001). Fulfilling von Bertalanffy's Vision: The Synergism Hypothesis as a General Theory of Biological and Social Systems, ISCS 2001. Mark Davidson (1983). Uncommon Sense: The Life and Thought of Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher. Debora Hammond (2005). Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Systems Thinking, tripleC 3(2): pp. 20–27. Ervin László eds. (1972). The Relevance of General Systems Theory: Papers Presented to Ludwig Von Bertalanffy on His Seventieth Birthday, New York: George Braziller, 1972. David Pouvreau (2013). "Une histoire de la 'systémologie générale' de Ludwig von Bertalanffy - Généalogie, genèse, actualisation et postérité d'un projet herméneutique", Doctoral Thesis (1138 pages), Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris : http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00804157 Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1989). Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972): A Pioneer of General Systems Theory, Center for Systems Research Working Paper No. 89-2. Edmonton AB: University of Alberta, February 1989. International Society for the Systems Sciences' biography of Ludwig von Bertalanffy. http://isss.org/projects/primer International Society for the Systems Sciences' THE PRIMER PROJECT: INTEGRATIVE SYSTEMICS (organismics) Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science BCSSS in Vienna. Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972): A Pioneer of General Systems Theory working paper by T.E. Weckowicz, University of Alberta Center for Systems Research. Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory - Passages (1968)

5. Othenio Abel (1875 - 1946)

With an HPI of 61.72, Othenio Abel is the 5th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Othenio Lothar Franz Anton Louis Abel (20 June 1875 – 4 July 1946) was an Austrian paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. Together with Louis Dollo, he was the founder of "paleobiology" and studied the life and environment of fossilized organisms.

6. Leopold Fitzinger (1802 - 1884)

With an HPI of 55.63, Leopold Fitzinger is the 6th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Leopold Joseph Franz Johann Fitzinger (13 April 1802 – 20 September 1884) was an Austrian zoologist. Fitzinger was born in Vienna and studied botany at the University of Vienna under Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. He worked at the Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum between 1817, when he joined as a volunteer assistant, and 1821, when he left to become secretary to the provincial legislature of Lower Austria; after a hiatus, he was appointed assistant curator in 1844 and remained at the Naturhistorisches Museum until 1861. Later, he became director of the zoos of Munich and Budapest. In 1826, he published Neue Classification der Reptilien, based partly on the work of his friends Friedrich Wilhelm Hemprich and Heinrich Boie. In 1843, he published Systema Reptilium, covering geckos, chameleons and iguanas. Fitzinger is commemorated in the scientific names of five reptiles: Algyroides fitzingeri, Leptotyphlops fitzingeri, Liolaemus fitzingerii, Micrurus tener fitzingeri, and Oxyrhopus fitzingeri. Works

7. Clemens von Pirquet (1874 - 1929)

With an HPI of 55.20, Clemens von Pirquet is the 7th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet (12 May 1874 – 28 February 1929) was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology.

8. Erich von Tschermak (1871 - 1962)

With an HPI of 54.81, Erich von Tschermak is the 8th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Erich Tschermak, Edler von Seysenegg (15 November 1871 – 11 October 1962) was an Austrian agronomist who developed several new disease-resistant crops, including wheat-rye and oat hybrids. He was a son of the Moravia-born mineralogist Gustav Tschermak von Seysenegg. His maternal grandfather was the botanist, Eduard Fenzl, who taught Gregor Mendel botany during his student days in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Halle, Germany, in 1896. Tschermak accepted a teaching position at the University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna in 1901, and became professor there five years later, in 1900. Von Tschermak is one of four men—see also Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns and William Jasper Spillman—who independently rediscovered Gregor Mendel's work on genetics. Von Tschermak published his findings in June, 1900. His works in genetics were largely influenced by his brother Armin von Tschermak-Seysenegg.

9. Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti (1735 - 1805)

With an HPI of 53.77, Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti is the 9th most famous Austrian Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti (4 December 1735, Vienna – 17 February 1805, Vienna) was an Austrian naturalist and zoologist of Italian origin. Laurenti is considered the auctor of the class Reptilia (reptiles) through his authorship of Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena (1768) on the poisonous function of reptiles and amphibians. This was an important book in herpetology, defining thirty genera of reptiles; Carl Linnaeus's 10th edition of Systema Naturae in 1758 defined only ten genera. Specimen Medicum contains a description of the blind salamander (amphibian): Proteus anguinus, purportedly collected from cave waters in Slovenia (or possibly western Croatia); this description represented one of the first published accounts of a cave animal in the western world, although Proteus anguinus was not recognized as a cave animal at the time. In the past, Laurenti's authorship of his work has been doubted several times and attributed to the Hungarian scientist Jacob Joseph Winterl, but without substantive evidence.

10. Joy Adamson (1910 - 1980)

With an HPI of 53.64, Joy Adamson is the 10th most famous Austrian Biologist.  Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Friederike Victoria "Joy" Adamson (née Gessner; 20 January 1910 – 3 January 1980) was a naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.