ABSTRACT
Establishment of facts is a primary responsibility of any scientific discipline; but facts alone do not make a science. Behavioral endocrinology is a biobehavioral science which deals with relations between the endocrine system and organismic behavior, placing special emphasis upon their functional or adaptive significance, their mediating mechanisms, and their ontogenetic and phylogenetic history. Acceptance of the interactional or transactional model of behavior could have far-reaching effects on the development of behavioral endocrinology. The distinction is important to behavioral endocrinology, because one of the most common ways that hormones affect behavior is by modulating the individual’s perception of environmental variables. As behavioral endocrinology grew, and particularly as technological progress was made in neuroendocrinology, neurophysiology, and cellular biology, the search for mediating mechanisms centered more and more upon specific areas in the brain. Relations between rising testosterone levels and utterance of song are mediated by many mechanisms including growth of the syrinx and its associated muscles.
