Ernst Mayr Quotes - Page 2

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• Evolution thus is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection.

  Ernst Mayr

  Variation, Evolution, Process

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, p.457, Harvard University Press

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• A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.

  Ernst Mayr

  Character, Science, Population

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, p.442, Harvard University Press

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• Living in an entirely different physical as well as biotic environment, such a population would have unique opportunities to enter new niches and to select novel adaptive pathways.

  Ernst Mayr

  Unique, Opportunity, Pathways

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• Definitions are temporary verbalizations of concepts, and concepts- particularly difficult concepts- are usually revised repeatedly as our knowledge and understanding grows.

  Ernst Mayr

  Understanding, Definitions, Difficult

  Ernst Mayr (1982). “The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance”, p.45, Harvard University Press

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• Isolating mechanisms are biological properties of individuals that prevent the interbreeding of populations that are actually or potentially sympatric.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Population, Isolation

  Ernst Mayr (1970). “Populations, Species, and Evolution: An Abridgment of Animal Species and Evolution”, p.56, Harvard University Press

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• As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists of the two simultaneous but quite separate phenomena of adaptation and diversification.

  Ernst Mayr

  Two, Population, Ignoring Facts

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• Biology can be divided into the study of proximate causes, the study of the physiological sciences (broadly conceived), and into the study of ultimate (evolutionary) causes, the subject of natural history.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Causes, Study

  Ernst Mayr (1982). “The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance”, p.67, Harvard University Press

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• It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Curiosity, Branches

  Ernst Mayr (1982). “The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance”

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• There are a number of attributes of species and populations that are not of any particular selective advantage to any single individual in a population but that are of great advantage to the population as a whole.

  Ernst Mayr

  Numbers, Diversity, Brotherhood

  Ernst Mayr (1997). “Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays”, p.317, Harvard University Press

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• Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of a drastic evolutionary acceleration and genetic reconstruction in widespread, populous species.

  Ernst Mayr

  Reconstruction, Evidence, Acceleration

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• To take an unequivocal stand, it seems to me, is of greater heuristic value and far more likely to stimulate constructive criticism than to evade the issue.

  Ernst Mayr

  Issues, Criticism, Heuristics

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• Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.

  Ernst Mayr

  Gaps, Fossils, Facts

  Ernst Mayr (2001). “What Evolution is”, p.14, Basic Books

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• The reduced variability of small populations is not always due to accidental gene loss, but sometimes to the fact that the entire population was started by a single pair or by a single fertilized female. These 'founders' of the population carried with them only a very small proportion of the variability of the parent population. This 'founder' principle sometimes explains even the uniformity of rather large populations, particularly if they are well isolated and near the borders of the range of the species.

  Ernst Mayr

  Loss, Science, Parent

  Ernst Mayr (1942). “Systematics and the Origin of Species, from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist”, p.237, Harvard University Press

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• anyone who writes about "Darwin's theory of evolutionin the singular, without segregating the theories of gradual evolution, common descent, speciation, and the mechanism of natural selection, will be quite unable to discuss the subject competently.

  Ernst Mayr

  Writing, Society, Common

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• I had found again and again that the most aberrant population of a species - often having reached species rank, and occasionally classified even as a separate genus - occurred at a peripheral location, indeed usually at the most isolated peripheral location.

  Ernst Mayr

  Population, Location, Found

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I was offered in the Linnean Society that was the most important thing in my life.

  Ernst Mayr

  Friendship, New York, Years

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• It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary rates was a strictly vertical phenomenon.

  Ernst Mayr

  Rate, Phenomenon, Seems

  Ernst Mayr (1988). “Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist”, Harvard University Press

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• Two forms or species are sympatric, if they occur together, that is if their areas of distribution overlap or coincide. Two forms (or species) are allapatric, if they do not occur together, that is if they exclude each other geographically. The term allopatric is primarily useful in denoting geographic representatives.

  Ernst Mayr

  Science, Two, Together

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• In neither his definition nor the examples illustrating what memes are does Dawkins mention anything that would distinguish memes from concepts.

  Ernst Mayr

  Example, Doe, Definitions

  Ernst Mayr (2007). “What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline”, p.154, Cambridge University Press

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