Quotes by Ernst Mayr

About Ernst Mayr:

Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.
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According to the concept of transformational evolution, first clearly articulated by Lamarck, evolution consists of the gradual transformation of organisms from one condition of existence to another.

Ernst Mayr

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

Ernst Mayr

I did not claim that speciation occurs only in founder populations.

Ernst Mayr

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 l...

Ernst Mayr

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

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

Ernst Mayr

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

Most of them are doomed to rapid extinction, but a few may make evolutionary inventions, such as physiological, ecological, or behavioral innovations that give these species improved competitive potential.

Ernst Mayr

New gene pools are generated in every generation, and evolution takes place because the successful individuals produced by these gene pools give rise to the next generation.

Ernst Mayr

All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population.

Ernst Mayr

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

The major novelty of my theory was its claim that the most rapid evolutionary change does not occur in widespread, populous species, as claimed by Most geneticists, but in small founder populations.

Ernst Mayr

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

Life is simply the reification of the process of living.

Ernst Mayr

Author Bio

  • NameErnst Mayr
  • DescriptionGerman-American evolutionary biologist
  • BornJuly 5, 1904
  • DiedFebruary 3, 2005
  • CountryUnited States Of America; Germany
  • ProfessionCurator; Biologist; Zoologist; Ornithologist; Philosopher; Writer
  • AwardsCrafoord Prize; Balzan Prize