Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr Quotes
44 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary rates was a strictly vertical phenomenon.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Life is simply the reification of the process of living.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational evolution, but an entirely new start is, so to speak, made in every generation.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Isolating mechanisms are biological properties of individuals that prevent the interbreeding of populations that are actually or potentially sympatric.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
There is more to biology than rats, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis, and E. coli.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Any scientific revolution has to accept all sorts of black boxes, for if one had to wait until all black boxes are opened, one would never have any conceptual advances.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Having reached the rare age of 100 years, I find myself in a unique position: I'm the last survivor of the golden age of the Evolutionary Synthesis. That status encourages me to present a personal account of what I experienced in the years (1920s to the 1950s) that were so crucial in the history of evolutionary biology.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
The theory of evolution is quite rightly called the greatest unifying theory in biology.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Parasitologists have accumulated, during the past decades, an amount of information that is truly formidable. This information is not only valuable for the parasitologist, but is also a potential gold-mine for the evolutionist and general biologist. Yet, much of this information is hidden away in a widely scattered and highly technical literature.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
A species is a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
It may not be exaggeration if I say that there are probably as many species concepts as there are thinking systematists and students of speciation.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Evolution as such is no longer a theory for a modern author. It is as much a fact as that the earth revolves around the sun.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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 allopatric, 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
Source
Report...
Research not only brings us abundant joy but it also gives us a deep sense of humility.
Ernst Mayr
Source
Report...
Biological classifications have two major objectives: to serve as a basis of biological generalizations in all sort of comparative studies and to serve as a key to an information storage system... Is the classification that is soundest as a basis of generalizations also most convenient for information retrieval? This, indeed, seems to have been true in most cases I have encountered.
Ernst Mayr
1
2
Quote of the day
I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.
Arthur Rimbaud
Ernst Mayr
Creative Commons
Born:
July 5, 1904
Died:
February 3, 2005
(aged 100)
Bio:
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.
Known for:
What Evolution Is (1964)
Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942)
Animal species and evolution (1963)
Das ist Biologie (1997)
Most used words:
species
,
evolution
,
populations
,
evolutionary
,
darwin
,
geographically
,
years
,
generation
,
biological
,
study
,
forms
Ernst Mayr on Wikipedia
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Ernst Mayr Quotes
Quotes about Ernst Mayr
German Biologist Quotes
Biologist Quotes
20th-century Biologist Quotes
Related People
Theodosius Dobzhansky
American Biologist
Stephen Jay Gould
American Biologist
George Gaylord Simpson
American Paleontologist
Charles Darwin
British Naturalist
Jared Diamond
American Scientist
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes