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Ernst Mayr quotes

Deutsch Scientist July 5, 1904 – February 3, 2005

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Quotes

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
Ernst Mayr quote: "Life is simply the reification of the process of living."
Life is simply the reification of the process of living. Ernst Mayr
Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave mistakes if he ignores these two great truths of population zoology: (1) no two individuals are alike, and (2) both environment and genetic endowment make a contribution to nearly every trait. 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
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
Ernst Mayr quote: "All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs..."
All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population. 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
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
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
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
Ernst Mayr quote: "It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary..."
It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary rates was a strictly vertical phenomenon. Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr quote: "Evolution thus is merely contingent on certain processes..."
Evolution thus is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr quote: "I did not claim that speciation occurs only in founder..."
I did not claim that speciation occurs only in founder populations. 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

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