Ernst Mayr Quotes

Biologist

German-American biologist and a pioneer in evolutionary biology, Ernst Mayr made significant contributions to the development of modern evolutionary theory. His research in systematics, speciation, and biological classification had a profound impact on the field.

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Famous Ernst Mayr Quotes

“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.”

Wells Different Opportunity Novel Environment Unique Population Select Pathways Niche Adaptive Unique Opportunities

Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

Source: Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist

“The issue, as correctly emphasized by Carl Sagan, is the probability of the evolution of high intelligence and an electronic civilization on an inhabited world. Once we have life (and almost surely it will be very different from life on Earth), what is the probability of its developing a lineage with high intelligence? On Earth, among millions of lineages of organisms and perhaps 50 billion speciation events, only one led to high intelligence; this makes me believe in its utter improbability.”

World Believe Different Earth Millions Issues Events Evolution Civilization Billions Astronomy Developing Organisms Probability Lineage Improbability Sagan Speciation

Author:Ernst Mayr

“On the other hand, famous evolutionists such as Dobzhansky were firm believers in a personal God. He would work as a scientist all week and then on Sunday get down on his knees and pray to God. Frankly I've never been able to understand it because you would need two totally different compartments in your brain, one that deals with religion and the other with everything else.”

Needs Two Different Hands Able Religion Deals Brain Week Atheism Praying Scientist Believer Firm Knees Sunday Praying To God

Author:Ernst Mayr

“Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.”

Source: One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought