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Ernst Mayr

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

“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.”

Two Facts Evolution Consequence Population Genes Adaptation Frequency Simultaneous Diversification Ignoring Facts

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

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

“The history of science knows scores of instances where an investigator was in the possession of all the important facts for a new theory but simply failed to ask the right questions.”

Knows Important Facts Asks Theory Possession Instance Score Investigators History Of Science Right Questions

Book:The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

Source: The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

“Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts”

World Facts Understanding Society Discovery Improvement

Book:The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

Source: The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance

“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.”

Facts Earth Sun Society Atheism Modern Theory Evolution

Book:What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline

Source: What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline

“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.”

Facts Form Given Evolution Series Gaps Steady Documents Fossils Descendants

Book:What Evolution is

Source: What Evolution is

“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.”

Source: Systematics and the Origin of Species, from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist