Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr Quotes

Biologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEvolutionPopulationSpeciesScienceSocietyFactsIfsTheoryAtheismConceptsDifferentIndividualIsolatedIsolationTwoBiologyEarthEvidenceFossilsGenes

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.”

TwoFactsEvolutionConsequencePopulationGenesAdaptationFrequencySimultaneousDiversificationIgnoring Facts
Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist
Create image

“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.”

FoundSpeciesPopulationIsolatedAgain And AgainLocation
Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist
Create image

“A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation characters which promote or guarantee reproductive isolation when the external barriers break down.”

IfsCharacterScienceBreakEvolutionPeriodsSpeciesPopulationIsolationAcquireGuaranteesBarriersIsolatedBreaking DownParental
Book:Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist
Create image

“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.”

LongDifferentLinesNovelClearRecordsEvolutionFindingsEvidenceSpeciesPopulationFollowingContradictionFossilsNoveltyGeneticsSeemingRough TimesPaleontologyStasisGradualismGradual Change
Book:One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought
Create image

“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.”

IfsHumansTwoIndividualMistakeEnvironmentPoliticianBoundsPopulationGravesContributionTraitsPhysiciansEducatorEndowmentClergymenZoology
Author:Ernst Mayr
Create image

“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.”

IfsWellsSometimesFactsScienceParentLossPrinciplesFemaleSpeciesPopulationDuesRangeBordersProportionIsolationPairsGenesIsolatedFoundersUniformityVariability
Book:Systematics and the Origin of Species, from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist
Create image