Quote

To take an unequivocal stand, it seems to me, is of greater heuristic value and far more likely to stimulate constructive criticism than to evade the issue.

Ernst Mayr

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ernst Mayr
Age: 100 †
Born: 1904
Born: July 5
Died: 2005
Died: February 3
Biologist
Curator
Ornithologist
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Zoologist
Kempten/Allgäu
Ernst Walter Mayr
E. Mayr
E. W. Mayr
Seems
Likely
Take
Issue
Criticism
Heuristic
Value
Heuristics
Stand
Unequivocal
Issues
Evade
Greater
Stimulate
Values
Constructive

More quotes by Ernst Mayr

Image
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
Image
I have the honesty to say I'm an Atheist. There is nothing that supports the idea of a personal God.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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
Image
Scientific progress consists in the development of new concepts.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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
Image
Evolution ... is opportunistic, hence unpredictable.
Ernst Mayr
Image
Wherever we look at the living biota … discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent…The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates.
Ernst Mayr
Image
There is more to biology than rats, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis, and E. coli.
Ernst Mayr
Image
Definitions are temporary verbalizations of concepts, and concepts- particularly difficult concepts- are usually revised repeatedly as our knowledge and understanding grows.
Ernst Mayr
Image
It seems to me that for Darwin the pulsing of evolutionary rates was a strictly vertical phenomenon.
Ernst Mayr
Image
most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic.
Ernst Mayr
Image
anyone who writes about Darwin's theory of evolutionin the singular, without segregating the theories of gradual evolution, common descent, speciation, and the mechanism of natural selection, will be quite unable to discuss the subject competently.
Ernst Mayr
Image
The most consequential change in man's view of the world, of living nature and of himself came with the introduction, over a period of some 100 years beginning only in the 18th century, of the idea of change itself, of change over periods of time: in a word, of evolution.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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
Image
Evolution thus is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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
Image
It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.
Ernst Mayr
Image
A species is a reproductive community of populations reproductively isolated from others that occupies a specific niche in nature.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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.
Ernst Mayr
Image
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