Ernst W. Mayr Quotes & Sayings

The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism. But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. — Ernst W. Mayr

Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational evolution, but an entirely new start is, so to speak, made in every generation. — Ernst W. 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 W. Mayr

No amphibian succeeded in adapting to salt water. — Ernst W. 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 W. Mayr

Actually, the entire ascent of life can be presented as an adaptive radiation in the time dimension. From the beginning of replicating molecules to the formation of membrane-bounded cells, the formation of chromosomes, the origin of nucleated eukaryotes, the formation of multicellular organisms, the rise of endothermy, and the evolution of a large and highly complex central nervous system, each of these steps permitted the utilization of a different set of environmental resources, that is, the occupation of a different adaptive zone. — Ernst W. Mayr

Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century. — Ernst W. Mayr

I published that theory [of speciational evolution] in a 1954 paper ... and I clearly related it to paleontology. Darwin argued that the fossil record is very incomplete because some species fossilize better than others ... I noted that you are never going to find evidence of a small local population that changed very rapidly in the fossil record ... Gould was my course assistant at Harvard where I presented this theory again and again for three years. So he knew it thoroughly. So did Eldredge. In fact, in his 1971 paper Eldredge credited me with it. But that was lost over time. — Ernst W. Mayr