All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
A new species develops if a population which has become geographically isolated from its parental species acquires during this period of isolation… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
There are a number of attributes of species and populations that are not of any particular selective advantage to any single individual… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
The reduced variability of small populations is not always due to accidental gene loss, but sometimes to the fact that the entire… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
A species consists of a group of populations which replace each other geographically or ecologically and of which the neighboring ones integrate… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Isolating mechanisms are biological properties of individuals that prevent the interbreeding of populations that are actually or potentially sympatric. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
I had found again and again that the most aberrant population of a species - often having reached species rank, and occasionally… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population genetics, and… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
As a consequence, geneticists described evolution simply as a change in gene frequencies in populations, totally ignoring the fact that evolution consists… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
The major novelty of my theory was its claim that the most rapid evolutionary change does not occur in widespread, populous species,… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
A species is a reproductive community of populations reproductively isolated from others that occupies a specific niche in nature. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Living in an entirely different physical as well as biotic environment, such a population would have unique opportunities to enter new niches… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave mistakes if he ignores… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
There is more to biology than rats, Drosophila, Caenorhabditis, and E. coli. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
“The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he will say Richard… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share 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… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Evolution, thus, is merely contingent on certain processes articulated by Darwin: variation and selection. No longer is a fixed object transformed, as in transformational… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
In Earth, among millions of lineages or organisms and perhaps 50 billion speciation events, only one led to high intelligence ; this makes me… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
I have the honesty to say I'm an Atheist. There is nothing that supports the idea of a personal God. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
All I claimed was that when a drastic change occurs, it occurs in a relatively small and isolated population. — Ernst Mayr Copy Share 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… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share 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… — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
Our understanding of the world is achieved more effectively by conceptual improvements than by discovery of new facts — Ernst Mayr Copy Share Image
