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 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 the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but… — 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
