Ernst Mayr Quotes
45 quotes
in 771 categories
-
Biology can be divided into the study of proximate causes, the study of the physiological sciences (broadly conceived), and into the study of ultimate (evolutionary)…
-
It is curious how often erroneous theories have had a beneficial effect for particular branches of science.
-
All interpretations made by a scientist are hypotheses, and all hypotheses are tentative. They must forever be tested and they must be revised if found…
-
I have the honesty to say I'm an Atheist. There is nothing that supports the idea of a personal God.
-
On the other hand, famous evolutionists such as Dobzhansky were firm believers in a personal God. He would work as a scientist all week and…
-
Evolution ... is opportunistic, hence unpredictable.
-
A species is a reproductive community of populations reproductively isolated from others that occupies a specific niche in nature.
-
There are a number of attributes of species and populations that are not of any particular selective advantage to any single individual in a population…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Isolating mechanisms are biological properties of individuals that prevent the interbreeding of populations that are actually or potentially sympatric.
-
Indeed, I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever of the occurrence of a drastic evolutionary acceleration and genetic reconstruction in widespread, populous species.
-
In those early years in New York when I was a stranger in a big city, it was the companionship and later friendship which I…
-
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…
Browse Ernst Mayr Quotes by Category