Zitate von Ernst Mayr

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Ernst Mayr

Geburtstag: 5. Juli 1904
Todesdatum: 3. Februar 2005

Ernst Walter Mayr war ein deutsch-amerikanischer Biologe und der Hauptvertreter der modernen synthetischen Evolutionstheorie.

Er erhielt mehrere bedeutende Auszeichnungen und zählt nach Ansicht zahlreicher Kollegen zu den einflussreichsten Naturforschern des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Zitate Ernst Mayr

„Es gibt aber eine Art des Wandels, die sich offensichtlich kontinuierlich fortsetzt und so etwas wie eine Richtung zu haben scheint. Diesen Wandel bezeichnet man als Evolution oder Entwicklungsgeschichte.“

— Ernst Mayr
Das ist Evolution, - München : Bertelsmann, 2003, ISBN 3-570-12013-9 - Seite 24

„Evolution schafft Ordnung. Deshalb wird manchmal behauptet, sie stehe im Widerspruch zum »Entropiegesetz« der Physik, wonach alle Entwicklungsvorgänge zu einer Zunahme der Unordnung führen. In Wirklichkeit existiert dieser Widerspruch nicht: Das Entropiegesetz gilt nämlich nur für geschlossene Systeme, die Evolution einer biologischen Art findet aber in einem offenen System statt, in dem die Lebewesen auf Kosten der Umwelt eine Entropieabnahme herbeiführen können, wobei die Sonne für ständige Energiezufuhr sorgt.“

— Ernst Mayr
Das ist Evolution, - München : Bertelsmann, 2003, ISBN 3-570-12013-9 - Seite 25

Über Ehe, über die welt

„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. I would not call him the greatest Darwinian“

— Ernst Mayr
First response to the following remark by EDGE: It seems to me that Darwin is much better known in England than in the United States. Books about Darwin sell well and people debate the subjects. Here in America what passes for intellectual life doesn't necessarily include reading and having an appreciation of Darwin.

„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 populatlon 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 Mayr
Ernst Mayr (2000) "[http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/mayr_interview.html The Grand old Man of Evolution" interview by Michael Shermer and Frank Sulloway], Skeptic 8 (1): 79; As cited in: [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/people/mayr_quotations.html Quotations Ernst Mayr on Gould], Stephen Jay Gould Archive, 2013

„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
Ernst Mayr (1992) "[http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/mayr_punctuated.html Speciational Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria]" in: Albert Somit and Steven Peterson (1992) The Dynamics of Evolution, p. 21-48

„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 Mayr
Ernst Mayr (1988) Toward a new philosophy of biology: observations of an evolutionist. p. 457

„Having reached the rare age of 100 years, I find myself in a unique position: I'm the last survivor of the golden age of the Evolutionary Synthesis. That status encourages me to present a personal account of what I experienced in the years (1920s to the 1950s) that were so crucial in the history of evolutionary biology.“

— Ernst Mayr
Ernst Mayr (2004) "[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5680/46.full 80 Years of Watching the Evolutionary Scenery]" Science (2 July 2004) Vol. 305 no. 5680 pp. 46-47

„Biological classifications have two major objectives: to serve as a basis of biological generalizations in all sort of comparative studies and to serve as a key to an information storage system... Is the classification that is soundest as a basis of generalizations also most convenient for information retrieval? This, indeed, seems to have been true in most cases I have encountered.“

— Ernst Mayr
Mayr (1981) as cited in: C. Gnoli (2011) "Ontological foundations in knowledge organization: the theory of integrative levels applied in citation order". Scire actas. 17-1