Ernst Mayr – författare

No one in this century can speak with greater authority on the progress of ideas in biology than Ernst Mayr. And no book has ever established the life sciences so firmly in the mainstream of Western intellectual history as The Growth of Biological Thought. Ten years in preparation, this is a work of epic proportions, tracing the development of the major problems of biology from the earliest attempts to find order in the diversity of life to modern research into the mechanisms of gene transmission.

Ernst Mayr is one of the principal architects of the 'neo-Darwinian synthesis', which has been the dominant perspective in 20th century evolutionary biology. Jared Diamond is one of the most wide-ranging minds in biology, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Mayr and Diamond decided in 1970 to collaborate on an authoritative monograph presenting their data and interpretations of the evolution of the birds of the Solomon and Bismark Islands. Mayr's numerous expeditions to do fieldwork in this area, beginning in 1929 and continuing through 1976, form the core of his scientific work. Diamond has made four expeditions to the region since 1970 to fill in gaps in the data.

Speciation is the process by which co-existing daughter species evolve from one ancestral species - e.g., humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas arising from a common ancestor around 5,000,000 years ago. However, many questions about speciation remain controversial. The Birds of Northern Melanesia provides by far the most comprehensive study yet available of a rich fauna, composed of the 195 breeding land and fresh-water bird species of the Bismarck and Solomon Archipelagoes east of New Guinea. This avifauna offers decisive advantages for understanding speciation, and includes famous examples of geographic variation discussed in textbooks of evolutionary biology. The book results from 30 years of collaboration between the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr and the ecologist Jared Diamond. It shows how Northern Melanesian bird distributions provide snapshots of all stages in speciation, from the earliest (widely distributed species without geographic variation) to the last (closely related, reproductively isolated species occurring sympatrically and segregating ecologically). The presentation emphasizes the wide diversity of speciation outcomes, steering a middle course between one-model-fits-all simplification and ungeneralizable species accounts. Questions illuminated include why some species are much more prone to speciate than others, why some water barriers are much more effective at promoting speciation than others, and whether hypothesized taxon cycles, faunal dominance, and legacies of Pleistocene land bridges are real. These years of study have resulted in a huge database, complete with distributions of all 195 species on 76 islands, together with their taxonomy, colonization routes, ecological attributes, abundance, and overwater dispersal. Color plates depict 88 species and allospecies, many of which have never been seen before. For students of speciation, Northern Melanesian birds now constitute a model system against which other biotas can be compared. For population biologists interested in other problems besides speciation, this rich database can now be mined for insights.

This book, a collection of essays written by the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century, explores biology as an autonomous science, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the contributions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major ongoing issues in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its own history, trajectory and impact. Natural selection is a separate idea from common descent, and from geographic speciation, and so on. A number of the perennial Darwinian controversies may well have been caused by the confounding of the five separate theories into a single composite. Those interested in evolutionary theory, or the philosophy and history of science will find useful ideas in this book, which should appeal to virtually anyone with a broad curiosity about biology.

This book, a collection of essays written by the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century, explores biology as an autonomous science, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the contributions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major ongoing issues in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its own history, trajectory and impact. Natural selection is a separate idea from common descent, and from geographic speciation, and so on. A number of the perennial Darwinian controversies may well have been caused by the confounding of the five separate theories into a single composite. Those interested in evolutionary theory, or the philosophy and history of science will find useful ideas in this book, which should appeal to virtually anyone with a broad curiosity about biology.

The diversity of living forms and the unity of evolutionary processes are themes that have permeated the research and writing of Ernst Mayr, a Grand Master of evolutionary biology. The essays collected here are among his most valuable and durable: contributions that form the basis for much of the contemporary understanding of evolutionary biology.

Biology was forged into a single, coherent science only within living memory. In this volume the thinkers responsible for the “modern synthesis” of evolutionary biology and genetics come together to analyze that remarkable event.In a new Preface, Ernst Mayr calls attention to the fact that scientists in different biological disciplines varied considerably in their degree of acceptance of Darwin’s theories. Mayr shows us that these differences were played out in four separate periods: 1859 to 1899, 1900 to 1915, 1916 to 1936, and 1937 to 1947. He thus enables us to understand fully why the synthesis was necessary and why Darwin’s original theory—that evolutionary change is due to the combination of variation and selection—is as solid at the end of the twentieth century as it was in 1859.

Representative of the international acclaim accorded Ernst Mayr’s Animal Species and Evolution, published in 1963, is Sir Julian Huxley’s description of it as “a magistral book…certainly the most important study of evolution that has appeared in many years—perhaps since the publication of On the Origin of Species.” In his extraordinary book, Mayr fully explored, synthesized, and evaluated man’s knowledge about the nature of animal species and the part they play in the process of evolution.In this long-awaited abridged edition, Mayr’s definitive work is made available to the interested nonspecialist, the college student, and the general reader. The author has retained the dominant themes of his original study—themes now more widely accepted than they were in 1963: the species is the most important unit of evolution; individuals (and not genes) are the targets of natural selection, hence the fitness of “a” gene is a nebulous if not misleading concept; and the most important genetic phenomena in species are species-specific regulatory systems that give species internal cohesion.Each of the twenty chapters of the original edition has been revised; six have been extensively reworked. Discussions of peripheral subjects and massive citations of the literature have been eliminated, but the glossary has been greatly expanded. The focal point of the volume is, naturally, the species—a reproductively isolated aggregate of interbreeding populations. Presenting an overview of evolutionary biology in Chapter 1, Mayr then considers the nature of species, their population structure, their biological interactions, the multiplication of species, and their role in evolution.Because of the impossibility of experimenting with man and because an understanding of man’s biology is indispensable for safeguarding his future, emphasis throughout the book is placed on those findings from higher animals which are directly applicable to man. The last chapter, “Man as a Biological Species,” is of particular interest to the general reader. Mayr concludes that while modern man appears to be as well adapted for survival purposes as were his ancestors, there is much evidence to suggest that he is threatened by the loss of his most typically human characteristics.

Ernst Mayr is perhaps the most distinguished biologist of the twentieth century, and Systematics and the Origin of Species may be one of his greatest and most influential books. This classic study, first published in 1942, helped to revolutionize evolutionary biology by offering a new approach to taxonomic principles and correlating the ideas and findings of modern systematics with those of other life science disciplines. This book is one of the foundational documents of the “Evolutionary Synthesis.” It is the book in which Mayr pioneered his new concept of species based chiefly on such biological factors as interbreeding and reproductive isolation, taking into account ecology, geography, and life history.In his new Introduction for this edition, Mayr reflects on the place of this enduring work in the subsequent history of his field.

Biology until recently has been the neglected stepchild of science, and many educated people have little grasp of how biology explains the natural world. Yet to address the major political and moral questions that face us today, we must acquire an understanding of their biological roots. This magisterial new book by Ernst Mayr will go far to remedy this situation. An eyewitness to this century's relentless biological advance and the creator of some of its most important concepts, Mayr is uniquely qualified to offer a vision of science that places biology firmly at the center, and a vision of biology that restores the primacy of holistic, evolutionary thinking.As he argues persuasively, the physical sciences cannot address many aspects of nature that are unique to life. Living organisms must be understood at every level of organization; they cannot be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry. Mayr's approach is refreshingly at odds with the reductionist thinking that dominated scientific research earlier in this century, and will help to redirect how people think about the natural world.This Is Biology can also be read as a "life history" of the discipline--from its roots in the work of Aristotle, through its dormancy during the Scientific Revolution and its flowering in the hands of Darwin, to its spectacular growth with the advent of molecular techniques. Mayr maps out the territorial overlap between biology and the humanities, especially history and ethics, and carefully describes important distinctions between science and other systems of thought, including theology. Both as an overview of the sciences of life and as the culmination of a remarkable life in science, This Is Biology will richly reward professionals and general readers alike.

A collection of twenty-eight essays, five previously unpublished, grouped into nine categories: Philosophy, Natural Selection, Adaptation, Darwin, Diversity, Species, Speciation, Macroevolution, and Historical Perspective. The book, Ernst Mayr notes in the Foreword, is an attempt “to strengthen the bridge between biology and philosophy, and point to the new direction in which a new philosophy of biology will move.”

What we do and do not know about evolution, by one of the field's pioneering thinkers.Evolution is the most important idea in biology, with implications that go far beyond science. But despite more than a century's progress in understanding, there is still widespread confusion about what evolution is, how it works and why it is the only plausible mechanism that can account for the remarkable diversity of life on Earth.Now, for the first time in a book aimed at a general audience, one of the founding fathers of modern biology tells us what we know - and what we do not know - about evolution. In showing how evolution has gone from theory to fact, he explores various controversial fads and fallacies such as punctuated equilibrium, the selfish-gene theory and evolutionary psychology. He ends by looking at what we know about human evolution and how, in turn, this knowledge has affected the way in which we view ourselves and the world.

This extensively illustrated commentary on Darwin's Origin of Species offers a comprehensive, modern analysis of his revolutionary argument, situating his ideas within the evolutionary research and debates they inspired. Building on an unfinished manuscript by the pre-eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, the book draws on more than 1,500 scholarly sources to expand on Darwin's revolutionary insights and to assess over 160 years of subsequent scientific progress. Each of Darwin's chapters is examined in detail, clarifying his reasoning while showing how his ideas have been refined, revised, or confirmed by later discoveries. In doing so, this new work highlights the enduring power and sweeping implications of Darwin's theoretical framework. More than 100 historical and scientific images illuminate Darwin's era and the central findings of evolutionary research, bringing the Origin vividly to life. The result is an authoritative analysis and synthesis of the most important scientific book ever written.

Perfect for birdwatching enthusiasts travelling to Indonesia, this concise guide is full of interesting information.This practical handbook, by an acknowledged authority, intended primarily for the field student, tells him how to identify and name the birds of Indonesia which he encounters, and what kinds of birds he can expect to find on each island. There is also a condensed summary of the present knowledge of distribution, geographical variation and habits. Whenever feasible, keys have been supplied to facilitate identification. These keys are simply and clearly worked out for the beginner who may not know the difference between a curlew and a godwit, or a triller and a graybird.Three magnificent color plates show 39 species which include at least one representation of all of the prominent bird families of the southwest Pacific. A series of black and white drawings show additional species. These pictures will be particularly valuable to bird students who have never seen a wood swallow, a flower pecker, a white-eye or a triller.

One ofthe most important aspects in research fields where mathematics is "applied is the construction of a formal model of a real system. As for structural relations, graphs have turned out to provide the most appropriate tool for setting up the mathematical model. This is certainly one of the reasons for the rapid expansion in graph theory during the last decades. Furthermore, in recent years it also became clear that the two disciplines of graph theory and computer science have very much in common, and that each one has been capable of assisting significantly in the development of the other. On one hand, graph theorists have found that many of their problems can be solved by the use of com­ puting techniques, and on the other hand, computer scientists have realized that many of their concepts, with which they have to deal, may be conveniently expressed in the lan­ guage of graph theory, and that standard results in graph theory are often very relevant to the solution of problems concerning them. As a consequence, a tremendous number of publications has appeared, dealing with graphtheoretical problems from a computational point of view or treating computational problems using graph theoretical concepts.

One ofthe most important aspects in research fields where mathematics is "applied is the construction of a formal model of a real system. As for structural relations, graphs have turned out to provide the most appropriate tool for setting up the mathematical model. This is certainly one of the reasons for the rapid expansion in graph theory during the last decades. Furthermore, in recent years it also became clear that the two disciplines of graph theory and computer science have very much in common, and that each one has been capable of assisting significantly in the development of the other. On one hand, graph theorists have found that many of their problems can be solved by the use of com­ puting techniques, and on the other hand, computer scientists have realized that many of their concepts, with which they have to deal, may be conveniently expressed in the lan­ guage of graph theory, and that standard results in graph theory are often very relevant to the solution of problems concerning them. As a consequence, a tremendous number of publications has appeared, dealing with graphtheoretical problems from a computational point of view or treating computational problems using graph theoretical concepts.