Ernst mayr carl sagan biography

He was also a renowned taxonomist , tropical explorer, ornithologist , philosopher of biology , and historian of science. Although Charles Darwin and others posited that multiple species could evolve from a single common ancestor , the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating the species problem. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species.

In his book Systematics and the Origin of Species he wrote that a species is not just a group of morphologically similar individuals, but a group that can breed only among themselves, excluding all others. When populations within a species become isolated by geography, feeding strategy, mate choice , or other means, they may start to differ from other populations through genetic drift and natural selection , and over time may evolve into new species.

The most significant and rapid genetic reorganization occurs in extremely small populations that have been isolated as on islands. His theory of peripatric speciation a more precise form of allopatric speciation which he advanced , based on his work on birds, is still considered a leading mode of speciation , and was the theoretical underpinning for the theory of punctuated equilibrium , proposed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould.

Mayr is sometimes credited with inventing modern philosophy of biology , particularly the part related to evolutionary biology , which he distinguished from physics due to its introduction of natural history into science. Mayr was the second son of Helene Pusinelli and Otto Mayr. He also had access to a natural history magazine for amateurs, Kosmos.

His father died just before he was thirteen.

Ernst Walter Mayr was a

The family then moved to Dresden , where he studied at the Staatsgymnasium in Dresden-Neustadt and completed his high school education. In April , while still in high school, he joined the newly founded Saxony Ornithologists' Association. There he met Rudolf Zimmermann, who became his ornithological mentor. In February , Mayr passed his high school examination Abitur and his mother rewarded him with a pair of binoculars.