Posted on 07/28/2005 4:54:55 PM PDT by TheOtherOne
Ernst Mayr, a biologist who expanded upon Darwin's theory of evolution, died on February 3 at the age of 100. While he also earned acclaim as an ornithologist, naturalist, and historian of biology during his eight-decade career, Mayr will be best remembered as a champion of evolutionary theory.
Mayr's major contribution came in 1942, when his book Systematics and the Origin of Species was published. Here, Mayr laid one of the cornerstones of the then new synthetic theory of evolution, which unified Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of heredity. One of the shortcomings of Darwin's theory was that it didn't explain how new species appear. Geneticists who advanced Mendel's theories on heredity, meanwhile, began to look for explanations of speciation at the level of the gene.
Mayr's approach was first to define a species as an interbreeding population that is "reproductively isolated" from another interbreeding population. This improved upon the previous definition of a species as a population whose members share similar traits and characteristics. Mayr then argued that new species arise when a particular population is separated from the rest of its species; genetic mutations eventually make interbreeding with the original group impossible.
Born in 1904 in Kempten, Germany, Mayr enjoyed a career marked by extraordinary good fortune. In the tradition of a family with many doctors, he began studying to become a physician in 1923. But a childhood spent on nature outings with his father, Otto, had also instilled in Mayr a passion for bird-watching. On one solitary expedition near his home, Mayr spotted two rare ducks, red-crested pochards, that had not been seen in Europe in nearly 80 years.
Eager to officially confirm the sighting, Mayr was able through a chance acquaintance to meet Professor Erwin Stresemann, a distinguished ornithologist in Berlin. Stresemann was so impressed by Mayr's intellect that he invited him to spend the summer working at Berlin's Museum of Natural History and eventually convinced Mayr to abandon his medical studies and complete a doctorate at the University of Berlin. In exchange, Stresemann offered to send Mayr on an expedition to collect specimens, in the tradition of Darwin and other naturalists.
Mayr completed his doctorate in 1926, and in 1928, his formative expedition was arranged after he met with Lord Walter Rothschild, who was building a collection of bird skins at his private museum in Tring, England. Lord Rothschild, who was known to get around town in a zebra-drawn carriage, had recently suffered the death of his bird collector in New Guinea; Mayr leapt at the opportunity to succeed him, exploring six New Guinea mountain ranges, collecting 3,400 bird skins, and discovering 38 new species of orchids.
In 1931, Mayr was hired by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He went on to curate the museum's bird collection until 1953, when he was lured away by Harvard University to become a professor of zoology. Mayr remained at Harvard for the rest of his career, establishing his reputation as the preeminent neo-Darwinist and as a scientist of extraordinary intellectual range.
A prominent figure in the field of the philosophy of biology, Mayr criticized what he saw as the excesses of reductionism in biology, maintaining that natural selection acted on individual organisms rather than on individual genes. He formally retired in 1975 but continued his prodigious writing and research right up to the time of his death.
Why should he have to?? After all, God was the one who promulgated the Theory of Evolution in the first place--writing the evidence for it in his own creation.
A lot of liberals endorse evolution for the same reason a lot of conservative religious people endorse evolution and it is not out of hate for God.
OTHOH, a lot of religious fanatics criticize evolution because they have been brainwashed.
If you knew the Lord, you would know that he would not want you to close your eyes to science.
We must be speaking of two different concepts of who the "Lord" is.
The Professor of science at your favorite college is NOT the Lord. I should have made myself clear that I was speaking of the Lord Almighty, your creator.
Conservative religious BELIEVE in creationism and they definitely NOT endorse evolutionism. If they do, they are neither conservative nor religious. You think of people who believe in creationism as being "brainwashed" but clearly it is your dogmatic approach in your conception of the so called "religious fanatics" which spells out brainwashing. Creationism is something which is faith based as well as based on facts. Thus far all that evolutionism has managed to do is becoming Liberals' fanaticism, a theory based on racism and chauvinistic principles. And I maintain my opinion, only hate of God can make some work so hard into trying to deny His existence and His work and creation.
"Blessed are those touched by His Noodly Appendage."
Zeus is where it's at. Always has been.
How typically Liberal knee-jerk reaction of you :) I wonder based on what "Darwinian" principles did you arrive to the conclusion that I am a "sick" and "lying"? And why this personal attack? If my faith in God makes you think I am both sick and lying, well so be it, I am not going to renounce Him just to make YOU feel comfortable. Thus far you were unable to present nothing more but ideology and rhetoric and insults and that, my friend, is NOT how arguments are being held in a civil and kind manner.
If undirected natural processes as time, chance, natural selection is what you think are the causes of life on this planet, I am not going to mock you or insult you, as you did with me. I rather do believe in scientific proof of creationism, I believe in the intricacy of a cell nucleus and the wonder of DNA, this amazing threadlike molecule which stores instructions in order to build the essential components of every living organism. To me THIS CREATION of a biological information processing system is more complex and more powerful than any computer networks or any Darwinian principle.
I made no judgement on your faith, just an accurate observation of you post.
Boy, you are one sick lying Soldier of God.
I guess this was just a "reply" in error, right? And as far as your "accuracy" of your "observation" you have yet to say anything but the above. You truly hold...unusual understanding of what a polite and normal argument should be when it comes to dealing with people with whom you do not agree. Either way your reply was an attack on both myself and my faith and for you to have the audacity to claim otherwise is quite amusing. Have fun, my friend, I have absolutely no intention to carry this further with someone who lacks real arguments.
Mayr will be best remembered as a Henry Gibson looking wimp.
You put out those attacks in the deliberate attempt to portray those of us on this board that disagree with you as atheistic racists in order to discredit us since you cannot discredit our argument.
Normally the rules of academic argument makes it incumbent upon the challenger to demonstrate the accuracy of his/her attack. For you to make "you attacked first" claim, without demonstration, is at best lazy, at worst erroneous. Your babbling continues to amuse me and has no prima facie merit unless you can provide to me specific examples off my posts which indicate that have I attacked you. "WE" know your game plan.: typical paranoiac response. Again, you blame me of an nonexistent attack and I am still waiting for an argument from your side. Thus far all you have failed to produce such arguments.
But please, let's go further since you accuse me of lacking...arguments. Your feeble attempt to include "others" in your discourse is puerile to say the least. You were the only one who called me sick and a liar and implied that there was something wrong with me being a..."Soldier of God". You continue on with the same rhetoric, accusing me now of being...racist and clearly your attempt to an intellectual argument has failed again but this is what happens when people use dogmatic, ready-to-be used replies which are so typical of a Liberal. Definition of racism is as follows:
Pronunciation: 'rA-"si-z&m also -"shi-
Function: noun
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
Your continued contempt and arrogance towards the believers is quite disturbing and since you mentioned racism I wonder if you share all the beliefs Darwin held. If you truly read Darwin's "Origin" and "Descent" then you would actually be able to hold a sane argument. I leave you to the words of your beloved idol and his disciples(as a side note, Hitler also believed in Darwin's theory):
At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla."-> "The Descent of Man"
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