厄恩斯特·迈尔

恩斯特·瓦尔特·迈尔（德语：Ernst Walter Mayr，1904年7月5日—2005年2月3日），20世纪最主要的演化生物学家之一，也是一位分类学家、热带探险家、鸟类学家、博物学家与科学史家。他原本在德国的柏林博物馆研究鸟类，后来前往美国纽约的自然史博物馆。1954年当选美国国家科学院院士，1970年获得国家科学奖章，他一生中共得33个奖项。

生平

1904年出生于德国巴伐利亚的肯普滕。

在美国的期间，他研究鸟类的分类，并描述了南太平洋的26个新种与455个新亚种。这些研究形成了生物学物种观念（biological species concept），他将物种定义为一个能够互相交配且生下具生育力后代的群体。此外他也提出新的物种的形成理论，称为边域性物种形成（peripatric speciation）。

1942年出版的书《动物学家的系统分类学与物种起源观点》（Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist），是演化生物学的现代综合理论建立根基之一。这种理论在1930年代左右成形，是一种将19世纪孟德尔遗传学与达尔文进化论整合的理论。

1953年他到哈佛大学的比较动物学博物馆担任馆长，研究科学史与哲学。1975年退休之后，出版了许多书籍。直到99岁仍然出版了《进化是什么？》（What Evolution Is） (ISBN 0465044263)。

他结缡五十五年的妻子玛格丽特·迈尔（Margarete Mayr），已在一九九○年去世。他们共留下两个女儿、五个孙子与十个曾孙。他则享寿一百岁。

2005年，迈尔逝世于美国麻塞诸塞的贝德福德（Bedford）。

Ernst Walter Mayr ( MYRE; German: [ɛʁnst ˈmaɪɐ]; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

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 (1942) 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.

Biography

Early life and studies

Mayr was the second son of Helene Pusinelli and Otto Mayr. His father was a district prosecuting attorney at Würzburg but took an interest in natural history and took the children out on field trips. Mayr learnt all the local birds in Würzburg from his elder brother Otto. He also had access to a natural history magazine for amateurs, Kosmos. His father died just before he was thirteen. The family then moved to Dresden, where he studied at the Staatsgymnasium in Dresden-Neustadt and completed his high school education. In April 1922, 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 1923, Mayr passed his high school examination (Abitur) and his mother rewarded him with a pair of binoculars.