Friends:
It is difficult to express the sadness I feel at learning of the passing of
Dr. Ernst Mayr, yesterday, in his sleep. His 100th birthday was widely
celebrated last July, as he continued to work on many articles and books to
his very last day. He is widely credited for synthesizing the early work
on evolutionary theory from Darwin, with the genetic understanding
initially from Mendel and Dobzhansky, with the population studies of gene
frequency changes and the field biology of working morphologists and
taxonomists into what we today recognize as the modern biological species
concept. He was a friend and mentor to many and will be sorely missed.
Last week, I had finished reading his NEW book, given to me by my brother
James Michener for Christmas: What Makes Biology Unique?, published in 2004
after his 100th birthday. I highly recommend this wonderful, succinct
synthesis of today's dilemmas in working taxonomy and evolutionary
theory. And for those who think Prof. Mayr may have taken his work a bit
too seriously at times, I would especially commend his last chapter: "Are
We Alone in this Vast Universe?" It was his twentyfifth book!
Prof. Mayr served as a member of my doctoral committee at Harvard, where he
was Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology for many decades. So I
had the great fortune of speaking with him from time to time, although most
of my knowledge of him comes from his writing and the many anecdotes of my
friends, who were students directly under his supervision.
Coincidentally, yesterday, I just finished writing two paragraphs for a new
book on identifying plants, "Common Plants of the Northeast". The subject
is often a hot topic of discussion -- when to use "new" names and when to
stick with the older, more familiar ones for plants or animals. I
respectfully reproduce these paragraphs here:
"Prof. Carroll Williams, Chairman of the Harvard University Biology
Department, once groused good-naturedly at a Friday afternoon seminar in
1962 that he had been working on the physiology of Cecropia Moths for about
forty years, and had been made to re-learn their scientific name about six
or seven times, as it had changed. Now you might be surprised to learn
that the naming of creatures is seldom actually done in Harvard Biology
department*; it is mostly done in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, of
which Prof. Ernst Mayr was then the Director. He slowly stood up in
response to this amusing challenge to the profession of naming, and
thoughtfully said: 'Six or seven times. . . Ah, yes, I think that in forty
years that is about the same number of times I have been made to re-learn
just how muscles contract.'
"My point in relating this anecdote, is that knowledge is cumulative and
does not stand still, for either the conservative or the nostalgic. New
methods of comparing DNA today are providing many insights into animal and
plant evolutionary relationships that were unimaginable a decade ago when
all we had for clues were derived from visible morphology. Botanists
cannot afford to continue to use a taxonomic structure based on older
assumptions of similarity and difference now proven to be false, no matter
how we wish to cling to stability and certainty. "
My best regards to all,
Marty Michener
MIST Software Assoc. Inc., P. O. Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049
http://www.enjoybirds.com/
* Prof. E. O. Wilson excepted.
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