Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

Personality and General Views 295
Mayr would get annoyed occasionally with John Greene because of his “harping”
on religion. This was also one of the few major points of disagreement with
Th. Dobzhansky.
In later years, Mayr emphasized that he fully supported the ethics of Christianity
but not its metaphysics. He did not believe in a Providential God, any divine
revelation, or a supernatural realm, but was convinced that a person could be
deeplyreligiousinthecompleteabsenceoftheology.Hewasdisturbedatthestrictly
anthropocentric teachings of the Bible and the disregard of the environment. Since
he was always convinced that religious beliefs are a very private matter, he never
engagedinanycontroversiesabouttheexistenceofGod.However,ononeoccasion
he was rather aggressively pressed by an interviewer to express why he did not
believe in a personal God and answered: “Do you think any God would permit
Hitler to kill 6 million Jews and Stalin to kill 30 million Russians? And permit two
world wars which brought nothing but misery or death to millions of people or
permit destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that kill ten thousands or
hundred thousands of people?” “On the other hand, several famous evolutionists
were firm believers in a personal God, such as Dobzhansky and David Lack.
Frankly, I have never been able to understand this.”
Pope Paul II disapproved any method of birth control despite the ongoing population
explosion worldwide, the cause of many problems particularly in the Third
World. Three biologists—Ernst Mayr, Jeffrey Baker (University of Puerto Rico)
and Paul Ehrlich (Stanford University, California)—protested sharply against this
papal Encyclica (1968) in a declaration which they posted at the annual meeting of
the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in late December
1968. The declaration was supported and signed by 2600 scientists attending the
meeting. The text read in part: “We declare that we shall no longer be impressed by
calls for world peace and sympathy for the poor by a man whose deeds contribute
to further war and to make poverty unavoidable.” The world had hoped for a long
time that “the outdated and inhuman policy of the church toward sexuality would
be given up.” In his book of 1970 (e) he included a sentence without referring to
the papal Encyclica stating “It is most regrettable that the adoption of a healthier
way of thinking about the perils of overpopulation is impeded by medieval, and in
their effects extremely vicious, church dogmas” (p. 410).
Ernst Mayr (pers. comm.) confirmed the above newspaper report and added
that the radio news provider in Boston, apparently a strict Catholic, protested
against the biologists’ declaration, in particular against their using the expressions
“crime” and “criminal” in their comments. He kindly invited Mayr to come to
his studio which he did immediately. Mayr confirmed in this interview that large
differences of opinion might exist in such valuations. However, in this case there
could be no doubt that the Pope’s denial of birth control was furthering population
explosion leading to much unhappiness and often to increased mortality. They,
the scientists, had every right to consider this a crime against mankind. Although
Mayr doubted that the radio station would include this renewed attack against the
Pope in its program, he returned home quickly and was surprised to hear indeed