Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

304 9 Ernst Mayr—the Man
papers discussing his work were assembled in a Special Issue of the journal Biology
and Philosophy and published in honor of Mayr’s ninety’s birthday in July 1994.
In the summer of 1997 Mayr moved to the Carleton-Willard Village, a comfortable
retirement home in Bedford, Massachusetts, about 30 km northwest of
Cambridge, where he lived in a two-room apartment and received almost daily
friends, visitors, and science reporters for interviews. Until the summer of 2003,
he was still driving to his office at Harvard at least once each week. After he
had recovered from an illness his family then requested him to discontinue using
his car. On 5th July 2004 he celebrated his 100th birthday in excellent physical
and mental health at the farm surrounded by his immediate family and a few
friends. During the weeks preceding and following his birthday he gave numerous
interviews to science reporters. Many newspapers and journals carried stories
about his life or published variously detailed appreciations of the man and his
work. Even the President of the United States sent his birthday congratulations.
Numerous authors around the world dedicated articles in technical journals to
Mayrontheoccasionofhisbirthday.Hehimself published an autobiographical
sketch on “80 years of watching the evolutionary scenery” (2004b), and his book,
What makes Biology Unique? (2004a) appeared several weeks later. There have
been other scientists who reached an age of 100 years. However, none of them,
it seems, presented his or her fans another book on this occasion. The Nuttall
Ornithological Club had sponsored on behalf of Ernst Mayr a talk by Peter Grant
(Princeton) on 3rd April. He spoke on his long-term studies of Darwin’s Finches on
the Galapagos Islands. A one-day symposium at Harvard’s MCZ celebrated Mayr’s
100th birthday on 10th May. Speakers included W. Bock, D. Futuyma, A. Knoll,
L. Margulis, A. Meyer, I. Rubinoff, K. Shaw, F. Sulloway, and M. J. West-Eberhard.
On 7 June, 2004 a half-day symposium took place in Vienna under the title “Ernst
Mayr–Darwin of the 20th century.” Speakers were Ilse Jahn, Erhard Oeser, Franz
Wuketits, and Gerd Müller. The American Ornithologists’ Union organized a symposium
during its annual meeting in Quebec in August 2004 with the following
speakers: W. Bock on “Ernst Mayr at 100—A life inside and outside of ornithology”
(who also showed a video interview with Mayr made on 8 November 2003),
M. R. Lein on “Ernst Mayr as a life-long naturalist,” F. Vuilleumier on “Ernst Mayr’s
first and last interests–biogeography of birds,” M. LeCroy on “Ernst Mayr as the
Whitney-Rothschild Curator at the American Museum of Natural History,” and
R. Schodde on “Ernst Mayr and southwest Pacific birds: Inspiration for ideas on
speciation” (see Ornithological Monograph 58, 2005). On that occasion, the Fellows
of the American Ornithologists’ Union joined “together to send their hearty
congratulations to Ernst Mayr on this milestone and their best wishes for a continuing
healthy and active life.” After the Secretary of the AOU, his former student
M. Ross Lein, had informed him of the passage of this motion, he replied as
follows:
“There is no other organization with which, over the years, I have been as closely
associated as the American Ornithologists’ Union. Nothing therefore could have
more delighted me than the greetings and congratulations I received from the
AOU on the occasion of my 100th birthday. The society has passed through several