Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

12 Summary: Appreciation of Ernst Mayr’s Science 379
the world totaling 17 honorary PhD degrees, 35 medals, and 52 honorary society
memberships. Yet he was most proud of having the library at the Museum of
Comparative Zoology named after him, as he considered the collected knowledge
stored in libraries the most important part of human culture.
Ernst Mayr himself classified a scientist’s achievements which may lie in several
different areas:
“As an innovator (new discoveries, new theories, new concepts), as a synthesizer
(bringing together scattered information, sharing relationships and interactions,
particularly between different disciplines, like genetics and taxonomy), as a disseminator
(presenting specialized information and theory in such a way that it
becomes accessible to non-specialists [popularizer is a misleading term]), as a compiler
or cataloguer,asananalyst (dissecting complex issues, clarifying matters by
suggesting new terminologies, etc.), and in other ways” (see Provine 2005).
In the sense of this classification, Mayr was a compiler or cataloguer in much
of his ornithological work at the American Museum which formed the empirical
basisforhislatertheoreticalstudies.Hepublishednumerousarticlesandbookson
the birds of New Guinea, the Philippines and the islands of the SW Pacific based on
the biological species concept. He never considered this taxonomic work as an end
in itself but always as a means to go beyond it. Since his student days he pursued
a synthesis of systematics, evolution and genetics, as documented by his letter to
E. Stresemann of May 1924, when he was 19 years old (p. 27), by his discussions
in 1927 (p. 45) and his letter to Th. Dobzhansky in 1935 (p. 185). His synthesis
of systematics, evolutionary biology, natural history and population genetics in
his book, Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942e) was a major achievement
followed, in 1963 and 1970, by his magisterial syntheses of evolutionary biology
(Animal Species and Evolution; Populations, Species, and Evolution). Mayr made
“the species problem” a central concern of evolutionary biology. Other major syntheses
were his textbook, the Principles of Systematic Zoology (1969b) as well as
his comprehensive works on the history of biology (1982d) and on the philosophy
of biology (1997b, 2004a). Mayr was clearly a major synthesizer of biology and
also a master analyst. He dissected such complex concepts as population thinking,
Darwin’s five theses of evolution, chance and necessity in evolution, functional
(proximate) and historical (ultimate) causations, biological classification and cladification,
teleology and many others; and he proposed new terminologies clarifying
many complex issues (1978c). For numerous existing evolutionary concepts Mayr
wasaneffectivedisseminator like biological species concept, gene pool, isolating
mechanisms of species, geographical (allopatric) speciation and others. New theories
which he proposed as an innovator include his theory of island biogeography
(1933j, 1940i) and his founder principle or theory of genetic revolutions (1954c).
The latter is quite controversial but has stimulated a large amount of research.
Also his syntheses include various new insights like his concept of population
thinking and his discussions of the autonomy of biology. Mayr’s roles as visionary,
organizer and community architect are obvious from his functions as president of
various scientific societies and director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology
(Harvard University) as well as founding editor of the journal Evolution. Hewas