3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

12 Summary: Appreciation of Ernst Mayr’s Science 381
ition to New Guinea in 1928, his assuming a leadership role in evolutionary studies
in the United States during the mid-1940s, his spokesmanship for systematics and
evolutionary biology during the 1960s and his later leadership roles in the fields of
history and philosophy of biology. Yet he also knew his limits, for example when
he restricted his book on species and evolution (1963b) to animal species rather
than also including plants, as several friends had suggested. He was a vigorous
campaigner and an indefatigable street fighter for his ideas which he presented,
rephrased and discussed again from a different angle and in a different context,
and which he defended always with clarity, authority, and wisdom in a lucid,
elegant, entertaining and engaging style as well as in an often brilliant manner of
exposition. His contributions will continue to spawn discussions among biologists,
historians and philosophers of biology. Mayr was willing to discuss matters with
anybody, whether an experienced colleague or a hesitant graduate student. And
he answered enquiries without delay and promptly reviewed manuscripts in detail
for friends, students and journal editors and supported students and young colleagues
in many other ways. He and his wife Gretel selflessly invested much time
and money to support European ornithologists during the immediate postwar
years of the mid- and late-1940s. He was also generous with his money received for
academic prizes which he gave to purposes of education and conservation. Everybody
who corresponded with him knows how helpful and stimulating his detailed
letters were. His social skills enabled him to establish excellent relationships with
the native tribes in the areas of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands that he
visited in the late 1920s and with many colleagues during his professional years as
well as to forge friendships later in his life with people that were much younger
than himself. He influenced several generations of biologists and philosophers of
biology worldwide with his ideas and his publications. He lived a full life and kept
his mind busy all the time with projects and new plans until the month before
he died on February 3rd, 2005 at the age of 100 years and seven months. With
his passing, the light of the “rising star” of 1924 was not extinguished, because it
kindled a fireworks of ideas which will continue to radiate within biological science
for a long time to come.