Polemics and Synthesis : Ernst Mayr

A hundred years is but an instant in evolutionary time; however during his life that spanned a century, Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the pattern and process of evolution. An ornithologist and systematist by training, Mayr embraced Darwinism and championed the cause of evolutionary biology throughout his long and highly productive career. Though best remembered for his proposal of the biological species concept, Mayr was also one of the architects involved in the evolutionary synthesis of the twentieth century that unified Darwin's ideas of evolution and Mendel's laws of heredity and brought together population geneticists and naturalists-systematists. This article is a tour through the shifting contours of the intellectual landscape of evolutionary thought during Mayr's lifetime. It will, however, be a selective tour because it will only highlight concepts and controversies that Mayr was either involved in, or those that are necessary to understand Mayr's contributions to the study of evolution and his interactions with other biologists.