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Michael Ruse on Ernst Mayr

Posted 6 February 2005 by Nick Matzke

Over on the Philosophy of Biology blog Michael Ruse has just written an extensive eulogy of Ernst Mayr. It includes an excellent summary of the importance of Mayr as well as many entertaining anecdotes.

I recently expressed the view that I would be proud to be kicked by Ernst Mayr. It seems that Ruse felt the same way:

But Mayr had many more years of active life. Even last year he was scrounging one of my books from our shared publisher, Harvard University Press, so that he could put the boot into me one more time before he was done. Michael Ruse, Ernst Mayr Eulogy

I have quoted some of the important points and good bits below, but you should really read the whole thing.

4 Comments

Nick (Matzke) · 6 February 2005

One of the several good comments over there:

Here is a little story some of you have not heard. Ernst was a participant at the first IUBS symposium "Towards a Theoretical Biology" in 1966. There is a picture of Ernst at that symposium on the inside of the front cover of the published volume "Towards a Theoretical Biology 1. Prolegomena." He is wearing a checked short-sleeved shirt. Fast forward 27 years to the summer 1993 meeting of ISHPSSB at Brandeis. Ernst was there wearing a light-green and white checked short-sleeved shirt that looked suspiciously like the one in the 1966 picture. So I asked him about it, and he said it was indeed the very same shirt. He said something about giving it to me someday, but that never happened. Malcolm Kottler

Steve F · 6 February 2005

Excellent piece. Thanks for the link Nick.

Chip Poirot · 8 February 2005

As an economist, I greatly appreciate Ernst Mayr (or rather, his writings). In the last year I had the good fortune to stumble onto two of his books "What Evolution Is" and "This is Biology". I've also had the good fortune to meet Michael Ruse a couple of years when he spoke at my University and to read several of Ruse's books.

Economics has long fancied itself a science like physics. A few of us have long argue that it should try to be a science like Biology. Of course, Thorstein Veblen had a famous essay at the turn of the century "Why Economics is not an Evolutionary Science". And then there are those who argue it cannot and should not be a science at all (Which is an altogether different subject).

But in that light, I deeply appreciate Mayr's insights and arguments about why Biology is autonomous and I agree wholeheartedly with his anti-reductionism (holism) which is better termed "emergentism". I also find Mayr's writing to be very clear so that for those of us interested in Biology who lack formal training, Mayr's writings are a great introduction to complex subjects.

Chip Poirot · 8 February 2005

As an economist, I greatly appreciate Ernst Mayr (or rather, his writings). In the last year I had the good fortune to stumble onto two of his books "What Evolution Is" and "This is Biology". I've also had the good fortune to meet Michael Ruse a couple of years when he spoke at my University and to read several of Ruse's books.

Economics has long fancied itself a science like physics. A few of us have long argue that it should try to be a science like Biology. Of course, Thorstein Veblen had a famous essay at the turn of the century "Why Economics is not an Evolutionary Science". And then there are those who argue it cannot and should not be a science at all (Which is an altogether different subject).

But in that light, I deeply appreciate Mayr's insights and arguments about why Biology is autonomous and I agree wholeheartedly with his anti-reductionism (holism) which is better termed "emergentism". I also find Mayr's writing to be very clear so that for those of us interested in Biology who lack formal training, Mayr's writings are a great introduction to complex subjects.