Obituary: Ernst Mayr; Evolutionary biologist who saw himself as an `old-time fighter for Darwin'.(Obituaries) From: The Independent (London, England) | Date: February 10, 2005| Author: | COPYRIGHT 2005 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Byline: Peter Marren

ERNST MAYR was one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists. He was the last surviving architect of the unifying "evolutionary synthesis" developed in the 1930s and 1940s, which integrated Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with the principles of heredity embodied in the science of genetics. He took Darwin's work a vital stage further, by showing how species were actually formed: not by the infinitesimally slow drift of geological time as envisaged by Darwin, but comparatively quickly, and as a result not of change but of isolation.