Magazine R145

One Long Argument, the title ofone of Ernst Mayr’s later popularbooks on evolution, in manyways sums up the core of hisintellectual life. Mayr, a leadingevolutionary biologist over manyyears of the past century, whodied aged 100 last month, wasan explorer, naturalist,ornithologist, philosopher,historian of science and Harvardacademic.

Like Darwin, he was studyingmedicine when his focus wasdiverted to natural history. In his20s he grasped opportunities fortropical expeditions and histravels shaped his life. Hisachievements were the result ofbeing profoundly enthralled by thewonders of nature and applyinghis sharp inquisitive mind tofinding logical answers, supportedby scientific research.

Mayr was a birdwatcher fromchildhood, influenced by his father,Otto. At 10, he could identify manyspecies around the southernGerman town of Kempten. But themost significant event that yearwas his sighting of a pair of red-crested pochards, not recorded inGermany since 1846. He recalledthat his life would have beencompletely different had it notbeen for those ducks.

They brought him to theattention of Professor ErwinStresemann, curator of birds atthe Berlin Natural HistoryMuseum; Mayr was invited towork there during vacations,classifying tropical birdspecimens. He recalled it was likebeing ‘given the keys to heaven.’

An ornithology doctoratefollowed in 1925, and he becamethe museum’s curator in 1926. Atthe 1927 International ZoologicalCongress at Budapest, he met thebanker Lord Walter Rothschild,who had a private museum atTring, in southern England.Rothschild was assembling theworld’s most comprehensive birdcollection, and Mayr did nothesitate when offered the job ofNew Guinea staff naturalist. His

1928–29 experiences thereincluded journeys through sixunexplored mountain ranges.

He was then invited to lead a1929–30 expedition to theSolomon Islands, sponsored bythe American philanthropist HarryPayne Whitney. This madeimportant contributions to biology,discovered scores of species and

filled a hall at New York’s Museumof Natural History.

In the early 1930s Mayr wasbriefly curator of Rothschild’sTring collection and might wellhave stayed in England. But whenthe banker plunged into financialcrisis, 280,000 of his bird skinswere sold to the New Yorkmuseum. This was Mayr’s base for

Obituary

Ernst Mayr: 1904 – 2005

Life’s work: This popular book by Ernst Mayr, published in the 1990s, encapsulateshis enthusiasm for Darwin’s evolutionary theory. Mayr’s life in some ways mirroredthat of Darwin’s in the early years.

21 years — as the Whitney-Rothschild collection’s associatecurator from 1932 to 1944, andcurator to 1953.

His early work guidedTheodosius Dobzhansky’sGenetics and the Origin ofSpecies (1937), which founded thesynthetic theory of evolution. WithJulian Huxley and George GaylordSimpson, he helped incorporatenew discoveries by naturalists andpopulation geneticists into theframework of Darwinian theory.

Harvard was important to thesecond half of his life, he wasprofessor of zoology from 1953 to1975 and also directed theuniversity’s Museum ofComparative Zoology from 1961to 1970. His interest inevolutionary biology, and thehistory and philosophy of biologygrew. His Animal Species andEvolution (1963) had new views onthe nature of species.

His later years were dominatedby continuing his argument intothe development of a philosophyof biology. Mayr was acutelyaware of the distinction betweenbiological principles and those ofthe physical sciences. As physicalscience had an increasing inputinto the workings of biology hisplangent voice grew stronger. Hisone long argument, backed by alifetime of solid practical work, issure to endure. “I’m an old-timefighter for Darwinism,” he told theHarvard University Gazette in1991. “I say: ‘Please tell me whatis wrong with Darwinism. I don’tsee anything wrong.’”

Nigel Williams

“Das eigentliche Studium derMenschheit ist der Mensch”,“Mankind’s actual study is man”;with this statement, the Germanpoet and polymath J.W. Goethe(1749–1832) captured the factmuch of human intellectualendeavour — in art, literature andphilosophy — has tried to answerthe question of what it means tobe human. Not far from Goethe’scity of Weimar, in Leipzig, theMax-Planck-Institute forEvolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) provides scientists from aseemingly disparate set of fields,including psychology, linguistics,primatology, paleoanthropologyand genetics, with an idealenvironment to address humanevolution.

Leipzig is now a booming city inthe east of Germany, but theremnants of 40 years ofcommunism, seen by itsproponents as a practical answerto the human condition, are stilltangible throughout the town.There are fading signs advertisingproducts from the ‘people’sfactories’, a brass plate on a hotelannouncing the fact that KarlMarx, ‘founder of scientificsocialism’ spent a night here, andthe characteristic ready-madehousing blocks, the‘Plattenbauten’ that line the widestreets for miles.

Amidst such blocks the Max-Planck society, Germany’sleading research body, has setup a stylish and light newbuilding which has been thehome of the MPI-EVA since 2003.When officially founded in 1997,the MPI-EVA was the firstinstitute of anthropology startedby the Max-Planck society sincethe end of World War II. This

reluctance to be involved inanthropology was in large partdue to the fact that Hitler’snational socialist regime hadabused anthropology — in thosetimes called ‘Rassenkunde’ (thestudy of races) — to provide ascientific foundation for thesuperiority of a white race andthe crimes committed againsthumans all over Europe in itswake. The rehabilitation ofanthropology in Germany is likelyto have been facilitated by theclear evidence from modernmolecular genetic data againstthe idea that there are largedifferences between, and relativehomogeneity within, so-calledraces.

The tower of BabelWhat makes us human? Part ofthe answer lies in our ability to askthe question: language. Of course,other animals do have —sometimes sophisticated —communication systems, but thehuman language is unique in itscomplexity and versatility, a factthat is reflected in the sheernumber of different languages.Today something like 6500languages exist, each with acomparably high grammatical andlexical complexity. In the past,largely influenced by NoamChomsky’s enormous body ofwork, linguistics has emphasisedthe universal features of grammarand language.

A group of linguists in Leipzig,however, takes a differentapproach. Martin Haspelmath andBernard Comrie are charting thetypological differences andgrammatical complexity of theworld’s languages. The outcomeof this 5-year effort involving

Current Biology Vol 15 No 5R146

Darwin’s champion: Ernst Mayr, whodied last month, spent his researchcareer bolstering Darwinism.

Feature

Planet of the apes

What makes us humans so special? Our language, our genes, ourculture, our cognitive skills? At the Max-Planck-Institute for EvolutionaryAnthropology in Leipzig, psychologists, linguists and biologists tacklethis old question in a truly multidisciplinary way. Their results haveimplications not just for our understanding of human evolution — theyalso touch directly on many social and environmental issues. FlorianMaderspacher reports.