Foundational Papers in Complexity Science pp. 1511–1513
DOI: 10.37911/9781947864542.52
Punctuation and Discontinuities: A New View of History (?)
Author: Douglas H. Erwin, National Museum of Natural History
Excerpt
Ideas often evolve in ways unanticipated by their founders. Sometimes the founders are at least initially unaware of the full ramifications of a concept, but often others extend ideas in new dimensions as they apply them in new contexts. In his many papers and books, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr of Harvard was a central participant in evolution’s modern synthesis as well as a fecund generator of neologisms, including allopatric, cladogram, sibling species, and genetic revolution (Provine 2005) (like Churchill, Mayr wanted to write the first draft of history). The critical role of species and speciation was central to Mayr’s work on speciation, and in advocating his “peripheral isolate” model of speciation he unwittingly unleashed a view of evolution that he would have happily suffocated. Mayr proposed that new species commonly arise among small populations on the margins of a species’ range. In such settings, restricted gene flow and small populations would allow changes to spread easily through a population, become established, and spread if advantageous.
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