Item #140938737 One Long Argument. Ernst Mayr, Stephen Jay Gould.
One Long Argument
One Long Argument
One Long Argument
One Long Argument

One Long Argument

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.

First edition. Signed by Ernst Mayr to Stephen Jay Gould, inscribed "For Steve Gould champion of Darwinism, dear friend and admired colleague with best wishes [signed] Ernst Mayr." xiv, [2], 195, [1] pp. Original cloth. Fine in Fine dust jacket.

A superb association copy linking two titans of evolutionary biology, whose lives and work were deeply intertwined. Gould was once Mayr's course assistant at Harvard; Gould would go onto teach at Harvard himself as Mayr became a professor emeritus. Most importantly, in 1972 Gould (along with Niles Eldredge) published the groundbreaking article "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism." It introduced the concept of punctuated equilibrium that built on Mayr's earlier theories of genetic revolutions by allopatric and peripatric speciation as applied to the fossil record, overturning the previous orthodoxy that evolution was gradual and consistent. As Mayr would later write, "Whether one accepts this theory, rejects it, or greatly modifies it, there can be no doubt that it had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology." It was also the vindication of Mayr's life's work. This history of Darwin and evolutionary thought details the prologue to and the culmination of both Mayr and Gould's scientific efforts. Item #140938737

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