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PIONEERING PARADIGMS AND MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTOS—LEIGH VAN VALEN'S PRICELESS CONTRIBUTIONS TO EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Author(s) -
Liow Lee Hsiang,
Simpson Carl,
Bouchard Frédéric,
Damuth John,
Hallgrimsson Benedikt,
Hunt Gene,
McShea Dan W.,
Powell Jeffrey R.,
Stenseth Nils C.,
Stoller Melissa K.,
Wagner Gunter
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01242.x
Subject(s) - biology , honor , common descent , evolutionary biology , evolutionary developmental biology , evolutionary theory , epistemology , phylogenetic tree , genetics , philosophy , computer science , gene , operating system
Evolutionary biology lost a unique, broad, creative, and influential thinker when Leigh Van Valen1 passed away on October 16, 2010 in Chicago at the age of 75. He was Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and served on the Committees on Evolutionary Biology, Conceptual Foundations of Science and Genetics. Unwritten ideas still coursed through his ceaselessly active mind as he fought and lost his last battle against phylogenetically distant and diverse microbes. We are a multiflavored group who wants to honor this extraordinary thinker and teacher, and to bring broad attention to Leigh’s life’s work, much of which was ahead of his times. We reflect briefly on his work on mammal evolution, energy as an organizing principle in ecology and evolution, adaptation, evo–devo, homology and complexity, even though his “interests go beyond what this blurb indicates,” quoting directly from his homepage. Leigh’s niche in biology has been to open up new areas of research without attempting to provide final answers to the novel questions he identified. He synthesized empirical observations into a cohesive paradigm that often unified traditional disciplines.