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John Maynard Smith (1920-2004)
Get PDFThe evolutionist John Maynard Smith passed away on April 19th at the age of 84. His contribution to evolutionary theory and ecology is as important as his life and the circumstances of his scientific career are fascinating. Surprisingly, he never presented a doctoral thesis and obtained a doctorate degreeEl pasado día 19 de abril falleció, a la edad de 84 años, el evolucionista John Maynard Smith. Su contribución a la teoría evolutiva y a la ecología es tan importante como fascinante su vida y las circunstancias de su carrera científica. Sorprendentemente, nunca llegó a presentar una tesis doctoral y obtener el grado de docto
John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) "One of the last grand evolutionary theorists of the 20th Century"
Get PDFThere is virtually no area of evolutionary biology to which John Maynard Smith did not make a significant contribution. In this essay I try to present a flavour of his accomplishments
John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) "One of the last grand evolutionary theorists of the 20th Century"
No full textThere is virtually no area of evolutionary biology to which John Maynard Smith did not make a significant contribution. In this essay I try to present a flavour of his accomplishments
John Maynard Smith and evolutionary game theory
No full textWhen John Maynard Smith passed away on April 19, 2004, most obituaries expressed the view that among the amazing wealth of his contributions to theoretical biology, the most significant was the introduction of game theoretical methods for the analysis of evolutionary problems. JMS would probably have agreed with this. In an essay entitled 'Evolution and the Theory of Games' (Maynard Smith 1976), he set out to trace the history of this idea. With his characteristic blend of generosity and objectivity, he made it clear that he was not the first to discover the usefulness of game theory in evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, it is right to view him as the father of evolutionary game theory..
John Maynard Smith 6 January 1920–19 April 2004
No full textI first met John Maynard Smith in 1979 when he came to India to participate in the Mahabaleshwar Seminar on Modern Biology (figure 1). The theme of the Seminar that year was ‘Evolution of Social Behaviour’. It was an extraordinarily lively meeting, held just when the sociobiology debates were hotting up. I still remember his talk vividly. He spoke on Group Selection and the fallacy of Wynne-Edwards’s approach, which depended on the existence of adaptations that were advantageous to the group but disadvantageous to the individual. Mahabaleshwar is a picturesque hill resort and no one who goes there can forget the loud, periodic, synchronous calls of hundreds of cicadas. Right in the middle of Maynard Smith’s lecture, just when he was describing Wynne-Edwards’s theory, there erupted a burst of cicada singing. In an impressively rapid reaction, Maynard Smith said something along the following lines: If Wynne-Edwards were here he would surely have argued that the cicadas are singing in unison in order to assess their population density. Then they would adjust their rate of reproduction so that the habitat would not be over-exploited and the species would not run the risk of going extinct. David Lack and George C Williams had done much in the 1960s to discipline biologists against making such naive group selectionist arguments. But it was the publication of two brief letters to Nature, one by Maynard Smith and the other by Christopher Perrins, that really began to clarify the issues of levels of selection – an issue that has been central to evolutionary biology ever since. It is due to this clarification that we recognize today the power of individual selection, recognize the need for kin selection to explain bona fide examples of altruism and are prepared to consider cases of genuine group selectio
Scientific broadcasting as a social responsibility? John Maynard Smith on radio and television in the 1960s and 1970s
Get PDFJohn Maynard Smith (1920–2004) was one of Britain's most eminent evolutionary biologists. For over forty years, from 1954 onwards, he also regularly appeared on radio and television. He primarily acted as a scientific expert on biology, but in the late 1960s and the 1970s he often spoke on the implications of science (biology and more generally) for society. Through four case studies, this paper analyses Maynard Smith's scientific broadcasting against developments within the BBC as well as the relation between science and society in Britain. It finds that while Maynard Smith acknowledged and accepted increasing mediation through the BBC and its producers, he stayed publicly and privately critical of both format and content decisions in his reflections on the science–media relationship. At the same time, we find that over a decade before the 1985 report by the Royal Society on the public understanding of science, Maynard Smith came to think of engagement with the public via the media as scientists’ responsibility
'The Most Bogus Ideas': Science, Religion and Creationism in the John Maynard Smith Archive
Get PDFThe science and religion question is one of continued interest in academia and in the non-academic public. In terms of biology, discussions almost inevitably revolve around evolution and (human) origins, contrasting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection to the Biblical account of creation and origins in Genesis. The eminent British evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) engaged with religion more generally and creationism specifically. His archive, held by the British Library, contains relevant material from the 1960s to the 1980s: Maynard Smith kept publications sent to him by Jehovah's Witnesses, discussed the differences between science and religion on school radio, and publicly debated with creationists twice. These engagements reveal that for Maynard Smith there was a choice to be made between science and religion; he chose science. Religion may have poetic value but it lacks the explanatory powers of science. Especially during his encounters with creationists and their extreme views, Maynard Smith made use of Karl Popper's philosophy of science (in particular, Popper's concept of falsifiability) to demonstrate that creationism was not a scientific theory and thus not a valid contestant in answering questions about life and (human) origins
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The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language
No full textWhen John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary published The Major Transitions in Evolution, it was seen as a major work in biology. Nature hailed it as a book of "grand and daunting sweep.... A splendid and rewarding tour de force." And New Scientist wrote that it captured "the essence of modern biology," calling it "an extremely significant book which, as a bonus, is very readable." Now, in The Origins of Life, Maynard Smith and Szathmary have completely rewritten Transitions to bring their ideas to a wider audience of general readers. Here is a brilliant, state-of-the-art account of how life evolved on earth, focusing primarily on six major transitions--dramatic breakthroughs in the way that information was passed between generations. The authors offer illuminating explorations of the origin of life itself, the arrival of the first cells with nuclei, the first reproduction by sexual means, the appearance of multicellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperation and of animal societies, and the birth of language. The Origins of Life represents the thinking of two leading scientists on questions that engage us all--how life began and how it gradually evolved from tiny invisible cells into whales and trees and human beings
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