April 22, 2004

John Maynard Smith

Posted by Chris

John Maynard Smith, pioneer of the application of game theory to evolutionary biology, has died. There are obituaries in the Times , Guardian and Telegraph .

Posted on April 22, 2004 08:10 AM UTC
Comments
Gould occupies a rather curious position, particularly on his side of the Atlantic. Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the pre-eminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists. All this would not matter, were it not that he is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory.

Isn’t this blog opposed to JMS? Or is it the commentariat?

I keed, I keed. Too bad about his passing.

Posted by rilkefan · April 22, 2004 08:29 AM

Maynard Smith should not be lumped in w/ vulgar socio-biologists and evolutionary psychologists like Pinker. His work is drawn on by them, but he’s much more subtle and didn’t support the views they do, at least not in the same ways. This can be seen from reading his excellent little book, The Problems of Biology, which I greatly recommend.

Posted by Matt · April 22, 2004 05:30 PM

Reminds me a bit of his namesake Keynes in a way. At least he lived to old age.

Posted by Chris · April 22, 2004 11:46 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.