One of the things I regret during my tenure blogging is that I started doing "10 questions" too late to get in touch with John Maynard Smith. If you haven't, I highly recommend this interview by Robert Wright from a few years ago. Also, Smith wrote one of the more readable introductory texts on Evolutionary Genetics, as well as pioneering the use of game theory in evolutionary biology, introducing the concept of the ESS.
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John Maynard Smith has died.
While many people know who Stephen Jay Gould was or Richard Dawkins is, Id bet few would be able to identify Maynard Smith. Thats a shame, because he played a key role in building the foundations of modern evolutionary biology. (Underlining this point, I only learned…
This three-part series is a talk I gave a while back to some ecologists and molecular biologists. It is a brief overview of the aims and relationship between science and philosophy of science, with a special reference to the classification wars in systematics, and the interface of science and the…
On the 31st of May, 1984, the late evolutionary theorist John Maynard Smith appraised the field of paleontology in the journal Nature. The report was a critical summary of a series of lectures Stephen Jay Gould had given at Cambridge, and Gould considered it "the kindest and most supportive…
If you haven't read Paul Krugman's recent NY Times Magazine article "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?", I recommend it highly. One of the interesting things about Krugman is that he has been talking about this issue for over a decade. In a 1996 lecture, he presented an argument that economics…
Also see this video interview with Richard Dawkins:
http://www.peoplesarchive.com/browse/movies/3701/
Oh and his surname was "Maynard Smith", not "Smith", as Wikipedia tells you.
but the wiki reference doesn't have a reference itself! but yes, you are probably right as he is referred to as 'maynard smith' in the lit. than i have seen....
JMS, the grand old man of evolutionary biology was believed to have been an unpretentious, gentle, good natured person too, unusually accessible to everybody from a first year undergraduate to emeritus alike, quite a stark contrast to his mentor and a person he admired all his life- JBS Haldane.
John Maynard Smith remembered, an excellent collection of such thoughts, witty anecdotes of JMS from his colleagues, students and others(including Dawkins, Szathmary, Felsenstein, the Charlesworths to name a few)over the years makes a worthwhile read.
Nonchalant about earning even any formal PhD degree, his scientific career had given the field such theories of ESS, genetic hitchhiking and works on origin of sex. As rightly pointed out by Prof. Brian Charlesworth in his obituary that "If you are as good as Haldane or Maynard Smith, a Ph.D. is an unnecessary adornment".
A particular favourite of mine from his desk is The Origins of Life co-authored with Eros Szathmary.
Ha! I trump you - I met and had lunch with JMS about three years ago. Lovely guy, and we didn't talk population genetics, but species (he was of the view they are conventions). And I ate the rest of his sandwich. I have been blessed...
I disagree with many thing she said, but there is no doubting that he was an absolute genius, a clear thinker who, it is reputed, would join cafeteria discussions by asking "Is this about words, or the world? If it's about the world, I will join in".
He was a very generous and gentle man. I'm glad to have met him. In a week or so, I go visit Felsenstein, too...