John Maynard Smith

John Maynard Smith.

John Maynard Smith was one of the most original thinkers in evolutionary biology of the post neo-Darwinian synthesis age. He was able to define new problems with clarity and by doing so open up new research directions. He did this in a number of areas including game theory and evolution, the evolution of sex, animal behavior, evolutionary transitions and molecular evolution. Although he is best...

John Maynard Smith (1920–2004)

John Maynard Smith, who died of lung cancer last month at the age of 84, was one of the most influential evolutionary biologists of his generation. He grew up in rural Somerset and was educated at Eton College. There he was stimulated by the writings of J.B.S. Haldane, a life-long influence. As he explained in the introduction to his collection of Haldane’s writings On Being the Right Size, “I ...

Evolution. Retrospective: in memory of John Maynard Smith (1920-2004).

The Maynard Smith model of sympatric speciation.

The paper entitled "Sympatric speciation," which was published by John Maynard Smith in 1966, initiated the development of mathematical models aiming to identify the conditions for sympatric speciation. A part of that paper was devoted to a specific two-locus, two-allele model of sympatric speciation in a population occupying a two-niche system. Maynard Smith provided some initial numerical res...

In between Schelling and Maynard-Smith

In the history of agent-based/Alife simulations helping to better understand some unexpected social consequences emerging out of interactive individual behaviors, two models have become quite celebrated: the Schelling’s segregation model and the Maynard-Smith’s emergence of cooperation in an albeit very defective world. In this paper, we explore a simulation at the crossroad of these two models...