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The Theory of Evolution (Penguin Books, 1956)

The Evolution of Sex (Cambridge University Press, 1978)

Evolution and the Theory of Games (Cambridge University Press, 1982)

The Problems of Biology (Oxford University Press, 1986)

Chapman and Hall
New York

First published in 1989 by

Chapman & Hall

an imprint of

Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc.

29 West 35 Street

New York, NY 10001

© 1988 John Maynard Smith

Printed in Great Britain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Maynard Smith, John, 1920-

Did Darwin get it right : essays on games, sex, and evolution / John Maynard Smith, p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-412-01911-6 : $22.50

1. Evolution. 2. Sex (Biology). 3. Game theory. I. Title. QH371.M298 1989 89-21809

575—del 9 CIP

Contents

Acknowledgements

The author and the publishers wish to thank the following publishers for kind permission to reproduce the following articles in this book.

Chapter 1, How to win the Nobel Prize: first published as a review of James Watson's The Double Helix, in The Listener, Vol. 79, No. 2042, 16 May 1968.

Chapter 2, Storming the Fortress, first published as a review of Ernst Mayr's The Growth of Biological Thought in The New York Review of Books, May 1982.

Chapter 3, Symbolism and Chance: first published in Scientific Philosophy Today, ed. J. Agassi and R. S. Cohen, D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1981.

Chapter 4, Science and the Media: first published as Presidential Address to the Zoological Section of the Association for the Advancement of Science, 1983.

Chapter 5, Molecules are not Enough: first published as a review of Richard Levins and R. C. Lewontin's The Dialectical Biologist, in The London Review of Books, February 1986.  {259} 

Chapter 7, The Birth of Sociobiology: first published in The New Scientist, September 1985.

Chapter 8, Models of Cultural and Genetic Change: first published as a reivew of L. L. Cavalli-Sforza and M. W. Feldman's Cultural Transmission and Evolution, and C. J. Lumsden and E. O. Wilson's Mind and Culture, in Evolution, 1982.

Chapter 9, Constraints on Human Nature: first published as a review of E. O. Wilson's On Human Nature, in Nature, November 1978.

Chapter 10, Biology and the Behaviour of Man: first published as a review of Philip Kitcher's Vaulting Ambition, in Nature, November 1985.

Chapter 11, Tinkering: first published as a reivew of Stephen Gould's The Panda's Thumb, in The London Review of Books, September 1981.

Chapter 12, Boy or Girl: first published as a review of Eric Charnov's The Theory of Sex Allocation, in The London Review of Books, February 1985.

Chapter 13, Genes and Memes: first published as a review of Richard Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype, in The London Review of Books, February 1982.

Chapter 14, Natural Selection of Culture?: first published as a reivew of R. Boyd and D. Richerson's Culture and the Evolutionary Process, in The New York Review of Books, November 1986.

Chapter 15, Palaeontology at the High Table: first published in Nature, May 1984.

Chapter 16, Current Controversies in Evolutionary Biology: first published as chapter 10 of Dimensions of Darwinism, ed. M. Grene, Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Chapter 17, Did Darwin Qet it Right?: first published in The London Review of Books, June/July 1981.

Chapter 18, Do we Need a New Evolutionary Paradigm?:  {260}  first published as a review of M. W. Ho and P. T. Saunders' (eds) Beyond Neo-Darwinism, in The New Scientist, 14th March 1985.

Chapter 20, The Limitations of Evolutionary Theory: first published in The Encyclopaedia of Ignorance, ed. R. Duncan and M. Weston-Smith, Pergamon, 1977.

Chapter 21, The Evolution of Animal Intelligence: first published in Minds, Machines and Evolution, ed. C. Hookway, Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Chapter 22, Evolution and the Theory of Games: first published in American Scientist, Vol. 64, No. 1, January/ February 1976.

Chapter 23, The Counting Problem: first published in Towards a Theoretical Biology, ed. C. H. Waddington, Edinburgh University Press, 1986.

Chapter 24, Understanding Science: first published as a review of Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler's The Laws of the Game, in The London Review of Books, June 1982.

Chapter 25, Matchsticks, Brains and Curtain Rings: first published in New Scientist, February 1984.

Chapter 26, Hypercycles and the Origin of Life: first published in Nature, August 1979.

Chapter 27, Popper's World: first published as a review of Karl Popper's The Open Universe, in The London Review of Books, August 1983.

Chapter 28, Rottenness is All: first published as a review of Ilya Progogine and Isabelle Stengers' Order out of Chaos, in The London Review of Books, March 1984.

Index

Adaptationist Programme, 87-8

Alexander, R., 46, 89, 91

Analog Computers, 232-3

Aquinas, 9, 12

Aristotle, 8, 12

Attenborough, D., 26

Axelrod, R., 197

Baboons, 198, 212-14

Bateson, W., 12

Bauplans, 154-6

Bean-bag Genetics, 13-14

Bellamy, D., 26

Bernal, J.D., 44-5

Bernal Lecture, 2

Boltzmann, L., 252-3

Boyd, R., 114-21, 259

Buffon, G.L., 9

Burke, James, 29

Cain, A.J., 135

Calculus, 6

Canalization, 127

Cardano, J., 20

Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., 62-7, 76-7, 117, 259

Chagnon, N., 70, 91

Chargaff, E., 3

Charles worth, B., 142

Charnov, E., 98-104, 259

Chetverikov, S.S., 13

Chinese Science, 17-18

Chomsky, N., 58

Cladism, 133-4, 158

Creationism, 25

Crick, F.H.C., 3, 5, 6, 48

Cuvier, G., 12

Darlington, CD., 110, 115

Darwin, C, 9, 10, 13, 20, 23, 24, 27, 39, 43-6, 94-5, 114, 127, 152-3, 156-57, 165, 175

Dawkins, R., 28, 35, 55, 59, 77, 105-13, 255, 259

Demographic transition, 65

Determinism, 245-8, 251

Developmental Constraints, 142-3, 151-2, 159-60

de Vries, H., 11

Dialectics, 34-7

Dickemann, M., 91

Dissipative Structures, 254

DNA, 4-7, 34, 49, 60, 107-9, 167, 184, 189, 255

transfer in prokaryotes, 172

Dodzhansky, Th., 8

Dorze, 15-16, 21, 40-2

Double Helix, 3-7

Dover, G., 128

Drift, genetic 188

Drosophila, 175-6

Eccles, J.C., 248-9

Eigen, M., 130, 225-30, 238-42, 260

Einstein, A., 43, 245, 251, 256

Eldredge, N., 11, 131

Entropy, 253

ESS, 56, 74, 194-7, 200, 207-15

Essentialism, 8-10, 12  {262} 

Eukaryotes, 172-3

Extinctions, 129-30, 185

Feedback, delayed, 226

Feldman, M.W., 62-7, 76-7, 117, 259

Fermat, P. de, 20

Ferrari, L., 20

Feynman, R., 29

Fincham, J., 127

Fischer, E., 103

Fisher, R.A., 8, 13, 14, 55, 99-101, 135, 143, 177, 203-4

Fox, S., 158

Franklin, R., 3, 5

Free Will, 100, 248-9

Galapagos Islands, 10

Galton, F., 13

Gambling, 20-1

Genetic Code, origin of, 241

Genetic Determinism, 82-3, 109-10

Gilbert, L., 214

Golschmidt, R., 35, 134-5, 146

Gorczynski, G.M., 160

Gould, S.J., 11, 21, 28, 88, 93-7, 125-30, 131, 134, 146, 148, 154, 259

Group Selection, 54, 106, 186

Gruber, H.E., 153

Guardian, the, 21, 24

Hadamard, J., 247

Haldane, J.B.S., 13, 14, 22, 26, 27, 32, 55, 88, 96, 110, 144, 187, 192, 247

Hallam, A., 130

Hamilton, W.D., 55, 101, 106-7, 197, 204

Hegel, G.W.F., 36, 37

Hennig, W., 133-4

Hermaphroditism, 102-3, 173-4

Hessen, B., 45

Hierarchies, 127

Himmelfarb, G., 11

Ho, M.W., 160, 161, 260

Hopeful Monster, 134-6, 153

Homosexuality, 39-40

Hull, D., 133

Huxley, J., 12, 22

Huxley, T.H., 12

Huygens, C., 20

Hybrid Vigour, 166-7

Hypercycles, 237-43

I Ching, 17-19, 41

Incest Avoidance, 58-9, 85

Inclusive Fitness, 107

Infanticide, 91

Isomorphism, 42, 232

Jones, J.S., 126

Jones, Peter, 27

Kimura, M., 161, 188

Kin Selection, 192-3

Kitcher, P., 86-92, 259

Kuhn, T., 46-8, 244

Kummer, J., 212-13

Lack, D, 105

Lakatos, I., 44

Lamarckism, 24, 31-2, 49, 180, 257

Lande, R., 136

Language, evolution of, 65-6

Laplace, P., 245, 251

Lawlor, L., 215

Leach, E., 76

Leibnitz, G.W., 6

Levins, R., 30-8, 258

Levi-Strauss, C., 58

Lewontin, R.C., 30-8, 69, 88, 207, 258

Linnaeus, 9, 12

Lions, 55-6

Lumsden, C.J., 57, 67-78, 80, 117, 259  {263} 

Lyell, C, 12

Lysenko, T.D., 31-2, 38, 59, 159

Macaulay, T.B., 11

Malthus, T.R., 45, 114

Mammal-like Reptiles, 138-40

Marxism, 30-8, 44-5

Matsuno, K., 157,

Maxwell, J.C., 252

Mayr, E., 8-14, 35, 133, 146, 161, 258

Medawar, P.B. 24, 28, 96

Memes, 108

Mendel, G., 4, 10

Mendel's laws, 60, 119

Mendelians, 10-11, 47-8

Miller, Jonathan, 26

Mimicry, 159-60

Modern Synthesis, 10-11

Molecular Drive, 128

Molecular Genetics 36

Moment, B.G., 224

Monod, J., 50

Morgan, E., 40

Morgan, T.H., 12

Muller, H.J., 142

Mutation, 10-11, 20, 151, 166-7, 181

rate of 182-4

Myth, 21, 39-50

Nash Equilibrium, 195-6

Needham, J., 17-18

Nelson, G.J., 158

Newton, I., 4, 6, 45, 251, 253

Oparin, A.I., 32

Origin of Life, 158, 237-42, 249

Origin of Species, 12

Packer, C., 198, 213

Pandas, 93

Pangloss's Theorem, 88

Parker, G.A., 210-11, 214

Parthenogenesis, 166, 168-71, 186

Pascal, B., 20

Pauling, L., 4, 7

Pearson, K., 38, 47-8, 59

Piaget, J., 75-6

Platnick, N., 158

Pollard, J.W., 160

Popper, K., 43-4, 46, 96, 244-9, 260

Price, G.R., 204-5

Prigogine, I., 250-7, 260

Prisoner's Dilemma, 196

Probability, propensity theory of, 247

Prokaryotes, 172

Punctuationism, 11, 24, 125-7, 131-6, 148-54

Queues, 198-200

Randomness, 15, 19

Raup, D., 142

Reciprocal Altruism, 197-8

Red Queen Hypothesis, 133, 168, 183, 185

Richerson, D., 114-21, 259

RNA, 237-42

Rorschach Test, 17

Rotifers, 168

Saunders, P.T., 159, 161, 260

Schuster, P., 238-42

Seilacher, A., 130

Sex,

determination, 100, 104

differences, 84-5, 173

evolution of, 165-73

Sex Ratio, 98-101, 174-5, 203-4

Sexual Selection, 175-8

Shaw, G.B., 21, 40, 42

Simpson, G.G., 125, 151

Slijper, E.J., 135

Smith, Don, 39-40, 42

Snow, C.P., 225  {264} 

Social Contract Game, 199-201

Species, 8-10, 126-7

species selection, 128-9, 137-42, 146, 154, 168, 186

variation in space, 152

Sperber, D., 15-17, 40-2

Stanley, S.M., 11, 131, 132, 149

Steele, E.J., 24, 25, 160

Stengers, I., 250-7, 260

Stern., 159

Structuralism, 16

Sumner, J.B., 153

Sunday Times, 24

Symbolism, 15-21, 40-2

Teilhard de Chardin, 94

Television, 22-8

Thermodynamics, 157, 257

Thomson, K.S., 135-6

Times, the, 24

Tools, evolution of, 66

Trivers, R.L., 197

Turing, A.M., 159, 222, 256

Van Valen, L., 133, 183

Vavilov, N.I., 159

Vrba, E., 129, 158, 161

Waddington, C.H., 75, 82, 127

Wake, D., 126

Wallace, A.R., 10, 13, 45, 94, 114

War of Attrition, 209-10

Watson, J.D., 3-7, 48, 258

Weismann A., 13, 189

Wells, H.G., 22

Werren, J., 101

Wicken, J.S., 157

Wiley, R.H., 198

Williams, G.C., 171, 185, 186

Williamson, P., 150

Wilson, E.O., 46, 53, 57, 67-78, 81-5, 89-91, 117, 259

Winkler, R., 225-30, 260

Wittgenstein, L., 230

Wolpert, L., 219, 224

Woolf, B., 36

Wright, S., 13, 14, 137, 143-6

Wynne-Edwards, V.C., 54-5, 106

X-ray crystallography, 3, 6

Yanomamo Indians, 70

Zhabotinsky's Reaction, 254-5