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Тhе сепtгаl роіпt геmаіпs that Darwin provided a theory which predicts that organisms should have parts adapted to ensure their survival and reproduction. This has led to the suggestion that life should be defined by the possession of those properties which are needed to ensure evolution by natural selection. That is, entities with the properties of multiplication, variation, and heredity are alive, and entities lacking one or more of those properties are not.

— John Maynard Smith The Problems of Biology (1986)

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More quotes by John Maynard Smith

It is an occupational risk of biologists to claim, towards the end of their careers, that the problems which they have not solved are insoluble.

John Maynard Smith (1988)

Evolutionary game theory is a way of thinking about evolution at the phenotypic level when the fitnesses of particular phenotypes depend on their frequencies in the population.

Evolution and the Theory of Games (1973)

The main task of any theory of evolution is to explain adaptive complexity, that is, to explain the same set of facts that Paley used as evidence of a creator.

It is in the nature of science that once a position becomes orthodox it should be subjected to criticism.... It does not follow that, because a position is orthodox, it is wrong.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe.

The Theory of Evolution (1958)

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Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Maynard Smith (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.