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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.

— John Maynard Smith

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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.

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)

Paradoxically, it has turned out that game theory is more readily applied to biology than to the field of economic behavior for which it was originally designed

Evolution and the Theory of Games (1973)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

Attribution

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.