Quotes from John Maynard Smith

I can't go around believing in a God that believes suffering is good for me.

Scientific theories tell us what is possible; myths tell us what is desirable. Both are needed to guide proper action.

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

Language changes very fast.

In living organisms, nucleic acid molecules are the only indefinite hereditary replicators, or at least they were until the invention of language and music.

Once it is common, cooperation is evolutionarily stable. The problem is how it becomes common in the first place, because defection is also stable.

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.

The evolution of sex is the hardest problem in evolutionary biology.

You couldn't have human society without language.

Genetics is about how information is stored and transmitted between generations.

I think we invent jargon because it saves times talking to one-another.

Societies depend on agreed rules.