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John Maynard Smith - The Communist Party at Cambridge (16/102)

2,455 views · Published 20 March 2017 · 1:30 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To hear more of John Maynard Smith’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b0Nm_L3TKg&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzJSvAc4MBuUP_GrjO1lLHp

The late British biologist John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) is famous for applying game theory to the study of natural selection. In 1973 Maynard Smith formalised a central concept in game theory called the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). His ideas, presented in books such as 'Evolution and the Theory of Games', were enormously influential and led to a more rigorous scientific analysis and understanding of interactions between living things. [Listener: Richard Dawkins; date recorded: 1997]

TRANSCRIPT: The Communist Party did seem to be the one political party at that time that was really determined to... in opposition to the Fascists and the Nazis, but also they knew that, and proposed that, the British Empire should be broken up and given independence. And I had a number of young Indian friends who later became active in the... in Congress and so on, in India, from whom I learnt about conditions in India and the need for independence in India. So, it was... colonial liberation was an important part of one's sympathy with the Communist Party, and then, much more generally, there were gross inequalities of wealth and income in Britain at that time, which the Communist Party were in favour of altering. So, on a number of immediate issues, I felt sympathetic to the Communist Party. And it was... I mean, I wasn't the only one, many of my generation who minded about what was happening in the world, joined the party. And, I didn't do much work at Cambridge, to be honest. I got a second class honours degree at Cambridge on the strength of the mathematics I'd learned at Eton, essentially, and I spent the rest of my time working and organising the Communist Party, and getting married, which was quite a good thing to do. But... I really didn't do any academic work at Cambridge at all, I'd say.

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