Excerpt

Some fifty years ago, John Maynard Smith introduced with “The Theory of Games and the Evolution of Animal Conflicts” a new branch of social mathematics. It shaped evolutionary thinking in a decisive way. Its central concept was that of an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy, or ESS. This idea proved singularly fruitful and soon grew far beyond its original purpose. It became the foundation stone of evolutionary game theory, indeed initiating a revolution in game theory—a development all the more remarkable as Maynard Smith never shrank from cheerfully admitting that his expertise in that field was modest, at best.

The paper was published in 1974. In 1976, a young British scientist and author wrote: “I have a hunch that we may come to look back on the invention of the ESS concept as one of the most important advances in evolutionary theory since Darwin.” The man with the hunch was Richard Dawkins. His best-selling book The Selfish Gene enjoyed breathtaking success, both with the general public and with experts on evolution by natural selection. Its fifth chapter was entirely devoted to an enthusiastic, nontechnical presentation of the concept of ESS. With such a boost, the idea could not fail to achieve instant celebrity.

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