A Quote by John Maynard Smith

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

John Maynard Smith

Quote Topics

Applied Behavior Biology Designed Economic Field Game More Originally Out Readily Than Theory Turned Which

Quote Author

John Maynard Smith
British - Scientist
January 6, 1920 - April 19, 2004

We do have tendency, now in biology especially to make up stories, to make theoretical biology a kind of game, in fact we have game theory in biology which is meant to use the theory of games to make predictions or explain things.

Richard Lewontin

Game theory is a branch of, originally, applied mathematics, used mostly in economics and political science, a little bit in biology, that gives us a mathematical taxonomy of social life, and it predicts what people are likely to do and believe others will do in cases where everyone's actions affect everyone else.

Colin Camerer

After preliminary work by a number of other distinguished mathematicians and economists, game theory as a systematic theory started with von Neumann and Morgenstern's book, 'Theory of Games and Economic Behavior,' published in 1944.

John Harsanyi

The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts - and not absolute and general.

Jiang Zemin

Behavior is the theory of manners practically applied.

Bill Vaughan

Evolutionary game theory was originally developed as an alternative to the hypothesis of group selection; now it is clear that game theory models postulate group selection, even if they do not use the g-word.

Elliott Sober

Originally, I was in high school, and I was studying biology, and I got really interested in the field of medicine. And then, I got a lot of early exposure to it because my father's a physician, and I saw the relationship that he had with his patients, and it was something that drew my attention to how wonderful the field was.

Mikhail Varshavski

For Marx, 'pure' economic theory, that is economic theory which abstracts from a specific social structure, is impossible.

Ernest Mandel

A theory that denies that thoughts can regulate actions does not lend itself readily to the explanation of complex human behavior.

Albert Bandura

I can observe the game theory is applied very much in economics. Generally, it would be wise to get into the mathematics as much as seems reasonable because the economists who use more mathematics are somehow more respected than those who use less. That's the trend.

John Forbes Nash, Jr.

At a Texas college, a football field that was turned into a farm. The Tigers of Paul Quinn College lost more football games than they won on this field. So, years ago, when the historically black college on the South Side of Dallas was in financial crisis and had a 1 percent graduation rate, a new president turned everything over, including the football field.

Hari Sreenivasan

I was going to be a writer, and that turned into journalist. And then that turned into a career in children's literature, which turned into early childhood education, which turned into psychology, which turned into premed, which turned into nursing school, which turned into communication, which turned into marketing and advertising.

Damaris Phillips

What we're starting to see is a quantum biology, it being applied in biology and cosmology and a host of other sciences, because it does really pertain to how we know. It really helps bring epistemology, which is how do we know what we know, out of the realm of philosophy and brings it into the realm of science.

Edgar Mitchell

Creationists reject Darwin's theory of evolution on the grounds that it is "just a theory". This is a valid criticism: evolution is indeed merely "a theory", albeit one with ten billion times more credence than the theory of creationism - although, to be fair, the theory of creationism is more than just a theory. It's also a fairy story. And children love fairy stories, which is presumably why so many creationists are keen to have their whimsical gibberish taught in schools.

Charlie Brooker

Whether or not science can be applied to that mental construct [i.e. the designed entity] is a matter of availability. If there is body of scientific knowledge that can be applied, then it would be foolish not to exploit it. However, if there is none, it does not mean that the thing cannot be designed, made, and used safely.