John was also noted for hisnumerous contributions to thediscussion of general questions inevolutionary biology, and forproviding an evolutionaryperspective on other areas ofbiology, such as ecology anddevelopment. He was a persistentcritic of group-selectionistthinking and of the theory ofpunctuated equilibrium. Hepublished fourteen books andcollections of papers on anastonishing diversity of subjects,as well as many lucid semi-popular articles on biology.

Numerous postgraduatestudents, postdoctoralresearchers, sabbatical visitorsand junior colleagues at Sussexwere greatly influenced andencouraged by him. John was anentertaining conversationalist,with a fund of amusing storiesabout Haldane and otherprominent figures. His friends andcolleagues will remember him withdeep affection.

Institute of Cell, Animal and PopulationBiology, University of Edinburgh,Edinburgh EH9 3JT, Scotland, UK.

Q & A

Antonio DamasioAntonio Damasio is Van AllenProfessor of Neurology and Headof the Department of Neurologyat The University of Iowa, andAdjunct Professor at The SalkInstitute. He has worked oncritical problems in thefundamental neuroscience ofmind and behavior, at the level oflarge-scale systems in humans,but his investigations have alsoencompassed parkinsonism andAlzheimer’s disease. Hiscontributions have had a majorinfluence on our understanding ofthe neural basis of decision-making, emotion, language andmemory. He is the author ofseveral books: Looking forSpinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and theFeeling Brain (2003); The Feelingof What Happens: Body andEmotion in the Making ofConsciousness (1999); andDescartes’ Error: Emotion,Reason, and the Human Brain(1994).

Do you have a favoritescientific paper? I have several,but one does stand out forpersonal reasons: NormanGeschwind’s DisconnectionSyndromes in Animals and Man,published in Brain in 1965. It is along two-part article which turnsout to be a peer-reviewedmonograph in disguise. (It isdifficult to imagine any journalwould publish it today). It dealtwith the relation betweenfunctions such as language andrecognition, and the specializedsystems which support them,based on human evidence fromneurological patients. At the timeit went further than any previouseffort in the attempt to explain theneural mechanisms behind thefailures of such functions.

When I read DisconnectionSyndromes I already knew that Iwould spend my life studying thebrain — the word neurosciencewas not yet in use — but thepaper changed my direction. Iprobably would have become aneurophysiologist, given that I

Current Biology Vol 14 No 10R366

Miranda Robertson

Just discernible between thelines of Brian Charlesworth’sinformative obituary of JohnMaynard Smith is a grand oldenfant terrible in a tradition thatprobably cannot be sustained inthe cultural climate of today’sacademic science. It is allegedthat as a visiting distinguishedprofessor in Chicago he oncedanced out of a drunken partywith an unmentionable item ofunderwear on his head; but Iwasn’t at the party and cannotvouch for this. I do know that heattributed the generous coveringof lichen on the little wall aroundthe paved area giving onto hiswonderful, loved and admiredgarden in the Sussex Downs tothe many generations ofstudents and colleagues whostumbled out during parties athis house to pee on it —because he told me so.

This is not just a funny story:an earthy sense of biologicalreality was generallycharacteristic and alwaysinformed his approach to theory.And other things. On hisrecovery from surgery for coloncancer, he remarked that “thegreat moment is the first shit,when you can be sure thesurgeon hasn’t joined theduodenum up to the inferiorvena cava”. Anatomy was still aserious subject for seriousbiologists in John’s student

days, and J.Z. Young wasamong the towering figuresalluded to above (though hetowered at Oxford not UCL).

Not a frightening man, he didget memorably exasperated bymolecular biologists whobecame intoxicated with thepower of new moleculartechnology and launched onrash evolutionary excursionsinto territory with which they had(arguably) insufficient familiarity.I cannot remember whosesuggestion about evolutionarybottlenecks was met with anexcoriating remark about theconnection between the necksof bottles and the quality of theargument; I can rememberapoplectic outburstsoccasioned by the idea ofmolecular drive, which invokedphenomena in the behaviour ofnon-coding DNA to account forthe evolution of complexstructures such as eyes in whatseems to some an otherwiseunaccountably short time.During an energetic exchange ata conference on this notion,some hapless participant askedthe warring parties how theywould distinguish an eye thathad evolved through moleculardrive from one that had evolvedthrough natural selection.

“Oh I can tell you that,”snapped John Maynard Smith,glaring from behind the thicklenses of his spectacles, “Youwouldn’t be able to SEE with theeye that had evolved throughmolecular drive.”

A postscript