Quotes from book
The Theory of Evolution

Name: The Theory of Evolution
Author: John Maynard Smith

The Theory of Evolution is a book by English evolutionary biologist and geneticist John Maynard Smith, originally published in 1958 in time for 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the centenary of the publication of The Origin of Species the following year. It serves as a general introduction to the eponymous subject, intended to be accessible to those with little technical knowledge of the area. It has been highly successful, considered by many as the definitive publication of its type. The original version was updated several times, and a Canto edition, with a foreword by Richard Dawkins, and newly written introduction by the author, was published in 1996.

“Natural selection is the only workable explanation for the beautiful and compelling illusion of 'design' that pervades every living body and every organ. Knowledge of evolution may not be strictly useful in everyday commerce. You can live some sort of life and die without ever hearing the name of Darwin. But if, before you die, you want to understand why you lived in the first place, Darwinism is the one subject that you must study.”

John Maynard Smith book The Theory of Evolution

Source: The Theory of Evolution (1958), p. xvi.

“Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed for the remarkable fact of our own existence, indeed the existence of all life wherever it may turn up in the universe.”

John Maynard Smith book The Theory of Evolution

Source: The Theory of Evolution (1958), p. xv.