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Article ID: CBB321042835

Complicating the Story of Popular Science: John Maynard Smith’s “Little Penguin” on The Theory of Evolution (2019)

Piel, Helen (Author)

Journal of the History of Biology
Volume: 52
Issue: 3
Pages: 371-390

URI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-019-9566-y

DOI: 10.1007/s10739-019-9566-y

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Audiences Evolution Biology Public understanding of science Communication of scientific ideas Writing Popularization 20th century Smith, John Maynard

Popular science writing has received increasing interest, especially in its relation to professional science. I extend the current scholarly focus from the nineteenth to the twentieth century by providing a microhistory of the early popular writings of evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith (1920–2004). Linking them to the state of evolutionary biology as a professional science as well as Maynard Smith’s own professional standing, I examine the interplay between author, text and audiences. In particular, I focus on Maynard Smith’s book The Theory of Evolution (Penguin 1958) and show how he used it to both promote neo-Darwinism and advocate the utility of mathematics in biology. Following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and David Lack, Maynard Smith was a science communicator blurring the lines between genres (popular, professional, textbook) and audiences (expert and non-expert) while contributing to ongoing discussions within and on the profession of evolutionary biology around the Darwin-Wallace centenary.

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