Abstract of the Commemorative lecture
The Marriage of Mathematics and Biology
I am being honoured for my contributions to evolutionary biology, and in particular for the introduction of Evolutionary Game Theory. This has required the marriage of two unrelated skills: knowledge of natural history, and skill at making mathematical models of the world. My love of nature has been with me since childhood, and continues to be an important part of my life, from bird-watching to gardening. My mathematical abilities were encouraged by excellent teaching at school, and a facility for applying mathematics to real problems was developed during six years working in aircraft design, and then by studying under J. B. S. Haldane. Evolutionary Game Theory was first developed to analyse the evolution of ritualized fighting in animals, but has since been applied to topics as diverse as plant growth and the evolution of viruses. My greatest happiness in science has come when some animal is found doing something odd, that was predicted by the theory.
