Project SherlockEst. Knowledge

Paper

1973

The Logic of Animal Conflict

John Maynard Smith & George R. Price

Shows why animal contests are usually settled by ritual display rather than lethal force, by defining an evolutionarily stable strategy that cannot be invaded once it is common.

Before you start

FreeAdvancedlink checked 17 Sept 2026

Read these first

Not a difficulty warning — a route. These are in the library too.

Equilibrium Points in N-Person GamesJohn F. Nash, 1950Every finite game has at least one equilibrium point at which no player can gain by changing strategy alone, proved in barely two pages using a fixed-point theorem.

Filed under Evolutionary Biology in Biology.