 Maynard Smith, having decided that aircraft were “noisy and old-fashioned”, then took a change of career, entering University College London (UCL) to study fruit fly genetics under Haldane.After graduating he became a lecturer in Zoology at UCL between 1952 and 1965, where he directed the "Drosophila" lab and conducted research on population genetics.He published a popular Penguin book, "The Theory of Evolution", in 1958 (with subsequent editions in 1966, 1975, 1993).