Geoff Parker
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Professor Geoffrey Alan Parker FRS (born 24 May 1944) is a professor of biology at the University of Liverpool. He has a particular interest in population evolutionary biology, and is most noted for introducing the concept of sperm competition in 1970, and his work in the early 1980's applying game theory to biology.
Parker was educated at Lymm Grammar School in Lymm, Cheshire, and gained his BSc from University of Bristol in 1965, from where he also gained a doctorate in 1969 under H.E. Hinton, FRS (1912 — 1977). His Ph.D. on The reproductive behaviour and the nature of sexual selection in Scatophaga stercoraria L. (yellow dung fly).
At this time, most ethologists and ecologists interpreted adaptations in terms of "survival value to the species"". However, the paradigm shift of the gene-centric view of evolution (popularised by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene) shortly afterwards overturned this idea; instead natural selection had to be formulated in terms of survival value to the individual (and its kin).
He then moved to the University of Liverpool where he became a lecturer in zoology.
In 1978-9 he took a research fellowship at King's College, Cambridge University, returning to Liverpool in 1980. He became a professor in 1989, In 1996 he became the Derby Chair of Zoology, where as of 2004, he remains.
