 Scientists themselves—following common sense—have been drawn first and foremost to organisms when beginning their theorizing about biological individuals. For example, consider John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry’s The Major Transitions of Life (1995), a wide-ranging book on the origins and evolution of life that has stimulated much work on the evolution of individuality (Buss 1987) and the Darwinian dynamics (Michod 1999) that governs emerging kinds of biological entities (see  section 9  below). The book opens with a simple point about the living world and a characterization of the book’s chief theme: 