Is there a plausible counter factual history in which the mammals continued on, if there is no great catastrophe. I certainly want some er increase in brain size. Some degree of manipulability would be good. Sooiwold, i'd like bloodedness. But don't worry, then all iam interested really is you're going to need to have some sort of, quote, warm bloodedness - but given that evolved numerous times,. including its effective equivalent in plants for heaven's sake.
Evolution by natural selection is one of the rare scientific theories that resonates within the wider culture as much as it does within science. But as much as people know about evolution, we also find the growth of corresponding myths. Simon Conway Morris is a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who’s new book is From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution. He is known as a defender of evolutionary convergence and adaptationism — even when there is a mass extinction, he argues, the resulting shake-up simply accelerates the developments evolution would have made anyway. We talk about this, and also about the possible role of God in an evolutionary worldview.
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Simon Conway Morris received his Ph.D. in geology from the University of Cambridge. He is currently an emeritus professor of evolutionary paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge. Among his awards are the Walcott Medal of the National Academy of Sciences and the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London.
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