Is It Really True That Everything Is Always Changing?

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In a sort of way, it's rather ironic that here, the first species which can actually look around the world and say, isn't this extraordinary? We might come on to that in a later context. But for various reasons, i think we've probably reache the limits of what is possible. And with a human brain, you can argue, it's a pretty grotesque thought, but it's pretty close to what is absolutely possible. It can get a bit bigger, but not not that much odder.

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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