Simon Conway Morris
Simon Conway Morris
Simon Conway Morris FRSis an English palaeontologist who is best known for his detailed and careful study of the fossils of the Burgess Shale, and of the scientific concept of Cambrian explosion. The results of these discoveries were celebrated in Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould. Conway Morris's own book on the subject, The Crucible of Creation, however, is critical of Gould's presentation and interpretation...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScientist
unique icons issues
The Burgess Shale is not unique, but for those who study evolution and fossils it has become something of an icon. It provides a reference point and a benchmark, a point of common discussion and an issue of universal scientific interest.
hands way biting
The way Conway Morris goes about biting the hand that once fed him would make a shoal of piranha seem decorous.
believe tests scientist
Scientists don't believe anything.Scientists test things.
real world might
It seldom seems to strike the ultra-Darwinists that theology might have its own richness and subtleties, and might strange thought actually tell us things about the world that are not only to our real advantage, but will never be revealed by science.
past evil perspective
If there were a clear prospect that such evils were part of a barbarian past, then at least we might find a small crumb of comfort. No such prospect exists: no scientific analysis can even remotely answer or account for past and present horrors of human behaviour.
mean world way
Evolution is true, it happens, it is the way the world is, and we too are one of its products. This does not mean that evolution does not have metaphysical implications; I remain convinced that this is the case.