Peace,
Preston
Dear Preston,
Thanks for the tip on Simon Conway Morris. He was among the participants in my doctoral study. He is a
paleontologist from the U.K. Paleontologists and botanists show the highest percentages of religiosity
among all evolutionary biologists. This aroused my curiosity, so I talked about it with my master's degree
advisor. We had lunch last week when I was in Phoenix, where he is now retired, and he said to me "Why
paleontologists? Why would they have the highest number of religious believers?" My advisor, a
paleontologist who was trained by one of the greats of twentiethcentury biology (A. S. Romer at
Harvard), thinks it entirely possible that paleontologists in general are just not as smart as other
evolutionary biologists.
Wind back the tape of life [to prehistoric, prehuman times]; let it play again from an identical starting
point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the
replay.
We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of
conceivable universes-one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to
thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.
Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist (1989)
Now, obviously there is a certain degree of humor in his arrogance and, indeed, some paleontologists
are among the smartest of all biologists. You would have to know him to appreciate that, and he would
never go "on record" as saying such a thing. But in the case of Simon Conway Morris, I believe he might
be right.
It is completely inane to suggest, unless you are a theist, that the evolutionary process could somehow
make humans inevitable. The unlikelihood of human inevitability has been brilliantly discussed by some
of the best minds in modern biology, and convincingly so. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an excellent book on
the unlikelihood that humans should exist (Wonderful Life).
To me, this makes human life all that much more precious! What a rare treat to be able to be part of this
drama. That is a foundation for morality. A much better one than the theistic belief founded on the notion
that we are predestined in the mind of some invisible agent.
Sincerely,
Greg
Dear Greg:
Today, on your advice, I requested (at the library) Wilson's Consilience, Huxley's Religion with
Revelation and Smith's Man and His Gods. I'm looking forward to seeing what I learn from them.
You probably wrote that Morris is a "suspected theist" with tongue in cheek, but that does have, shall