Simon Conway Morris

“The problem with Darwinism is not that it is wrong, but that it is incomplete. It doesn't explain the big picture.”

“Alien life, if it exists, is likely to be remarkably similar to life on Earth.”

“Convergence is the rule, not the exception. The tape of life, if you were to rewind it and play it again, would produce something very similar to what we have today.”

“My own view is that the fact of convergence is so overwhelming that it is now necessary to say that evolution has trajectories.”

“The number of evolutionary end-points is limited. Evolution is a highly constrained process.”

“What we see in the fossil record is not a random branching bush, but a series of constrained channels leading to specific outcomes.”

“The universe is not pointless. It has a purpose, and that purpose is the emergence of intelligent, self-aware beings.”

“Science and religion are not in conflict. They are two different ways of looking at the same reality.”

“The idea that evolution is a purposeless, meaningless process is a philosophical gloss on the science, not a scientific conclusion.”

“The evolutionary process is not a meaningless, random walk, but has a direction, a purpose, and a destiny.”

“Humans are not a cosmic accident. We are the inevitable result of a predictable evolutionary process.”

“If you want to understand the nature of reality, you have to look at the evidence. And the evidence, to me, points to a universe that is fine-tuned for life.”

“The Burgess Shale is not a bizarre collection of evolutionary dead-ends, but a window into the origins of the major animal groups that exist today.”

“The laws of physics and chemistry are not arbitrary. They are finely tuned to allow for the emergence of life and consciousness.”

“In the deep structure of the world, we have a music that is being played, and we are privileged to be part of the audience.”

“Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon. It is a fundamental property of the universe.”