The revenge of Hallucinogenia

"Life's Solution" is a book by Simon Conway Morris, a palaeontologist and expert on the Burgess Shale fossils from the so-called Cambrian Explosion. Conway Morris is also a Christian, and in this book argues in favour of theistic evolution.

The book is very uneven in my opinion, but could nevertheless be of some interest, especially since Conway Morris wrote it as a counterpoint to Stephen Jay Gould's "Wonderful Life". The materialist Gould believed that the evolution of various animal body-plans in the Cambrian was highly contingent, and that evolution became constrained only afterwards. The existence of bizarre fossil creatures with no known relatives or descendants, such as Hallucinogenia, was to Gould part of the evidence for contingency in evolution. Ironically, Hallucinogenia was scientifically described by Conway Morris!

Conway Morris believes that evolution is teleological and directed to a specific goal - the emergence of intelligence - by God. Teleology in evolution is difficult to prove empirically, but Conway Morris believes that convergent evolution is the key to the puzzle. In his opinion, examples of evolutionary convergence are ubiquitous throughout nature. Completely unrelated animals arrive at strikingly similar solutions (for instance, the camera-eye has evolved independently at least seven times), which points to a deep structure in biology. Evolution is using a limited amount of pathways, although myriads of possibilities should logically exist. To the author, this reveals a kind of pattern behind evolution. It's not contingent, but highly constrained and virtually fated to arrive at man (or some similar, super-intelligent creature).

While Conway Morris regards humans as inevitable, he takes the position that we might be lonely in the universe. Our solar system is supposedly unique, and uniquely fine-tuned for the existence of life. This is a version of the anthropic argument (as used by theologians). The author would presumably find himself right at home in "Rare Earth" by Ward and Brownlee, or even Michael Denton's "Nature's Destiny"!

While I'm sympathetic to the idea of teleology in evolution, I'm not sure if Conway Morris' approach is helpful. Evolutionary convergence might just as well be explained in a materialist-naturalist manner by physical constraints. There might only be a few possible ways to detect light, hence camera-eyes would be favoured by "blind" natural selection in vastly different animals. Another problem: how do we objectively measure the number of counterfactual pathways evolution hasn't taken? A "rare Earth" is compatible with both God-directed cosmic "evolution" and pure chance. To me, the main argument in favour of teleology is philosophical: how can consciousness arise from matter, how can life arise from dead matter, how is meaning possible in an otherwise"blind" universe, etc.

I'm not saying Conway Morris is necessarily wrong. Indeed, it seems that Hallucinogenia wasn't so strange after all. The absurd creature could be related to onychophorans. Both Conway Morris and his adversary Gould were looking at the fossil upside down! At least on the symbolic level, this removes one of the obstacles to Conway Morris' theories. In general, however, I think the jury is still out on this one...