Tuesday, September 20, 2011

A Nice Piece on Richard Dawkins


Simon Conway Morris

The nytimes has a nice piece on the famous, vitriolic atheist Richard Dawkins. It's a bit of a biography on him.

Of special interest to me is the scientific koinonia between Dawkins and evolutionary paleontologist Simon Conway Morris. The article says:

"Dawkins’s closest intellectual ally on progressive evolution and convergence is Simon Conway Morris, the renowned Cambridge evolutionary paleontologist. And Professor Morris, as it happens, is an Anglican and a fervent believer in a personal God. He sees convergence as hinting at a teleology, or intelligent architecture, in the universe.
Ask Professor Dawkins about his intellectual bedfellow, and his smile thins. “Yes, well, Simon and I have converged on the science,” he says. “I should think in the world there are not two evolutionary scientists who could rival each other in their enthusiasm for convergence.”
As to Professor Morris’s religious faith? “I just don’t get it.”"

For some more stuff on Morris see here.