Unique humans and missing extraterrestrials: a strange connection?

Tue 30 April 2019

Cambridge University Library

The evolutionary continuity between humans and great apes is not in doubt, with Darwin insisting that cognitive differences are one of degree not kind. Why then does no animal have language, use one tool to make another, teach its young or engage in even elementary mathematics? The solution revolves around the nature of consciousness and Mind, a place materialists fear to tread. And maybe if the world is shot through with orthogonal realities when we come to look for extraterrestrials are we looking in the wrong places? Fermi’s Paradox (the “where are they?”) is back in fashion and the explanations for the lack of extraterrestrials are beginning to look a bit strained. As with consciousness we may need to be a bit more imaginative in our thinking when it comes to those elusive extraterrestrials.

About the speaker: Simon Conway Morris FRS is an Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology and a Fellow of St John’s and the President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

His research has focused on the Cambrian “explosion” (summarized in The Crucible of Creation (OUP)) and evolutionary convergence (addressed in Life’s Solution (CUP)) and more recently The Runes of Evolution (Templeton)), whilst his forthcoming book looks at evolutionary “myths”.

Why not arrive a few minutes earlier and visit the University Library's current exhibition, Discovery: 200 years of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Cost: Free