Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe: Amazon.co.uk: Simon Conway Morris: Books

Review

'Life's Solution is an absorbing presentation written to challenge and inform the mind of the reader. Life's Solution is a superb contribution to both Contemporary Philosophy Studies academic reference collections and University level and Evolutionary Biology reading lists.' Library Bookwatch 'Life's Solution builds a forceful case for the predictability of evolutionary outcomes, their broad phenotypic manifestations. The case rests on a remarkable compilation of examples of convergent evolution, in which two or more lineages have independently evolved similar structures and functions. The examples range from the aerodynamics of hovering moths and hummingbirds to the use of silk by spiders and some insects to capture prey ... I recommend the book to anyone grappling with the meaning of evolution and our place in the Universe, and to biologists interested in adaptation and constraints.' Nature 'Simon Conway Morris's bold new book, Life's Solution, challenges this Darwinian orthodoxy by extending ideas he presented in his Crucible of Creation ... Conway Morris presents scores of fascinating examples that are less familiar. The lesson is clear. The living world is peppered with recurrent themes; it is not an accumulation of unique events.' New York Times Book Review 'Are human beings the insignificant products of countless quirky biological accidents, or the expected result of evolutionary patterns deeply embedded in the structure of natural selection? Drawing upon diverse biological evidence, Conway Morris convincingly argues that the general features of our bodies and minds are indeed written into the laws of the universe. This is a truly inspiring book, and a welcome antidote to the bleak nihilism of the ultra-Darwinists.' Paul Davies, author of Mind of God '... full of important information and insights ...'. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution '... this lively and well-researched book contains an impressive breadth of detail on subjects ranging from the nature of the early universe and the formation of stars and planets to the biological details of life. Scientists and the scientifically interested will find its arguments intelligent and thought provoking.' Times Higher Education Supplement 'It is a fascinating tale, ranging across the entire field of living organisms ... he marshals an impressive and extremely wide-ranging array of arguments to support his case, from the microstructure of proteins and DNA at one end, to the large-scale processes in stars and galaxies at the other ... This is a fascinating book covering a huge range of evidence. Biologist or not, I recommend it. After all, we are all human and the question of our origins has to be one of the more import in the world. There is much here to stimulate those famously large brains with which humans are endowed.' Journal of the Geological Magazine 'This is a hugely important work of science ... for anyone with any interest in religion, for or against, it has immense implications ... It is exciting stuff ... The wealth of ideas in his book is intoxicating ... You must read it for yourself.' New Directions '... one of the most controversial volumes written about evolution in recent years by a respected biologist ... Skilfully written, Life's Solution is certainly an entertaining read. There is much to admire about Conway Morris's scholarship ...'. Heredity '...biologically fascinating and overwhelming.' Scientific & Medical Network 'The book itself is well set out introducing the reader to each example of evolutionary convergence with a thoughtful approach that carries them along without becoming to confused in detail but rather allows them to see the greater theme the author wishes to convey, with each chapter building on the preceding ones. For each chapter there are copious footnotes to which a reader may refer at the end of the book with a comprehensive index beyond this as well.' The Open University Geological Society Journal '... throughout the book, Conway Morris's writing is lucid ...'. Palaeontological Newsletter '... he brings an awkward problem into the light with a masterly argument for the inevitable existence of humans ... read twice.' New Scientist

Review

'Life's Solution is an absorbing presentation written to challenge and inform the mind of the reader. Life's Solution is a superb contribution to both Contemporary Philosophy Studies academic reference collections and University level and Evolutionary Biology reading lists.' Library Bookwatch

'Life's Solution builds a forceful case for the predictability of evolutionary outcomes, their broad phenotypic manifestations. The case rests on a remarkable compilation of examples of convergent evolution, in which two or more lineages have independently evolved similar structures and functions. The examples range from the aerodynamics of hovering moths and hummingbirds to the use of silk by spiders and some insects to capture prey … I recommend the book to anyone grappling with the meaning of evolution and our place in the Universe, and to biologists interested in adaptation and constraints.' Nature

'Simon Conway Morris's bold new book, Life's Solution, challenges this Darwinian orthodoxy by extending ideas he presented in his Crucible of Creation … Conway Morris presents scores of fascinating examples that are less familiar. The lesson is clear. The living world is peppered with recurrent themes; it is not an accumulation of unique events.' New York Times Book Review

'Are human beings the insignificant products of countless quirky biological accidents, or the expected result of evolutionary patterns deeply embedded in the structure of natural selection? Drawing upon diverse biological evidence, Conway Morris convincingly argues that the general features of our bodies and minds are indeed written into the laws of the universe. This is a truly inspiring book, and a welcome antidote to the bleak nihilism of the ultra-Darwinists.' Paul Davies, author of Mind of God

'… full of important information and insights …'. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution

'… this lively and well-researched book contains an impressive breadth of detail on subjects ranging from the nature of the early universe and the formation of stars and planets to the biological details of life. Scientists and the scientifically interested will find its arguments intelligent and thought provoking.' Times Higher Education Supplement

'It is a fascinating tale, ranging across the entire field of living organisms … he marshals an impressive and extremely wide-ranging array of arguments to support his case, from the microstructure of proteins and DNA at one end, to the large-scale processes in stars and galaxies at the other … This is a fascinating book covering a huge range of evidence. Biologist or not, I recommend it. After all, we are all human and the question of our origins has to be one of the more import in the world. There is much here to stimulate those famously large brains with which humans are endowed.' Journal of the Geological Magazine

'This is a hugely important work of science … for anyone with any interest in religion, for or against, it has immense implications … It is exciting stuff … The wealth of ideas in his book is intoxicating … You must read it for yourself.' New Directions

'… one of the most controversial volumes written about evolution in recent years by a respected biologist … Skilfully written, Life's Solution is certainly an entertaining read. There is much to admire about Conway Morris's scholarship …'. Heredity

'…biologically fascinating and overwhelming.' Scientific & Medical Network

'The book itself is well set out introducing the reader to each example of evolutionary convergence with a thoughtful approach that carries them along without becoming to confused in detail but rather allows them to see the greater theme the author wishes to convey, with each chapter building on the preceding ones. For each chapter there are copious footnotes to which a reader may refer at the end of the book with a comprehensive index beyond this as well.' The Open University Geological Society Journal

'… throughout the book, Conway Morris's writing is lucid …'. Palaeontological Newsletter

'… he brings an awkward problem into the light with a masterly argument for the inevitable existence of humans … read twice.' New Scientist

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

An unconvincing solution 19 Nov 2007

By C. N. Hose

Format:Paperback

I saw Simon Conway Morris lecture a couple of years ago and was interested enough to buy his book. I've only just got around to reading it. The book is well written and interesting enough and kept me reading until the end.

a word of warning: this is not an introductory text for evoilutionary ideas and would be understood better with some prior knowledge.

The clue to the topic of the book is in the subtitle. In the first part of the book the author attempts to convince us that we may well indeed be living in a lonely universe. This is done with intelligence and clarity, however I left this section more convinced that their might be intelligent life out there than when I started it.

The second part of the book argues for the importance of evolutionary convergence in understanding evolution and again is clear and well written with many examples. The sections dealing with the inevitability of intelligence are especially interesting.

However, the down point of the book is the last couple of chapters which appear to tacked onto the end and deal with metaphysical arguments rather than scientific ones. The main argument appears to be atheist evolutiary thinkers = unhappiness. His main ideas about evolutionary convergence didn't really convince me that this inevitably leads to some intelligence guiding the univerese.

Recommend for the ideas of evolutionary convergence, but the metaphysical musings should be clarified or left out.

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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

A very stimulating read on evolutionary theory 3 Aug 2008

By P. Younger

I first became aware of Simon Conway Morris' work 16 years ago, through reading the late Stephen Jay Gould's book 'Wonderful Life', which gives a florid account of the discovery of the soft-bodied faunas of the Burgess Shales, and the lessons they held about diversity and evolutionary divergence in the early Cambrian. Being specialised in a part of geology which rarely makes use of palaeontological data, I was long overdue an update on evolutionary theory and found Conway Morris's new book very helpful.

The presentation is masterly. I found the multiple, heavily-researched examples of convergence very striking, and also enjoyed the 'relaxed-yet-erudite' style of presentation. I'd like to see what some of my friends who are involved in modelling of evolutionary processes might make of these ideas in analytical terms, and that's something I intend to pursue.

Unlike some of the other reviewers, I didn't find the last two chapters discordant: the frequent mention in the earlier chapters of the unease which evolutionary biologists feel when they sense the unwelcome 'ghost of teleology looking over their shoulders' made these chapters a necessity. The points made in them are presented without prejudice, but also without moral cowardice. If anything they were a bit abbreviated and I'd have appreciated a lengthier exposition of some of the key arguments. I sense some of the negative comments on these chapters in the other reviews derive from the very unease at the recrudescence of teleology which Conway Morris comments upon ... This isn't something I personally feel uneasy about. Geology is surely mature enough as a subject now to confront the as-yet-unexplained with confidence.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the evolution of life, the emergence of consciousness and intelligence, and any interest whatsoever in the possibility of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

The uses of evolution 11 Oct 2011

By Philip Inman

This is a book about evolutionary convergence, arranged for the general reader. It is illustrated sparingly with black-and-white diagrams and pictures. There are copious end notes and references for any who might like to pursue the subject on their own, although they might need a university library to do it in. Convergence in evolution, an apparently widespread phenomenon, is a process whereby the same or similar structural or physiological solution evolves repeatedly and independently among different organisms and in different eras, in response to similar environmental pressures. The repeated evolution of some form of eye is probably the best known example. This used to be the stock in trade for evolutionary sceptics, who would mock honest biologists with "what use is a half-evolved eye, answer me that". Conway Morris gently demonstrates that there is no such thing as a "half-evolved" anything, since evolution has no plan. There is however something called "inherence". This is more than a restatement of the truism that, if something evolved in a given species of organism, the capacity to do must have been there already and can often be discerned in the organism's distant ancestors. The stronger form of inherence says that, given the right genetic material and the right environment and enough time, you can make informed predictions about what is going to happen. Both convergence and inherence seem to be hugely controversial topics among biologists and Conway Morris gives us a flavour of this in his quotation from sources that use words such as "remarkable" and "surprising" when describing the observed phenomena of convergence, as if some orthodoxy is being challenged. Quite what the orthodoxy was or the nature of the controversy never really emerged, or this reviewer missed it. Instead, in the closing chapter, we were treated to another dispute altogether: the problem that some religious writers have in reconciling their beliefs with the robust edifice of the Theory of Evolution. This may or may not be a worthwhile subject of debate, but evolutionary convergence seems to have little bearing on it. Moreover Conway Morris only skates over the subject, with quotations from C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton and a more recent writer called J.C. Greene, and he gets off a couple of broadsides in the direction of Richard Dawkins.

So we really never found out what the fuss was about with convergence and we could have had rather more detail on the daft things theologians and biologists can say about each others' world view, when they don't know much about it. Finally, the ocean of truth that Conway Morris was standing beside received no mention at all. The question is whether convergence in evolutionary biology is just one example of convergent processes in reductionist, chaotic systems with memory but no foresight. How about human systems of government, legal principles, political economy, trends in aesthetics? Conway Morris claims that, given the right environment, the living system of the type we have here on Earth (he would go further and say the only type on offer) will "inevitably" produce "mammal-ness" and consciousness. This sounds like historical determinism. Is the main difference between convergence in evolution, as observed by Simon Conway Morris, and the logic of history, as observed by Oswald Spengler in Decline of the West, just one of time-scale? Did Conway Morris not notice this unexploded bomb, or did he dig it up, take fright and bury it again?