God, Mathematics and the Nautilus Shell: Prof. Simon Conway Morris, Evolutionary Myths, Darwin

Community Lecture in Dorchester:

"Nine Evolutionary Myths: The Closing of the Darwinian Mind".

Interview with Simon Conway Morris

The End of Materialism

A response to his Boyle Lecture

My own response to his Dorchester lecture:

Professor Conway Morris is a distinguished scientist and well-practised populariser in terms of the public understanding of science. He gave a brilliant and witty lecture at The Thomas Hardye School.
He deconstructed a number of commonly-accepted pseudo-scientific 'myths'. Although not a believer in ID (Intelligent Design- "God in a lab coat"), he seemed at times to offer us, albeit not very explicitly, a vision of a divinely-inspired universe underpinned by a "universal music" as well as "universal mathematics".

Intentionality rather than Intelligent Design?

Science is always provisional, he admitted, but I found it hard to sum up his arguments, which remained rather inconclusive. Perhaps I misunderstood, but much seems to depend on each scientist's personal world view.

The concept of a "universal music" has its appeal, and the mathematical principles demonstrated by the  spiraling interior chambers of the nautilus shell have lodged in my mind.

From Wikipedia:
Evolution, science and religion

"Conway Morris is active in the public understanding of science and has done extensive radio and television work. The latter includes the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures delivered in 1996. A Christian, he is also actively involved in various science and religion debates, including arguments against intelligent design on the one hand and materialism on the other. In 2005 he gave the Second Boyle Lecture. He is an increasingly active participant in discussions relating to science and religion. He is active in the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and has lectured there on "Evolution and fine-tuning in Biology". He gave the University of Edinburgh Gifford Lectures for 2007 in a series titled "Darwin's Compass: How Evolution Discovers the Song of Creation". In these lectures Conway Morris makes several claims that evolution is compatible with belief in the existence of a God".