Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface. The Cambridge sandwich
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Looking for Easter Island
- 2 Can we break the great code?
- 3 Universal goo: life as a cosmic principle?
- 4 The origin of life: straining the soup or our credulity?
- 5 Uniquely lucky? The strangeness of Earth
- 6 Converging on the extreme
- 7 Seeing convergence
- 8 Alien convergences?
- 9 The non-prevalence of humanoids?
- 10 Evolution bound: the ubiquity of convergence
- 11 Towards a theology of evolution
- 12 Last word
- Notes
- Index
11 - Towards a theology of evolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface. The Cambridge sandwich
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Looking for Easter Island
- 2 Can we break the great code?
- 3 Universal goo: life as a cosmic principle?
- 4 The origin of life: straining the soup or our credulity?
- 5 Uniquely lucky? The strangeness of Earth
- 6 Converging on the extreme
- 7 Seeing convergence
- 8 Alien convergences?
- 9 The non-prevalence of humanoids?
- 10 Evolution bound: the ubiquity of convergence
- 11 Towards a theology of evolution
- 12 Last word
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Let us suppose that I am an immensely successful biochemist, and happen to be engaged in experiments involving gene manipulation. A couple of years ago I was attending a conference – keynote speaker, naturally – when I fell into conversation with a curious individual, who for some reason seemed much older than he actually looked. As we talked, it seemed we were walking across a plain of infinite dreariness, but his voice, his demeanour, how can I describe it? He knew all about our work, and as conversation progressed, gave me remarkable hints as to some avenues of research we had somehow overlooked. I was enthralled, and as we parted he remarked, ‘I am sure we will meet again.’ The next day, however, he had vanished, and checking at the registration desk, I was puzzled to find no record of my companion. It was all a little eerie, but the hints were sufficient. Now my team and I have managed to reconfigure a gene that will allow animals, and the poorer humans, to digest cellulose directly. Before long, in Bangladesh and Somalia, the main meal will be recycled newspapers. There is, unfortunately, just one small side effect, and that is it is very likely (I can explain the details if you have time) to induce childhood cancers in about one per cent of the population, especially if the individual happens to live in a deprived environment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Life's SolutionInevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, pp. 311 - 330Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003