pen to paper.)
More creative and
interesting is the positive
side to Conway Morris’s
argument, about the nighinevitable
appearance of
human-like organisms once life had commenced
here on Earth. Conway Morris’s basic starting position
is that of Franklin and Marshall paleontologist
Roger Thomas (among others), namely that only
certain areas of potential morphological space are
going to be capable of supporting functional life –
in the language of the famed population geneticist
Sewall Wright, that only certain areas of the landscape
are going to be adaptive peaks. Conway
Morris draws attention to the oft-noted absence of
wheels in the living world. Given that wheels are
such an efficient way of transporting loads, it
seems very strange that, far from being ubiquitous,
they are absent. We organisms have legs, wings,
fins, and even slither, but no wheels. Actually, however,
the reason why wheels do not normally exist
is very simple. Wheels need flat, hard surfaces to
function properly. Unfortunately, such surfaces are
rare. "In the natural world as often as not, and
especially on sea floors, this means acres of mud