What Evolution Does and Does Not Tell Us about Humans

Cosponsored by the Society of Catholic Scientists. This event is made possible by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Does evolution fully explain the human? Recent paleontological and archeological work trace the deep lineages underlying many of our physical traits, and reveals our complicated history as one of many hominid species. It is abundantly clear that modern humans are subject to the same evolutionary pressures as the rest of the biological world and that evolution continues to shape our species. However, the developing story of our evolutionary history is frequently framed as a challenge to the claim of human uniqueness, fundamental to the Judeo-Christian understanding of the creation of man. Does evolution truly undercut the assumption of human uniqueness? Is our understanding of biological evolution sufficient to explain what makes us human? Here we present an online lecture with evolutionary paleobiologist, Simon Conway Morris, where he examines “What Evolution Does and Does not Tell Us about Humans.”