Depending on precisely what type of theist he is, his observations need be taken with an additional grain, or perhaps heaping tablespoon, of salt.
If he's even roughly Christian, ET life poses extraordinary problems, namely, if God created other sentient life, then we aren't special, like the bible says, and the bible is missing some rather large facts that are particularly difficult to explain the absence of. The only way to "solve" this is if there is no ET life (which may be why he says "it is increasingly looking like" despite our incredibly limited search capacity) or that it looks a whole lot like us. The latter would solve the problem because something that looked like us could still have been created "in the image of God." In a (purely) superficial way, rubber forehead aliens pose a smaller threat to the Bible than starfish aliens.
That's my best explanation for how someone ends up with the conclusion that a process occurring on an unknown world with an unknown atmosphere, unknown environment, unknown self-replicating molecules, unknown chemistry, unknown gravity, unknown methods of reproduction, unknown selective pressures, and unknown unknowns ends up looking like something that could seduce a young William Shatner. The only other explanation that occurs to me is that he just came to a conclusion early on and doesn't feel like honestly reconsidering it.
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Thoughts on this?
Conway Morris is a big hitter in the scientific establishment. He is, however, a theist, and has "argued against materialism" according to wikipedia. But what are his arguments? Alas the press piece doesn't say. Kudos to anyone who finds the conference and posts the arguments.
“It is difficult to imagine evolution in alien planets operating in any manner other than Darwinian,"
Is this just an instance of a slightly woo scientist-theist failing to take into account that nature might be more imaginative than him?