Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (French: [pjɛʁ tejaʁ də ʃaʁdɛ̃] (About this sound listen (help·info)); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of Peking Man. He conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving) and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of noosphere.
During his lifetime, many of Teilhard's writings were censored by the Catholic Church because of his views on original sin. Recently Teilhard has been praised by Pope Benedict XVI and other eminent Catholic figures. The response to his writings by evolutionary biologists has been, with some exceptions, decidedly negative. (Wikipedia, läst 2016)