Cambrian explosion
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Background
| See Cambrian explosion in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. |
The Cambrian explosion is a popular issue for creationists to make contradictory claims to evolution based on the notion that many forms of animals appeared "suddenly" and fully formed. The attention to the Cambrian explosion is created, to no small part, by Stephen Jay Gould's popular science book Wonderful Life. Exactly what happened in the 'explosion' or even if there was an explosion is the source of considerable scientific disagreement, so given that creationists usually advocate Teach the controversy they should also not use the Cambrian explosion as a certain event and instead point out the controversy about this event. Also the timeframe for this 'explosion' is in the tens of millions of years so it can hardly be described as "sudden".
The evidence for the 'explosion' is based primarily on three highly unusual fossil finds where soft body parts were preserved:
- the Burgess Shales as the best known
- Sirus Passet, 525mya, contemporary with Chengjiang
- Chengjiang biota, aka Maotianshan shales [1], 525mya, 10-15 millions older than Burgess
In contrast there are limited Precambrian sites with which to compare.
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Related claims
- Cambrian explosion contradicts evolutionary tree pattern
- Cambrian explosion shows all kinds of life appearing suddenly
