rejected this hypothesis, since he himself had encountered a series “great of pre-Cambrian sedimentary rocks on the North American continent” among other places. [Stephen C. Meyer: Darwin's Doubt (Kindle Locations 997-999). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.] Other geologists suggested that major bursts of evolutionary innovation occurred only during periods when sedimentary deposition had ceased, thus again resulting in a lack of fossil preservation. But, as Gould remarked of Walcott’s artifact hypothesis, this explanation also appeared to many scientists and ad hoc . . . born of frustration, rather than the “forced pleasure of discovery.”10 [Gould, Wonderful Life, 275.] [Stephen C. Meyer: Darwin's Doubt (Kindle Locations 999-1002). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.] Developmental biologist Eric Davidson, of California Institute of Technology, has suggested that the transitional forms leading to the Cambrian animals were forms similar to modern marine larvae” and were thus “microscopic too small to have been reliably fossilized.11 Other evolutionary scientists, such as Gregory Wray, Jeffrey Levinton, and Leo Shapiro, have suggested that the ancestors of the Cambrian animals were not preserved, because they lacked hard parts such as shells and exoskeletons.12 They argue that since soft-bodied animals are difficult to fossilize, we shouldn’t expect to find the remains of the supposedly soft-bodied ancestors of the Cambrian fauna in the Precambrian fossil record. [11. Some have even suggested that the transitional intermediate forms leading to the Cambrian animals only existed in the larval stage. See Davidson, Peterson, and Cameron, of Bilaterian Body Plans,” 1319. 12. Wray, Levinton, and Shapiro, “Origin Evidence for Deep Pre-Cambrian Divergences Among “Molecular Metazoan Phyla.” For other recent expressions of this version of the artifact hypothesis, see Simpson, Fossils and the History of Life, 72–74; Ward, Out of Thin Air, 5; Eldredge, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, 46; and Schirber, in the Pre-Cambrian “Skeletons Closet.” Though contemporary paleontologists commonly attribute the absence of Precambrian ancestral forms to their alleged lack of hard parts or appreciable size, earlier geologists and paleontologists have also
rejected this hypothesis, since he himself had encountered a “great series of pre-Cambrian sedimentary rocks on the North American continent” among other places. [Stephen C. Meyer: Darwin's Doubt (Kindle Locations 997-999). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.] Other geologists suggested that major bursts of evolutionary innovation occurred only during periods when sedimentary deposition had ceased, thus again resulting in a lack of fossil preservation. But, as Gould remarked of Walcott’s artifact hypothesis, this explanation also appeared to many scientists “forced and ad hoc . . . born of frustration, rather than the pleasure of discovery.”10 [Gould, Wonderful Life, 275.] [Stephen C. Meyer: Darwin's Doubt (Kindle Locations 999-1002). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.] Developmental biologist Eric Davidson, of California Institute of Technology, has suggested that the transitional forms leading to the Cambrian animals were “microscopic forms similar to modern marine larvae” and were thus too small to have been reliably fossilized.11 Other evolutionary scientists, such as Gregory Wray, Jeffrey Levinton, and Leo Shapiro, have suggested that the ancestors of the Cambrian animals were not preserved, because they lacked hard parts such as shells and exoskeletons.12 They argue that since soft-bodied animals are difficult to fossilize, we shouldn’t expect to find the remains of the supposedly soft-bodied ancestors of the Cambrian fauna in the Precambrian fossil record. [11. Some have even suggested that the transitional intermediate forms leading to the Cambrian animals only existed in the larval stage. See Davidson, Peterson, and Cameron, “Origin of Bilaterian Body Plans,” 1319. 12. Wray, Levinton, and Shapiro, “Molecular Evidence for Deep Pre-Cambrian Divergences Among Metazoan Phyla.” For other recent expressions of this version of the artifact hypothesis, see Simpson, Fossils and the History of Life, 72–74; Ward, Out of Thin Air, 5; Eldredge, The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, 46; and Schirber, “Skeletons in the Pre-Cambrian Closet.” Though contemporary paleontologists commonly attribute the absence of Precambrian ancestral forms to their alleged lack of hard parts or appreciable size, earlier geologists and paleontologists have also