Wonderful Life (Part IV)
Mar. 20th, 2005 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prof_pangaeaExcerpt from:
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
by Stephen Jay Gould
IV. The Subsequent Cambrian Origin of the Modern Fauna*
Our traditionalist is not beginning to worry, but he will grant this one last point pour mieux sauter. OK, the very first Cambrian fauna included a plethora of alternative possibilities, all equally sensible and none leading to us. But, surely, once the modern fauna arose in the next phase of the Cambrian, called Atdabanian after another Russian locality, then the boundaries were finally set. The arrival of trilobites, those familiar symbols of the Cambrian, must mark the end of craziness and the inception of predictability. Let the good times roll.
This book is quite long enough already, and you do not want a "second verse, same as the first." I merely point out that the Burgess Shale represents the early and maximal extent of the Atdabanian radiation. The story of the Burgess Shale is the tale of life itself, not a unique and peculiar episode of possibilities gone wild.
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
by Stephen Jay Gould
IV. The Subsequent Cambrian Origin of the Modern Fauna*
Our traditionalist is not beginning to worry, but he will grant this one last point pour mieux sauter. OK, the very first Cambrian fauna included a plethora of alternative possibilities, all equally sensible and none leading to us. But, surely, once the modern fauna arose in the next phase of the Cambrian, called Atdabanian after another Russian locality, then the boundaries were finally set. The arrival of trilobites, those familiar symbols of the Cambrian, must mark the end of craziness and the inception of predictability. Let the good times roll.
This book is quite long enough already, and you do not want a "second verse, same as the first." I merely point out that the Burgess Shale represents the early and maximal extent of the Atdabanian radiation. The story of the Burgess Shale is the tale of life itself, not a unique and peculiar episode of possibilities gone wild.
