Ankerberg: Yeah.
Well, we’ve got to acknowledge that, in
spite of this evidence, the fossil evidence,
Darwin did not give up on his theory of evolution.
And what he proposed we want to look at next.
So here’s our next clip.
I want you folks to watch.
Stephen Meyer: Darwin was deeply troubled
by the Cambrian explosion.
He called it an inexplicable mystery.
But he wasn’t about to abandon his theory,
and instead proposed that the animals just
looked like they appeared suddenly because
he thought that the fossil record was incomplete.
Charles Darwin: “I look at the natural geological
record as a history of the world imperfectly
kept, and written in a changing dialect.
Of this history we possess the last volume
alone, relating only to two or three countries.
Of this volume, only here and there a short
chapter has been preserved, and of each page,
only here and there a few lines.”
Nelson: So Darwin argued, well, perhaps paleontological
discovery, digging through the rocks, needed
more time; that the transitions were out there;
that not enough collecting had occurred; not
enough sampling, if you will, of the fossil
record on earth; and given time those transitions
would turn up.
Ankerberg: Alright, Stephen, if Darwin was
waiting for new fossil discoveries to solve
the mystery of the missing ancestor fossils,
what have the new discoveries in paleontology
shown us?
Meyer: Well, that’s the really remarkable
thing, and that’s what’s so significant
about the Burgess Shale, the great discovery
that was made in Western Canada in the early
part of the 20th century.
New fossils have turned up, but rather than
ameliorating or eliminating the mystery of
the Cambrian explosion, they’ve actually
made the mystery more acute.
Because what the new fossil finds have shown,
both in the Burgess Shale and also other fossil
finds, in particular one in China, what these
new finds have shown is that there were many
more Cambrian animals, complex animals, that
arose in the Cambrian period than even Darwin
knew.
And so the explosion was, if you will, more
explosive than he understood.
And for each of these new forms of Cambrian
animal life that arose, each of these were
in turn lacking discernible ancestors in the
lower strata.
So whereas before you had a pattern with a
group of complex animals arising, each of
which was lacking ancestors in the lower strata,
now you have an even wider array of new, complex
animal forms arising abruptly, again with
each of those new forms missing ancestors.
So, you’re looking at an even more explosive
pattern as a result of these new discoveries.
Ankerberg: Yeah, and even as you said in your
book, okay, Darwin’s Doubt, you said even
a child can look and see that these animals
that just appeared are different; they’re
more complex or they’re very complex.
They’re really something to look at.
Meyer: Well, it might be helpful for your
audience to get a sense of just how dramatic
this event is in the history of life, because
there are about 36 phyla; and a phylum is
the largest division of animal classification.
So there are about 36 phyla in the history
of life.
About 26 or 27 of those phyla are fossilized.
And of those that are fossilized, fully 20
of the phyla first appear in the Cambrian;
there are representatives of those phyla that
first appear in the Cambrian period.
So this is a big event in the history of life.
A lot of the new form and structure, the new
body plans that have existed on planet earth,
first arrived during that period of time.
And they do so very abruptly, without clear
connections to ancestral forms in the lower
strata.
Ankerberg: That’s why they call it a Cambrian
explosion.
It’s boom!
It’s there.
