How repeatable is evolutionary history?
Monday, June 23, 2014 - 18:00
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Writing about the weird soft-bodied fossils found in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould noted that of 25 initial body plans exhibited by the fossils, all but four were quickly eliminated. If we rewound the tape, he asked, and cast the dice once more, would the same four body plans be selected? He thought it unlikely.