Page 70 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

aid of this chart, the concept of the evolutionary "tree" was
planted in people's minds, to finally become one of
Darwinism's most important myths. Various versions of the

evolutionary tree were published in textbooks, scientific trea-
tises, magazines and newspapers. These diagrams etched in
people's minds the idea that living things evolved by small
chance changes from one common root of the evolutionary
Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism
tree.
The truth was quite different, however. This was most
clearly dramatized with the discovery of the Cambrian explo-

sion at the beginning of the 20th century. In the year 1909, the
paleontologist Charles D. Walcott began investigations in the
Canadian Rocky Mountains. In the area of the Burgess Pass,
he discovered very well-preserved strata of shale rock. He
quickly realized that the Burgess Shale contained many fos-
sils belonging to the Cambrian period. For the next four
years, Walcott carefully collected between 60,000 and 80,000
fossils from the shale and made a note of the most subtle dif-
ferences he discovered among them.

The most amazing thing about the Burgess Shale fossils
was that they contained the remains of creatures belonging to
all the phyla alive today. (A phylum is the largest taxonomic
category used to classify creatures in the animal kingdom.
Animals are divided into more than 50 phyla, and each phy-
lum has its own body design. Among the best known phyla
are the Chordata including the vertebrates, the Arthropoda con-

taining all insects, and Mollusca containing all soft-bodied in-
vertebrates with shells.)

68