Gunter Bechly: Ediacaran fossil paper is “junk science”

Dickinsonia/Australian National University

Dickinsonia, he says, is not an animal. We had covered the researchers’ contention (here); essentially, they think that weird Dickinsonia might have had animal parts that did not survive the fossilization process. Bechly thinks otherwise, enumerating three detailed reasons and ending with

4) Finally, if Dickinsonia fossils were just casts of an endoskeleton, they would be even more “alien” than previously believed. We know of not a single group of fossil or living organisms with such an endoskeleton that has glide-symmetry and a serial growth pattern with addition of segments. This feature would contradict all of the many suggested affinities of Dickinsonia, and it has certainly never been suggested to be a ground plan character of animals by any evolutionary biologist ever.

In brief: This new study is a ridiculous piece of junk science that should never have been published in a serious journal. My previous conclusion concerning Dickinsonia and its Ediacaran relatives still stands: they are most likely not animals and they lack any animal features not because they were no preserved, but because they were not there. Gunter Bechly, ““Ice Cube” Study of Ediacaran Fossils Is Junk Science” at Evolution News and Science Today

On the other hand, when it comes to evolution, never bet against weirdness in principle.