In Allaying Darwin's Doubt, Two Cambrian Experts Still Come Up Short

Perceptive readers will find hints of worry in a journal's one-sided presentation of the Cambrian explosion. Darwin's Doubt? What doubt would that be? Current Biology's senior reviews editor, Florian Maderspacher, is too enraptured with "The Tree View of Life" to pay any attention to doubt. Waltzing through the grass, he ponders the distant relatives under his feet.

Whatever we see moving and growing around us is a member of our extended family. The mighty eagle and the ugly slug, the sequoi...