Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design

by Stephen C. Meyer

Paleontologists Douglas Erwin and James Valentine exposed this problem in 1987 in a seminal paper titled “Interpreting Great Developmental Experiments: The Fossil Record.”20 They questioned the ability of both of the main evolutionary theories of the time—punctuated equilibrium and neo-Darwinism—to explain the pattern of fossil appearance in the Precambrian–Cambrian fossil record.21 Clearly, neo-Darwinism does not explain this pattern. But, as Valentine and Erwin argue, neither does punctuated equilibrium. As they conclude, the mechanism of species selection requires a large pool of species upon which to act. Thus, Valentine and Erwin conclude: “The probability that species selection is a general solution to the origin of higher taxa is not great.”