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

by Stephen C. Meyer

The tree of life as a whole, however, is another matter. Many evolutionary biologists think the case for universal common descent is something close to unassailable because, they argue, analysis of both anatomical and genetic similarities converges on the same basic pattern of descent from a universal common ancestor. As Richard Dawkins asserts, “when we look comparatively at . . . genetic sequences in all these different creatures—we find the same kind of hierarchical tree of resemblance. We find the same family tree—albeit much more thoroughly and convincingly laid out—as we did with . . . the whole pattern of anatomical resemblances throughout all the living kingdoms.”5 Likewise, Jerry Coyne argues that gene sequences independently confirm the same set of evolutionary relationships—the same basic tree—established from the analysis of anatomy.6 Oxford University chemist Peter Atkins is even more emphatic: “There is not a single instance of the molecular traces of change being inconsistent with our observations of whole organisms.”7 As a result of this confidence, evolutionary biologists often dismiss the missing Precambrian fossil precursors and intermediates as a minor anomaly—one awaiting explanation by an otherwise completely adequate theory of the history of life.