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

by Stephen C. Meyer

of sponges and the possible exception of Kimberella, the body plans of visibly fossilized organisms (as opposed to trace fossils) bear no clear relationship to any of the organisms that appear in the Cambrian explosion (or thereafter).8 The most noted Ediacaran organisms such as Dickinsonia, Spriggina, and Charnia do not have an obvious head, a mouth, bilateral symmetry (see below), a gut, or sense organs such as eyes. Some paleontologists question whether these organisms even belong in the animal kingdom. Dickinsonia, for example, has been interpreted by University of Oregon paleontologist Gregory Retallack as having “fungal-lichen” affinities, since its mode of fossil preservation “is comparable not with that of soft-bodied jellyfish, worms, and cnidarians, but with the fossil record of fungi and lichens.”