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Dawn of the animals: Solving Darwin's dilemma

 

WHEN Darwin unveiled his theory of evolution, the earliest known fossils lay in rocks belonging to what Darwin called the Silurian age. Older rocks seemed devoid of fossils. The apparently sudden appearance of sophisticated animals such as trilobites did not fit in with Darwin's idea of gradual evolution.

 

"If my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited... the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer," Darwin wrote in the first edition of On the Origin of Species. His conundrum is known as Darwin's dilemma.

 

Dawn of the animals: Solving Darwin's dilemma - life - 14 July 2009 - New Scientist

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