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The lead article in today's Science Times, entitled "Creatures of Cambrian May Have Lived On," is about new fossil finds indicating that many of the species from the Burgess Shale thought to have gone extinct didn't -- at least not in one big extinction wave: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/science/18fossil.html?ref=science This matters because the diversity of forms in the Cambrian, and a supposedly totally different range of diversity in the period afterward -- was used by Stephen Jay Gould in his "Wonderful Life" to argue for the role of chance in evolution. The Wikipedia entry on the book is an adequate introduction to the controversy; see also: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/naturalhistory_cambrian.html The Times article doesn't address the controversy. But I think being familiar with it is useful for Marxists who want to think in a sophisticated way about evolution of all kinds, biological or social. (I personally think even if the critics of Gould's book are right on some of their claims about the specific species involved his general arguments are valid.) Andy ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
