Cambrian Explosion

Darwin's single most pervasive principle was that All life evolved from a single primitive life form. The single diagram in his book The Origin of Species is the Tree of Life.   Darwin argued that species exposed to different environments would diverge.  Darwin believed that small changes in a species were carried from one generation to another.   The species became increasingly differentiated until it ultimately became a separate species. Using tiny steps and a gradual pattern of differentiation Darwin saw life slowly “evolving” to fill all the available ecological niches.  

    In his usage of the Tree of life, Darwin is explaining the means by which evolution is to diversify from the SPECIES level upward. Species existed for varying lengths of time as indicated by the dotted lines.  Those that became extinct were determined by nature to be non-viable options.  Species F maintained its existence throughout the time period without noticeable variation, indicating a very stable population or one that was not stressed by environmental change according to Darwin.

Since most people don’t spend their time thinking about phylum – class – order - family–genus – species. It might be helpful to give a detailed explanation. In the Darwinian beginning there would have been a creature let us call it Doggus.  It would have had varied characteristics which over thousands of generations might have developed two or three species of doggus (e.g., short tailed black doggus, long eared white doggus,  etc.) From this variation a wolfus might have emerged which would be a different genus.  A new genus would represent a change that we would recognize as  (e.g. wolves coyotes, and jackals ). The increased radiation from doggus would continue with;

Family - extending to include giant pandas, foxes, black bears

Order-  lions, tigers, walrus,  seals, 

Class  - whales, bats, kangaroos, platypus

 Sub-phylum  - Vertebrate -  Mammals, bony fish, amphibians, sharks, reptiles, rays, birds

 Phyla -  Chordata  -  all vertebrate and invertebrate animals 

Phyla is defined as the highest classification of organisms based on a unique specialized body plan shared by all its representatives. There are currently 35 recognized phyla.   According to Darwinian Evolution there would only be 2 or three different species early in life's history.  Slowly over time, with infinitesimally small changes, evolution would weave more species, then different genus, etc. .  Only as life reached its current level of complexity would there be 35 different phyla. 

       The  Darwinian logic appeals to our sense of orderliness. Progress is made as one creature slowly morphs into another. The fossil data however contradicts this evolutionary hypothesis. In fact the fossil record shows the exact inverse of what is predicted in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.   Instead of a single common ancestor that separates into two or three species which continue to diversify over millions and millions of years almost all of the animal phyla appear at once in a bewildering array of body plans.

   Almost ALL  known phyla appear in the Cambrian Explosion, hence its name.  What occurred at the Cambrian boundary is not a limited species variation similar to the butterflies.  In an instant at least 20 different phyla, a full spectrum of life forms burst into the biological cycle.  Of the 35 current phyla 9 of these have never produced fossils.  These are mainly microscopic parasites that are not likely candidates for preservation. Four other phyla appear later in the fossil record and 2 were already in existence.  The fossil record clearly records a top down sequence of development NOT the bottom up progression predicted by Darwin.  

     The eruption of life is devastating to an evolutionary perspective because of its brevity and even more powerfully for the breadth of NEW phyla introduced. The different phyla represent unique body plans, requiring a massive infusion of DNA and genetic material.  These are high order transformations not just a change of hair color.  Increasingly scientists are calling the Cambrian Explosion an Information Explosion. 

    I cannot reinforce this fact too highly. These new life forms are not just a few different varieties or a larger specimen. Think of it this way. In the long time period known as the Precambrian era there were very few life forms- then suddenly what we would call an ecosystem appears.  The Cambrian explosion is also remarkably brief. Radiometric dating of the Cambrian strata allows scientists to fix the start of the Cambrian explosion. The eruption of new phyla occurred within a 5 million year time period. This brief span represents .11 (i.e., one-tenth of 1%) of the Earth's history. As Chinese paleontologist Jun-Yuan Chen wrote, “ compared with the 3-plus-billion-year history of life on earth, the period [of the explosion] can be likened to one minute in 24 hours of one day.” ( Darwinism p.326)  The  work of Dr. Chen also helps to present the magnitude and scope of the  Cambrian Explosion as a worldwide event.

     A complex ecosystem appeared with the arrival of the Cambrian Era. While cyanobacteria remained entirely new types of creatures appeared.  Some were deposit feeders,  others were filter feeders or grazers and finally there were predators.   Every ecological niche was filled. Trilobites are a member of the arthropod phylum that are named for the division of its body into three parts (i.e., cephalon, thorax, and pygidium).   A trilobite’s anterior cephalon was composed of 5 fused segments, a thorax with as many as 40 movable segments, and a posterior pygidium with 30 or more fused segments. Each segment bore a pair of jointed appendages making the trilobite highly mobile. Some researchers believe that the articulated segments of the thorax allowed trilobites to roll up in such a way that the under surface of the cephalon was protected (like an armadillo). Trilobites were deposit feeders. Their multiple legs were very efficient at stirring up the sediment on the floor of the ocean. Once this slurry was agitated it was moved toward the trilobites mouth.  As a trilobite grew it molted its external skeleton. Which may account for the large number of fossils that have been discovered.

 Brachiopods, phylum brachiopoda, are marine animals that look like clams. However they are quite different from clams and are not related to mollusks. They have two shells, which is superficially similar to clams or oysters. However their feeding structure is a lophophore. The lophophore is a ring of hollow tentacles. The mouth is located inside the lophophore ring and the tentacles are covered with cilia (i.e., minute hair like structures). The pulsating of the lophophore generates a current of water that flushes food into the mouth.  Brachiopods are filter feeders who use coiled tentacles or a pair of tentacles to trap food particles and move them into the shell.  The figure below depicts the unique anatomy of brachiopods.

     The phyla Echinodermata are called living or moving castles. The echinoderm skeletons are made up of interlocking calcium carbonate, plates and spines. This skeleton is enclosed by the epidermis and is thus an endoskeleton. These plates have a micro-structure that is known as stereom. The stereom is composed of single crystals of calcium carbonate that are finely branched. All echinoderms have a water-vascular system. Water filled canals branch from a ring canal surrounding the gut. Echinoderms were either suspension or filter feeders depending on the subphyla. Some were anchored to the sea floor while others burrowed into the sea floor. 

       The Cambrian Explosion was really an information explosion as massive amounts of new DNA, RNA and biological complexity were needed to create the new biological architecture that appeared.  The Figure below indicates the vastly increased  biological complexity.  

 This is the appearance of an entirely new biota. Each species and phyla has its own unique functionality. One phyla is primarily bottom dwellers or bottom feeders. Many were firmly rooted to the bottom while others were highly mobile. The different phyla appear first and then the organisms diversify within the major groupings. All other major introductions appear to follow the same pattern in which the phyla appear first. The architectural body plans, are in place from the first appearance. As time passes these initial patterns are modified within the constraints of the phyla. The Cambrian Explosion is a dazzling array of new life forms appearing fully formed in the fossil record.  Some experts believe that “all living phyla may have originated by the end of the explosion.” (Creator and the Cosmos  p. 239) Evolution, as explained by Darwin, is impossible in this scenario.

 Just So Stories and Punctuated Equilibrium

    Kipling's “Just So Stories”  are wonderful tales of how the leopard got his spots  or the camel his hump. They are fanciful stories of how animals stretched their necks or fell into a bucket of paint to get their colors. We laugh at them as children and file them under amusing tales.  Museums have skeletal displays and dioramas that present a gradual progression purporting to show one species transmuting into another. The whale is shown as an aquatic species that evolved from a land animal. The following quote from D. Dewar is a challenge to his zoological colleagues to explain the process of Macroevolution. The challenge has never been answered.  

     …. what would be involved in the conversion of a land quadruped into, first a seal-like creature and then into a whale. The land  animal would, while on land, have to cease using its hind legs for locomotion and to keep them permanently stretched out backwards on either side of the tail and to drag itself about by using its forelegs.  . . . As a result of this act of self-denial we must assume that the hind legs eventually became pinned to the tail by the growth of membrane. . . . Having reached this stage, the creature, in anticipation of a time when it will give birth to its young under water, gradually develop apparatus by means of which the milk is forced into the mouth of the young one, and . . . that the adult will be able to breathe while taking water into the mouth and the young while taking in milk. These change must be effected completely before the calf can be born under water. Be it noted that there is no stage intermediate between being born and suckled under water and being born and suckled in the air (Evolution: a Theory in Crisis p. 217).

    The description that Dewar wrote is very telling as it hints at a process that Darwin would have rejected. Darwin viewed his Theory of Evolution as requiring no external volitional expression. According to Darwin's Theory there had to be a survival benefit for each mutation. In Dewar's challenge he points out that the Proto whale “needed” to develop the apparatus to be able to feed and care for its young underwater. It was as if the Proto whale knew in advance that to nurse it's young it would have to develop specific physiological changes to survive. There is no retrofit for a whale that was not able to nurse its baby.

     The question becomes whether evolutionary theory mirrors fact or is more similar to a “Just so Story.”   Stephen Jay Gould, an ardent proponent of Darwinian evolution, wrote a book entitled   Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. The main focus of the book is the misinterpretation of the Burgess Shale fossils for over 50 years.  "Charles Walcott an eminent paleontologist and Secretary of the Smithsonian discovered the Burgess Fossil bed in 1909 and proceeded to misinterpret these fossils in a comprehensive and thoroughly consistent manner arising directly from his conventional view of life. In short, he shoehorned every last Burgess animal into a modern group, viewing the fauna collection as a set of primitive or ancestral version of later improved forms." (Wonderful Life p. 24)  It wasn't until 1971, when Professor Harry Whittington published a re-examination of the material that a radical reinterpretation revealed the enormous burgeoning of multicellular animals.

    Walcott used a strict Darwinian interpretation and therefore animals so close to the origin of multicellular life had to be primitive.   Burgess animals could not demonstrate a wide disparity  (differing phyla).   Therefore Walcott had to classify the fossils as either primitive forms within modern groups or as ancestral animals that would increase in complexity.   The following video is only 6 minutes however it presents an animated vision of the complexity of the vibrant ecosystem that composed the Cambrian  Explosion.  The animals of the Cambrian Era were neither primitive nor badly designed.

    The enormous number of new phyla that appeared in the Cambrian  Explosion is one of the reasons that Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge devised a new theory, Punctuated Equilibrium.  They confessed that paleontology really had no clear line of intermediate fossils and after a 150 years they were not likely to find the missing intermediates.  What was clearly evident in the fossil record were long periods of stasis followed by the rapid eruption of new and radically different species.  Gould and Eldredge proposed the Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium to explain the dearth of intermediate fossils and the sudden appearance of  new species.  As paleontologists who believed in evolution they saw a glaring problem (i.e., no transitional fossils). Their proposed solution involved the rate at which evolution works (i.e., the tortoise and the hare). Darwin advocated a slow and steady rate of evolution in small incremental steps while Gould and Eldredge proposed a rapid rate of macroevolution.

        Punctuated Equilibrium, proposes long periods of stasis in which species did not change. This equilibrium is punctuated by rapid changes in a small population which then spreads to the general population.  One of  the key elements of Punc Eq (Punctuated Equilibrium) is that  it occurs in a small isolated population. Since this population is limited and the speciation occurs rapidly  there would be little possibility of preserving transitional fossils. Which would answer the question of why there were no intermediate fossils.  Rapid evolution however generates its own problems.  One of  the strengths of the Darwinian model of evolution is that it is slow.  Genetic information and the mutations that are supposed to be the source of biological complexity had thousands of generations to create new species.  Punc Eq requires massive changes within a very short period of time.  Small populations would not give many opportunities for mutation and the limited time would require large scale mutations  to manifest the abrupt and significant changes evident in the fossil record.   According to genetic researchers Punc Eq is limited by “too few rolls of the dice to allow for sufficient variation to arise.”

        Gould and Eldredge counter that variation could already exist in the larger population before it was isolated.  This however would defeat the very purpose of the theory. If transitional variations  were already available in the larger population then there should be  transitional forms in the fossil record.  Punc Eq walks a fine line in generating large morphological change at an extremely rapid rate and yet keeping the transitional population small enough so that its representatives are not fossilized.  Gould and Eldredge claim that geographic isolation leading to reproductive isolation need not take long to occur.  They estimated a range of from five thousand to fifty thousand years.  

     Other researchers question whether 50,000 years is enough time for speciation.  Using a mutation rate of one point mutation per loci per year means the maximum amount of change in 50,000 years is a  0.00005 mutation.  In 50,000 years a species can undergo at the very maximum a 0.005%  change in its DNA.   Given that genetic variation WITHIN a species can be as high as 1%, the minute change hypothesized by Punc Eq is insufficient to generate the rapid and massive morphological changes shown in the fossil record  (ideacenter.org Luskin). There are two major problems with Punctuated Equilibrium.  One, an isolated population would not have the numerical strength to repopulate and spread with the rapidity and breadth that is indicated in the fossil record. 

    The fossil record is not a pattern of a slow re-population from a small restricted population base. Plus the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium does NOT answer the question of where did the genetic information come from to initiate the vast number of different species. What is seen in the fossil record are completely new phyla. There are no proto trilobites in the Cambrian Explosion. There is no creature with partial eyes or even incipient legs. Trilobites appear complete and whole in the fossil record. What "evolutionary process" provided DNA, genetic information and the new proteins to generate new physical structures such as legs, eyes and a digestive systems for over 20 different phyla? This pattern of sudden and completely new phyla speaks to design on several levels. Dr. Gould is well aware of the breath and disparity of the Cambrian Explosion. In his book Wonderful Life he speaks of the total ecosystem that is evidenced. This is not the appearance of primitive or experimental species. Each of the phyla are well-designed for their ecological niche. The benthos dwellers, the filter feeders and the top of the line carnivores are all well suited to survive and thrive. In a lengthy discussion Gould tells of the scientists who meticulously reconstructed and described the Burgess fossil specimens. They each came to the same conclusion. If they were transported back in time they could not pick out the “losers.” None of the species were ill-designed. None of them had features that would obviously doom them to the rubbish bin of extinction.

     Nor was the Cambrian  Explosion a limited novelty.  The Chinese finds known as the Chengijang Fossil beds have established the appearance of as many as fifty different phyla. The Cambrian Explosion was a worldwide event.  Note that the fauna include carnivores, bottom feeders, rooted animals, free floating species as well as burrowing creatures.  The Chinese fossils are from the same time period as the Burgess Shale fossil in Canada and represent the same eruption of a full and complete ecosystem.    

 Icons that Ain't 

   Neo-Darwinian biology continues to repeat the mantra that DNA mutations provide the raw material for macroevolution.  A 1999 textbook Biology  (Raven and  Johnson) states “all evolution begins with alterations in the genetic message… Genetic change through mutation and recombination {the re-arrangement of existing genes} provides the raw materials for evolution.” The same page features a photo of a four-winged fruit fly (Icons of Evolution, p. 185).    

     This spectacular oddity was achieved in the lab through the use of three successive mutant fruit flies.  Geneticist Ed Lewis sought to understand the control mechanism in fruit fly development. What he discovered was that all three mutations in the fruit fly affected a single gene “Ultrabithorax.” The mutations do not affect the protein produced by the gene, but only where the protein is produced. Every cell in the fruit fly's body receives the same genes from the fertilized egg: but as the embryo develops, specific genes are turned on only in those cells where they are needed. This process is called “regulatory sequences.” These sequences act like switches which turn genes on and off. In the normal fruit fly, the Ultrabithorax gene is turned on in the third segment and it produces halters (small balancers) rather than wings. The mutations that Lewis used partially turned off the Ultrabithorax gene. The first two mutations turned off control on the anterior or upper part of the wing while the third turns off the control of the posterior or lower part of the wings leading to the production of a second set of wings.

    This is not a mutation in a single gene but a series of very specific mutations that were artificially maintained. Within a lab, scientists can create a fruit fly with a double set of wings- But the rest of the story is that the fruit fly cannot fly.  The fly has no musculature to activate the wings. A fruit fly that cannot fly has NO life expectancy. It cannot move to seek food or avoid predators. It would quickly be killed.

     It is Haeckel's embryos all over again. Belief in the Theory of Evolution allows researchers or science writers to draw on visual images that seem to support the concept. As Ernst Mayr, a Neo-Darwinist, acknowledged when the mutation was found “ such evident freaks … can be designated only as “hopeless.” They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not survive in nature. "` (Icons of  Evolution, p.186)

    Only mutations in the earliest stages of development have a realistic chance of producing large-scale macroevolutionary changes and scientists have found that mutations at this stage typically have disastrous effects that either cripple or kill the embryo.  Geneticist John F. McDonald called this “a great Darwinian paradox.” The kind of mutations that Macroevolution needs - namely, large-scale beneficial ones- don't occur, while the kind it doesn't need - large-scale mutations with harmful effects or small-scale mutations with limited impact - do occur, though infrequently.” (Creator and the Cosmos p.241.)

     This leads to a final point about the four-winged fruit fly. The National Academy of Sciences states that “geneticists have found that the number of wings in flies can be changed through mutations in a single gene.” (Icons of Evolution p.187) While this is technically true, it is very misleading. While Lewis was able to disable a gene he did not turn on some “Wing Gene.” The fruit fly is a complex organism and while geneticists were able to tinker with the genetic information and create a mutation the result was not a functional creature.

     Natural selection can only select from what is found in nature. It cannot produce or create anything.  Natural selection functions to maintain what is  already present.  Mutations that are harmful to the species are eliminated.  The process maintains stasis.

      “According to the standard explanation, cells differ because the genes are differentially turned on or off. Cells in one part of the embryo turn on some genes, while cells in another part turn on others. . . . However, that doesn't resolve the paradox, because it means that genes are being turned on or off by factors outside themselves. In other words, control rests with something beyond the genes - something “epigenetic.” (Icons of Evolution , p.191)  “Information is not something that is derived from material properties; in a sense, it transcends matter and energy. Naturalistic theories that rely solely on matter and energy are not going to be able to account for information. . . . DNA stores far more information in a smaller space than the most advanced supercomputer on the planet.” ( Creator and the  Cosmos p. 244).

     Each species is an integrated whole. You cannot tack wings on a goat and expect it to fly. In the case of the fruit fly, to add a second set of wings is possible but you have to be able to simultaneously add the musculature to activate those wings. The creation of a functional 4-winged fruit fly would require an entirely new design. The insect would have to be modified to have a greater mass, more respiratory capacity and the muscular and neural network to activate the wings. A mutation must provide something that increases survivability- Most mutations cause death - cancer, leukemia.

    Yet many people are left with the perception that Darwin’s magic formula - random mutations plus natural selection - create a magic carpet ride from primordial ooze to mankind.  As Stephen Jay Gould observed the essence of Darwinism lies in natural selection as the creative force of evolutionary change.   However the one thing natural selection cannot do is create the fit for selection to work on.  As the Dutch botanist Hugo deVries put it:  “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest” (1906 pp.825; Apologetic Press pg.15).

      How can such things as eyes, wings, and lungs be built up by infinitesimally small inherited variations, that are each profitable to the preserved being? The first step towards a new function – such as vision or the ability to fly would not necessarily provide any advantage unless the other parts required for the function appeared at the same time (irreducible complexity).  A four winged fruit fly without the musculature to fly is a dead end literally. Richard Dawkins, as a Darwinist, responses that an animal with 5% of an eye is better prepared to survive in a world than one who has 4% or is blind. He explains that once the creature with 5% of an eye has survived it can pass this on and subsequent generations will improve their vision. The fallacy in Dawkins' argument is that he is talking about 5% of a functional visual system. Everyone would agree that 5% of vision as opposed to 4% or blindness is better. However the reality of evolution is the individual or creature has only 5% of the parts that are necessary to construct an eye.  Five percent of the proteins will not provide any vision at all.  The following analogy might help.  If a medieval alchemist produced a silicon microchip by chance, without a computer or electricity it would be useless and he would throw it away.    

   The fossil record also disputes Dawkins' response. Trilobites appeared in the fossil continuum with fully formed eyes along with the operating system and a brain to decode the messages. Opabinia had five fully functional eyes.  The Cambrian Explosion was not a gradual process.  The Cambrian Explosion of new phyla or Bauplanes is real.   What it demonstrates is phyletic disparity.   Even the Punc Eq offered by Gould and Eldredge cannot provide the means for the  appearance of so many new and disparity Bauplanes.   The question of origins, in biology and paleontology, has changed from one of  finding a chemical pathway or a fossil connect the dots to where did the information come from?

      Darwin’s finches have been a mainstay in the evolutionist’s evidences of the power of natural selection to produce change.   Darwin found different finches on the Galapagos islands and wrote that they had diversified from a single ancestor to fill all the ecological niches.

Darwin saw this as evidence for small changes (microevolution) which if extrapolated over time would generate large scale changes.  Two contemporary biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, tested this hypothesis.  The Grants studied one species of finch on a single island during a drought.  Eighty-five percent of the finches died, and the majority of those that survived had the largest beaks.  

     Again, as in the story of Darwin’s Finches nothing new was created. Both the light and dark variety of the species were available in the population.  Natural selection did not create a new species or significantly alter any aspect of the species only the proportions or availability of a specific characteristic was altered.  Therefore this experiment cannot be stretched to show the unlimited creative power of natural selection. However there are even more telling problems with the experimental validity.  Scientists now know that peppered moths are night fliers. To release them during  the day was totally out of their normal and natural environment. Additionally they do not normally rest on tree trunks where the experimenters placed them.  Their normal pattern is an evening flight during which they rest high in the canopy of trees.  These two reputed examples of natural selection fail to provide a means to add information to the system.  What is being offered is environmental circumstances selecting from among a variability that already exists to change the proportion of a trait. The species has NOT generated a new trait - that requires the ADDITION of new genetic information.

      To explain the importance of genetic information let’s start with an example from selective breeding.  Dog breeders don’t let their animals mate with just any animal.  They are seeking a champion dog that must meet very exacting standards.  Breeders carefully look for specific characteristics that meet the breed standard.  This is not without its cost.  What is taking place is a restricting of genetic variability.  A gene pool may begin with a wide variety of characteristics.   However through the process of selective breeding certain traits are bred out and lost.  The process of selective breeding limits the extent to which the population can vary.  It also limits the ability of the species to survive if the environment should change dramatically.  Pure bred dogs are more fragile and susceptible to disease. A characteristic that might have survival value may have been eliminated.     

   To  show this as a naturalistic example two populations of finches became isolated from the larger population.   The two so called “daughter” populations would begin to differ from the parent population.  Whatever characteristics were more frequent would dominate the daughter population.  Because the information for building those traits is now carried by a larger percentage of the population. The converse is also true.  Some traits would appear less frequently or not at all.  While this may appear to demonstrate the power of natural selection to create new species it in fact indicates the reverse.  It is true that the daughter populations will look different from each other or the parent population. They will have differed based on the traits that were available at the separation.  NO new traits were created only the percentage of those traits has been exaggerated.

     Each daughter population has lost genetic information.  The total biological information in the gene pool will have decreased which limits how much the daughter population can vary and change in the future. The isolated populations are more vulnerable to environmental stresses and possible extinction.  This would speak powerfully to the questions that were raised about punctuated equilibrium and the possibility of an isolated population having the resources to rapidly generate massive new genetic change.

        The production of new organs or new Bauplane requires adding new information, not reducing genetic information.  It is illogical to argue that a process that loses information can explain the origin of a new type of animal.  Natural selection works well as an editor but not as an author.  Natural selection has demonstrated the capacity to weed out the failures among what already exists but has not shown the ability to generate new biological information or structures.   (Explore Evolution  p. 94-95)

All of which brings us back to the original problem; how did the Cambrian Explosion originate?  Biological systems are extremely complex interlocked systems. “…, human beings begin life as a single fertilized egg cell. . . . Eventually the fertilized egg divides into several hundred types of cells. A skin cell is different from a muscle cell, which in turn is different from a nerve cell, and so on. Yet with a few exceptions, all these cell types contain the same genes as the fertilized egg. The presence of identical genes in cells that are radically different from each other is known as “genomic equivalence.”   ( Icons of Evolution pg. 190-191)     

For a Neo-Darwinist, genomic equivalence is a paradox: If genes control development, and the genes in every cell are the same, why are the cells so different?  We inherit specific genetic material from our parents and grandparents (e.g., eye color, height parameters, and predisposition to certain diseases). We might grow to be 6 feet tall, but if we are malnourished, we might not reach this height. Genetics offers a molecular basis for change. However, genetics has boundaries.  New information from embryology and developmental biology indicates that as important as DNA is it does not control everything. DNA provides the information to build proteins but additional information is needed to control and orchestrate the development of new biological forms and functions. One of the most difficult problems for the Darwinian Theory of Evolution is the fact that the new body types and “phyla” would require massive amounts of new biological information. Dr. Stephen Meyer calls it the Cambrian Information Explosion.   Think about what was required to initiate the Cambrian Explosion in terms of cell grade.  Life went from a single cell layer to highly developed specialized cells and tissue  (e.g., legs, eyes, gut, exo-skeleton, circulatory system, brain ).

       There are different kinds of cells and those cells have to be arranged into tissues. Tissues have to be arranged into organs which in turn have to serve a specific function in the body. According to Neo-Darwinism, new biological forms are created from mutations in DNA, with natural selection preserving and building on the favorable ones. But if DNA is only part of the story, then you can mutate indefinitely and you'll never build fundamentally new body architecture.