"RSR would like to know exactly how the Holt textbook introduces students to the Cambrian Explosion -- does it, for example, lapse into discredited ID pseudoscience in this area."
Tell us RSR, what exactly is the "pseudoscience" that ID teaches in this area ... hmmm?
Is it that nasty truth thing again?
I'm not a biologist, but I was under the impression that species can change faster than Darwin thought under some conditions. This is not a repudiation of evolution, by any means. It's just that Darwin didn't have all the details 150 years ago. I thought about giving my son Darwin as a first name. The guy was one of the greatest geniuses of all time.
The Cambrian "explosion" took millions of years and doesn't violate Darwin's theory of evolution. There is no reason to invoke the intervention of a supernatural being to explain it.
The theory of evolution has evolved itself. In the 1980s, Stephen J. Gould introduced the concept of punctuated equilibrium, the idea that species differentiation occurred relatively rapidly after populations were separated from one another and allowed to evolve independently. The resulting species were often relatively stable and evolved at the slow pace that most associate with Darwinian evolution.
Punctuated equilibrium. Look it up. Works for me. Gould's graphics and "bush" vs. "tree" of evolution speak volumes -- as does he!
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