Ebook: Showdown on the Burgess Shale

Stephen Jay Gould published "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
Nature of History." His observations on the diversity of fossils found in Canadian shale
and made conclusions on evolution. However, many of Gould's interpretations may be
flawed. A participant in the research reevaluates and challenges some confusions.

Almost a decade ago, Harvard paleontologist and Natural History columnist Stephen Jay
Gould published Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (W. W.
Norton and Company, 1989). In addition to chronicling ongoing work on the Burgess
creatures, Gould used these fascinating fossils to exemplify his view of evolution. A few
months ago, in The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals
(Oxford University Press, 1998), invertebrate paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, of
Cambridge University, a key player in Burgess research, challenged Gould's
interpretations. We invited Conway Morris to summarize his argument, which we publish
here, along with Gould's reply.