Paper: Darwin's Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Intelligent Design Argument

This comprehensive analysis, prepared by Stephen C. Meyer, critically evaluates the fossil record associated with the Cambrian Explosion, a unique period in Earth's geological history. During this era, the vast majority of animal phyla (the fundamental architectural body plans) arose suddenly in geological strata, completely lacking gradual transitional forms in the underlying Precambrian eras. The present study mathematically demonstrates that the mechanism proposed by orthodox neo-Darwinism (the sum of random genetic mutations combined with blind natural selection) lacks the causal power necessary to originate the immense amount of epigenetic and genetic information (the specific biological code) required for the morphogenesis of these new organisms in such a short time window. Instead, the paper rigorously posits that Intelligent Design inference constitutes the only causally adequate explanation, empirically observed at present, for the sudden appearance of complex, semantically specified information.