I want to be fair to Howell, but I also want to be fair to my colleagues who have worked hard developing and publishing new ID arguments over the past 20 years.
From 2016 until his tragic death in 2025, Bechly made many important contributions to ID literature on the topic of fossil explosions in the history of life.
In three papers, scientists babble about irrelevant details but ignore the main question: the origin of new genetic information for new body plans and organs.
The history of life can perhaps be likened to a collection of different musical themes. In Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the four beginning notes are the theme.
The fossil record generally documents a discontinuous history of life with sudden appearances of new body plans and new forms of life in saltational events.
Incidentally, a few days ago I received a message from my paleobiologist colleague Dr. Ken Towe, a retired senior scientist at the Smithsonian Institution.
