In the blink of an eye: the cause of the most dramatic event in the history of life

"The 'when' and the 'what' of this extraordinary event, known as the 'Cambrian explosion', have been known for some years, and were made famous in Stephen Jay Gould's bestselling book Wonderful Life. What has - until now - been speculation is the 'why'. Why did this 'Big Bang' of evolution happen when it did? What caused it? Andrew Parker's explanation is that it was during this period that the eye evolved, leading to the birth of active predation. Those primitive life-forms swimming in the Cambrian seas had their eyes opened for literally the first time. Suddenly there was enormous pressure to evolve hard external parts as defences, and clasping limbs to grab prey. The animal kingdom had exploded into life, and the country of the blind became a teeming mass of hunters and hunted, all scrambling for their place on the evolutionary tree." "This theory, which is becoming increasingly influential and accepted, is fully explored and described in this book. A scientific detective story which encompasses disciplines as diverse as biology, history, geology and art, In the Blink of an Eye is destined to become a popular-science classic."