ABSTRACT
As a second-year college student, Bill enrolled in a Geology course, during which the professor suggested, almost in passing, that – as Darwin had noted 100 years earlier – there was no known fossil record older than Cambrian-age animals, and that this “missing” record of earlier life was “the greatest unsolved problem in the Natural Sciences.” Bill was skeptical. He checked. The professor was right. Darwin regarded the problem as “inexplicable,” and to Bill, too, the absence of this unknown and assumed unknowable record of early evolution made no sense. To understand the problem, he trekked over to the college library and read everything he could find on the subject. During this venture, he discovered that there were only two North American scientists who had written anything about the subject (one paper each), but that to be considered as a potential graduate student he had to first achieve the status of an “Honors Student” – which he did, becoming the first such student in the history of his department. With this background, he set out on his quest to solve the problem. Though well-meaning senior professionals repeatedly tried to dissuade him, as a head-strong, know-nothing young college student, he trundled on.
