Other scientists suggest the reason for the sudden burst in the diversity of animal life could be the result of the small DNA molecules used for reproduction were not tightly packed into chromosomes and this may have increased the chances of genetic mutations from occurring, especially if the transferring of sperm to eggs was not direct via sex or were exposed to greater amounts of UV radiation near the surface of the water as the animals tried to escape predators as well as reach for the food supply. This theory is known as the genomic hypothesis.
NOTE: Animals can escape predators by going deeper in the oceans to below 300 metres and up to 1.5 kilometres. The ones able to do this successfully are the least likely to experience genetic mutations from UV radiation and consequently are able to maintain their ancient and bizarre biological forms to this very day. Animals living at these depths can remain unchanged for at least 250 million years. Compare this situation to the animals living near the surface and above the water and we quickly understand why land animals have changed so significantly in a period of 250 million years.
Then there is another view held by scientists that the early oceans were devoid of competitors and there was plenty of food by way of bacteria and algae, so life evolved into any viable variant it could find. However, it is a fact of life that animals do not like to change unless they are forced to or can see a definite advantage in the change. Therefore, the latter theory known as the ecological theory may only play a small role in the Cambrian explosion of life.
The idea of life evolving and making continuous random and tiny increments in evolutionary improvement over time was first proposed by Charles Darwin as he studied the animals of the Galapagos Islands in the 18th century.
It is true that regular and tiny changes do occur on a microscopic level (which is why all living things eventually show signs of aging over time). However, on a macroscopic level, evolution normally makes evolutionary jumps due to the changes made in the active sections of the genetic information stored in the macromolecule known as Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA). Furthermore, the evolutionary jumps do not always result in an improvement. Nevertheless, Darwin's theory of evolution is believed to be essentially correct.
NOTE: Evolution is not just controlled by our genes, but also by our environment. You need the environment to influence the genes just as much as you need the genes to influence our environment. For example, the extension in the lifespan of many people in developed countries cannot be explained entirely by our genes. Something else must be influencing this, and this has to be the environment. But this is not so much an issue of evolution unless people in developed countries intermingle sufficiently to create new genetic variants of one another which promotes this longer lifespan without the influence of the environment.
Evidence has recently been found to support the idea of the environment influencing the genes within our lifetime. An Italian geneticist has located what might be the protein capable of transferring a foreign gene to all the genes in new cells, sperms and ovum and eventually into new offsprings.
This environmental connection to evolution is something not discussed by Charles Darwin in his theory of evolution.
18th century biologist Charles Darwin
