Toxins and venoms

be explored. Darwin claims to have agonized over the evolution of the eye and much is made of the actual ease of its evolution in terms of dioptrics. Less often is it remembered that the hallmarks of any eye, its transparency and transduction mechanisms, depend on proteins (respectively crystallins and opsins) that evolved long before there were any eyes. And this molecular inherency underpins all biological complexity, even brains. Given these molecules, eyes (and nervous systems) are an inevitability. Darwin’s insights began with the behemoths of South America and the finches of Galapagos. Walcott in contrast was no biologist, but he knew at once that the Burgess Shale was wholly remarkable. For him the pressing urgency of description, not to mention his innumerable other commitments, never would allow him to reflect on what deeper implications this fauna might provide. But he lit the fuse, and just as the Darwinian formulation irrevocably destroyed any sort of Paleyean creationism, so I suggest Walcott will be seen as the one who one hundred years ago placed the first charges against the monolith. Darwin was right, but so too was Newton — in his way. Now we have a thrilling prospect of investigating fundamental principles that underpin the Darwinian story.