Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are minuscule creatures that have been a topic of discussion due to their miraculous ability to withstand extreme conditions such as bubbling hot springs, Antarctic ice, and radiation of outer space. They are typically a sixteenth of an inch long, taupe colored and quite translucent. They have been found to eat other microscopic organisms and are consumed by larger organisms that are higher up on the food chain. No one has been positively sure about what phylum they were meant to belong to, although, considering that they have soft and small bodies, they have previously been grouped in resemblance to Arthropods; recently, they have come to acquire their own phylum (Dean). However, the bigger mystery seems …show more content…
Each step proceeds for cause, but no finale can be specified at the start, and none would ever occur a second time in the same way, because any pathway proceeds through thousands of improbable stages. Alter any early event, ever so slightly and without apparent importance at the time, and evolution cascades into a radically different channel” (51). Gould is considering that evolution cannot be predicted, leading to the conclusion that evolution follows no inevitable path, and eventually using the analogy that evolution is very similar to an extremely large lottery in that each surviving lineage inhabits the earth today more by the luck of the draw than by any predictable struggle for existence. The evolution of multicellular life may be more a story of reduction in initial possibilities, with stabilization of lucky survivors, than a conventional story of steady ecological expansion. Gould’s claim follows Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest”; some species are more efficiently adapted to the environment. Although, this would contradict Paley’s claim that there is a God who specifically creates things for the good of the planet because Gould and Darwin believe that multicellular life evolves by chance. Basically, by a roll of the evolutionary dice, Tardigrades acquired their superior potential to enter suspended animation and curl up into a “tun”, therefore enabling them to be subjected to higher atmospheric pressure, extremely low or high temperatures, and solar