The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

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EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST
The sequence radiation-intrazonal evolution is usual, simply be-
cause radiation does not occur unless there are diverse zones within
which evolution will follow. Occasionally, nevertheless, something
happens to close the zones so soon that radiation is curtailed, or the
intrazonal phase is even shorter than the radiation. The camariate
crinoids, for instance, seem to have been in the full swing of a radia-
tion when they all became extinct in the Carboniferous. . . . (390:
232).
We note that Dr. Simpson says, "something happens." What
happens? He does not care to suggest what might happen to
close the zones, to curtail the radiation, to destroy the species.
No one has ever suggested a reasonable explanation of these
things, but they can be understood as effects of repeated displacements
of the crust.
Dr. Simpson has remarked elsewhere that he does not ob-
ject to the analogy of the species and the individual, provided
it may be allowed that youth may follow maturity, and may
occur more than once!
Not only may phases occur in the wrong order, and be
repeated, but also some may be omitted altogether. This
seems particularly true of the last, or so-called senile, period.
No concept has had so wide a currency with so little support
in evidence as that of the alleged degeneration of species.
The reasoning behind it is essentially specious: if a form of
life becomes extinct, and if some "exaggerated" trait can be
pointed to, which might have produced this extinction, then
it is claimed that the species was degenerate. This is, of
course, merely hindsight, because it ignores
the fact that
some of the oddest creatures in the world have lasted for
millions of years and still exist. It is true that some kinds of
plants and animals become adapted to very narrowly specialized
environments, so that an almost imperceptible change
in the environment may destroy them. These forms may, if
you like, be called overspecialized, but they cannot be called
degenerate. No inner process of decay has taken place in the
organism.
Its extinction results from the external circum-
stance that destroys its relationship with its environment. Is
the specialist, who has spent his entire life in the study of