These explanations fail to explain the Avalon Explosion, which was the immediate precursor to the Cambrian Explosion, starting 575 million years ago, roughly 34

These explanations fail to explain the Avalon Explosion, which was the immediate precursor to the Cambrian Explosion, starting 575 million years ago, roughly 34 million years before the Cambrian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_explosion The late portion of the Avalon is, arguably, the first phase of the Cambrian, especially after 550 million years ago. This is still under intense discussion. Theories like "Maybe it was rising oxygen" fail to map to the complex interplay of development that we can see happening at the end of Ediacaran/Avalon-start-of-the-Cambrian. A better explanation, which might appeal to computer programmers: sometimes you can't do work in a low level language. Sometimes, to do complex work, you need to switch to a high level language. And that is exactly what happened at the end of the Avalon. While you can say "DNA is the language life" what's crucial is the emergence of a powerful new DSL for describing complex body shapes: the Hox genes. Consider the 3 earliest splits in the animal Kingdom, all happening at the end of the Ediacaran/Avalon: sponges Ctenophora Bilateria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateria The first 2 don't have real Hox genes, but all of the Bilateria do, and when we talk about the Cambrian Explosion, we are talking about the explosion of Bilateria. So we should consider the possibility that the Cambrian Explosion was an innovation in language, a specialization of DNA, the Hox genes essentially offering a specialized language for the description of complex body types. Remember that fish, flies, and humans all have Hox genes, and biology grads getting their PhDs take a certain perverse delight in showing that eyes can be made to appear in many different locations on a fly, by manipulating the Hox genes in the fly eggs. As an analogy, consider how Alfred North Whitehead, back in 1912, described the benefits of a great math notation: "By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead It is possible that describing complex body types was simply too much work without the Hox genes, but the Hox genes allowed a simplification, perhaps less actual work for the cells as they reproduced?