"I have never encountered such s in a book by a professional," Fortey wrote later. "The casual reader of The Crucible of Creation, unaware of the history, would never gather that the author's views had once been close to (if not actually shared with) Gould's." When I asked Fortey about it, he said: "Well, it was very strange, quite shocking really, because Gould's portrayal of him had been so flattering. I could only assume that Simon was embarrassed. You know, science changes but books are permanent, and I suppose he regretted being so irremediably associated with views that he no longer altogether held. There was all that stuff about 'oh fuck, another phylum' and I expect he regretted being famous for that."
“一位专业人员在书里竟然如此怒气冲冲，我可从来没有碰到过，”福泰后来写道，“《创造的熔炉》的普通读者要是不了解历史，绝不会知道作者的观点一度如此接近（如果不是完全相同的话）古尔德的观点。”当我向福泰问起这件事时。他说：“哎呀，这是很怪的，真的令人吃惊，因为古尔德还是挺器重他的。我只能猜测，西蒙的处境比较尴尬。你要知道，科学是不断变化的，只有书本是永久的。我估计，他后悔跟他现在完全不再持有的观点有着不可抹去的联系。他说过‘哦，真该死，这里面没有一个新的门呀！’这类话。我估计他后悔因此出了名。”

What happened was that the early Cambrian fossils began to undergo a period of critical reappraisal. Fortey and Derek Briggs—one of the other principals in Gould's book—used a method known as cladistics to compare the various Burgess fossils. In simple terms, cladistics consists of organizing organisms on the basis of shared features. Fortey gives as an example the idea of comparing a shrew and an elephant. If you considered the elephant's large size and striking trunk you might conclude that it could have little in common with a tiny, sniffing shrew. But if you compared both of them with a lizard, you would see that the elephant and shrew were in fact built to much the same plan. In essence, what Fortey is saying is that Gould saw elephants and shrews where they saw mammals.
结果，早先寒武纪的化石开始被吹毛求疵地重新评估，福泰和德里克·布里格斯——古尔德书里的另一位重要人物——使用了一种所谓进化分支学的方法，把各种布尔吉斯化石进行比较。简单来说，进化分支学就是按照共同的特点将动物进行分类。福泰把鼩鼱和大象进行比较来作为例子。要是你考虑大象个儿很大，鼻子醒目，你就会得出结论，它与小小的、以鼻吸气的鼩鼱毫无共同之处。但是，要是你把二者与蜥蜴进行比较，你就会发现大象和鼩鼱实际上是按照基本相同的横剖面来构建的。实际上，福泰是在说，古尔德看待大象和鼩鼱，就像他和布里格斯看待哺乳动物一样。