Are Butterflies Two Different Animals In One? !#&%

At the NPR blog Krulwich Wonders ..., Robert Krulwich asks via essay "Are Butterflies Two Different Animals in One? The Death And Resurrection Theory." He quotes biologist Bernd Heinrich for the proposition: "the radical change that occurs does indeed arguably involve death followed by reincarnation." (Omitting Krulwich's formatting.) That is stupid.
No one anywhere doubts that when butterflies go into chrysalis many of their cells remain living. They have no "souls," or at least there is no evidence that they have some sort of "soul" that moves from one animal to another. There aren't two animals. Here are cold facts: (a) they do not die; (b) they are not in some manner "reincarnated."

What is particularly moronic about the whole thing is that the death-reincarnation issue is irrelevant. The real issue is how caterpillars/butterflies came to have genetic code that turns off and on. That they do is not uncommon. We animals all have code that turns off and on. An outlandish (but not disproven) theory is that related species were able to mate giving offspring that had both features. The absence of evidence of that having happened should be the death knell of that (until some evidence is generated, then it can be "reincarnated"  -- see? I make great jokes). But it leaves the question what happened to the butterflies that do not begin as caterpillars? And does this theory really add anything? Suddenly Occam's razor is a useful tool.¹
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¹ The frequent problem with Occam's razor is Occam's razor. It's a tool that's often unnecessary, adding nothing to our kit. But sometimes ...