Evolution and Increased Diversity

The question about "diversity" is misleading. There was once much more diversity in Perissodactyla then we are observing nowadays. Speking generally the same for all mammalian orders. The question is if evolution has a purpose or not. I say that evolution has a purpose and increasing/decreasing diversity only serves to this purpose.The late Gould wrote once that if Yucatan meteorite hadn't fallen down there would have been Dinosaurus ruling our planet today.I doubt about it. Mammalian family diversity was established before Yucatan meteorite fell down. If it didn't fall the process would go on neverthenless.Maybe the process of origin of maninkind wouldn't have been finished yet in such a case, but it would happen sooner or later anyway.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

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But the statement ignores the fact that non-avian dinosaurs solidly held sway over the vast majority of terrestrial niches at in the latest Maastrichtian.

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These "niches" are very confounded. I don't believe that niches play any role in evolution. There has been already discussion here about whales. I would say ancestors of whales lived in the same niches as crocodiles did at the same time (-and now). Because Ambulocetus look like crocodile they obviously compete in the same niche untill Ambulocetus became a whale. Using this example I would like to stress the concept that evolution is pre-programmed process that happened regardles of empty or full niches.The same for mammals. Obviously dinosaurs didn't solidly held sway if they didn't eradicate them. There is no ground to believe that dinosaurus would't gave way to mammals once.Mammalian species were once much more diverse than today. I doubt it was due more empty niches in the distant past.

But it doesn't mean they lived in different niches either. Ambulocetus should have evolved in estuaries. Doesn't many crocodiles species also live in estuaries? Or do you suppose that crocodiles which survived K/T extinction were gentlemans and didn't filled all emptied niches (estuaries) for which they were pre-adapted? Dinosaurus were unable to hold sway in conditions which were very favourable for them. Warm-blooded mammals developed before KT extinction and probably would have won "struggle for life" with dinos regardless of empty niches, meteorites etc... I have already discussed it here. Make some research on your own if you like. Evolution is over. No new mammalian order has arisen since Eocene (except pinnipedia). I have discussed the issue in the thread "Is evolution of mammals finished?". Have a look at my introducing post if you like:http://EvC Forum: Is evolution of mammals finished? -->EvC Forum: Is evolution of mammals finished?

I suppose I adressed the issue sufficently in the introducing post of the mentioned thread. Fossils record in John Day Formation seems to support my idea.Being reprimanded I will not continue in discussion in this thread.

You will not have 1's on them. You somehow forgot to re-roll 1's. 1's are not immortal. They have to produce offsprings. You have to re-roll them, Catholic scientist. More than limited. It is valueless.(It doesn't take into consideration genes pleiotropy and epistatic interactions etc... It doesn't take into consideration many other allele-frequency dependancies). You have to re-roll 1's. If you remove 6's and 1's would have chance to fall 99% after many rollings your generation of dice will die out anyway.111 222 333 444 555 666
111 111 111 111 116
111 111 111 114 16
111 111 111 111 6
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1
1
6
end of storyYour dices need to proliferate themselves, you know.
(The same for that curious example of apes writing a Shakespeare's play where Natural selection copy succesfull papers and put them into typewriters again and again. Inventors of this story somehow forgotten sexual proliferation where papers from different typewriters are mixed and crossing-overed together every next generation).

I enjoy reading your posts Elmer. Your concept of natural selection seems to me to be very close the one I accepted as the more illuminating: natural selection only eliminates, kills and nothing else.As to autopoiesis I don't know anything about it but I would say concept of "internal forces" might be closed to it. I believe evolution is over and driving forces of it are not taking effect anymore.

What combinations do you have on your mind? Wellcome in reality using your maths: Heterozygosity of mice is 35%. Having 30.000 genes there are 10.500 loci which have at least 2 alleles. It means 3 combinations using your maths. What do you think how many possible genotypes/phenotypes mice could have? Using your inetresting maths it will be: 3 to the 1500 = 4.8 e+715. I am afraid there are not so many electrons and atoms in the Universe that there are possible phenotypes of mice.What combinations of these do you have on your mind?