Which is not all that often. How many species have failed?
Most of them I understand but how many successful gene mutations were required to produce a human? All those extinct species had a long string of successful mutations before they failed. So I wouldn't say that it doesn't happen all that often. As a % of total mutations the number of successful mutations is small but as a quantity the number is immense.
The result is the appearance that mutations have come on the scene in just the right places at just the right times.
Yeah I get that. Life has a scatter shot approach to finding the right combinations. Always firing and only occasionally making the target. It is like one of those electronic lock decoders that goes through all of the possible combinations until it hits on the right one. With the added complexity that the combination is changing while the search is running.
As life becomes more complex does the pool of all possible mutations increase and thereby increase the potential to hit on the right combination for a new or changed environment? Or are the survival requirements of a more complex phenotype more exacting?
Do you think if we were to start firing lichens and bacteria at the moon that we would eventually get one that sticks. If there is an environment for every mutation is there a mutation for every environment?