Faith writes:
In a complex system with one factor increasing diversity and half a dozen decreasing it so much is possible that you need to say more than this.
If you have some factors increasing diversity, and others decreasing diversity, you would expect some sort of equilibrium.
When there is very little diversity present, the factors that decrease diversity won't have much effect, since there isn't much to decrease. Thus the factors that increase diversity will tend to dominate. Conversely, if there is a lot of diversity, then the factors that decrease will tend to dominate. It should settle down at a somewhat stable level of diversity.
And that one factor that increases it does so sometimes in a random way, often in a lethal way, sometimes in a neutral way, rarely in a positive way, and a lot of it doesn't look random at all but predictable.
If a species is already well adapted to its environment, then it is to be expected that most mutations will be negative or neutral. This is a bit like the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." If things are working reasonably well, and something changes, the change is more likely to be for the worse.
If the species is less well adapted, then there is room for improvement so it is statistically more probable that some of the mutations will be beneficial.
If the environment changes in such a way that the species is less well adapted to the changed environment then, as the paragraph above indicates, there will be more room for improvement so more of the random mutations will be beneficial. This helps the species adapt to the changed environment.
Impeach Bush.
™ Version 4.2
