2 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2023
    1. Kimura's theory explains the diversity paradox that puzzled Darwin. Why are we surrounded by such an astonishing diversity of birds and insects and microbes? From the point of view of Darwin, a small number of dominant species would have been sufficient. Kimura explains the mystery by invoking the power of genetic drift, which becomes suddenly rapid and effective just when it is needed, when small populations can vary fast enough to become genetically isolated and form new species.

      !- solution to : diversity paradox - genetic drift

    2. . Naively, we should expect Darwinian evolution to result in a world with a much smaller number of species, each selected by superior fitness to be a winner in the game of survival. All through his life, Darwin was puzzled by the abundance of weird and wonderful species that look like losers but still survive. I call this abundance the diversity paradox.   If only the fittest survive, we should expect to find a few hundred superbly fit species adapted to live in various habitats. Darwin looked at the real world and found an extravagant display of species, with a great diversity of superficial differences. He saw elaborate structures that are expensive to maintain. The theory of evolution by natural selection should tend to keep creatures plain and simple, but nature appears to prefer structures that are elegant and complicated.

      !- definition : Darwin’s diversity paradox