For quite a while now I have thought that the exitence of species and races suggests that nature is not really diverse. If it were we would see continuous gradients between forms, but we don't,

In the land of the blind the one eyed man is killed. Albino crows are often killed by the flock, transcription of DNA that is too devient is ofen/usually lethal.

Is diversity an artifact of our perceptions? is it a goal we should have? Are there bounds beyound which it becomes a problem?

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2000

Answers

I wonder if you're overlooking the developmental history of these entities.

Each present entity is the tail end of a lineage, I visualize a sort of rope of woven strands. Environmental opportunities/pressures/events can cause the rope to split, or certain strands within the rope to get fatter, or even on occasion for two separate ropes to join (cf. Lynn Margulis and theories of evolution by joining).

The number of ropes at any cross-section of time would be a function of the historical disturbances.

There is an effect of diversity that I think can be held up as desirable. It is that of resilience. The value comes from valuing the world as it is (in terms of climate, weather, biota, etc). The more diversity in an ecosystem, the more stresses that can be accommodated without carrying capacity collapse. The diversity establishes a multitude of choices. The older fox-mouse ecosystem models always showed a marked oscillation. As you added eggs, birds, insects, and other sources of food, the oscillations damp out. Both the oscillations of the foxes and of the mice. So - if you like the world the way it is (in terms of richness) this is a good argument for maintaining diversity.

Also - in the land of the blind, I thought the the one-eyed man gets killed because doesn't know when not to talk?

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2000

Nature does like diversity. Why else would mutation be built in to the system? Take any given human - chances are he or she has some biological adaptations that are not found in the general population. Why? Because adaptability and diversity leads to survival of part of the species.

Not every mutation is useful. Some are just cancer. But this mutability is built in to us and has continued during the entire span of humankind. No two humans are exactly alike. Even identical twins have some differences biologically.

We have the situation where the Black Plague wipes out 2 out of every 3 people in Europe. Why not 3 out of 3? Or the situation where complications from AIDS kills a majority of those infected yet some HIV-infected people lead normal lives. Why do epidemics end even before the scientists figure out the causation and prevention for the disease? Infection rates for polio and all the other common diseases were dropping well before the vaccines were available.

When you speak of diversity with reference to biology, I can see it's value. In terms of cultural diversity, who knows? I can't claim to value all cultures as much as my own - I happily borrow whatever I like. I am glad we are not homogenized (too boring) but it's probably not nature that prevents it. Cross-racial unions are common but we're not the uniform light brown, moderate-height people sci-fi books from the '50's predicted.

Diversity as a goal?! Are we statists to decide on breeding strategies to keep specific lines pure and muddy others? Shall we also decide what traits we want in our progeny (Gataca - the Valids and the In-Valids)? Besides, free will provides diversity anyway but I doubt the individuals involved had that as their goal :-)

Diversity as a problem?! I can't see how diversity would keep us from leading as free a life as our situations allow. There are days when I'd like to see evolution in action but being a softie, I don't try to help it along.

I'd be really torn about euthanizing the Klintonista's. On one hand, there are already plenty of slimy, parasitic, pathogenic lifeforms on our planet. On the other hand, I'd hate to cut one of nature's experiments short just in case there is something redeemable about that lesson.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2000