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Quote: "Even after millions of years of evolution, that continent has less genetic diversity in its flora because of its single common ancestor" I disagree wit

Quote: "Even after millions of years of evolution, that continent has less genetic diversity in its flora because of its single common ancestor" I disagree with this. After each extinction event, even after the one who vanished 80% of existing species, geological studies showed that evolution only need ~10 million years to have the same diversity as before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin...).

piyh 6y ago
80% of the species was gone, but that's doesn't mean 80% of the genetic distance from species to species was wiped out. You could cull from all the branches of the tree of life evenly and keep wild genetic diversity vs killing off everything except for certain plants and bacteria. The genetic diversity of a new continent would be highly dependent on the founder. If the founder has near perfect genetic replication and long lifespans measured by the century, the genetic diversity will be less than if you drop something that divides every half hour into a virgin pond. You're also using extinction events on earth as a anchor point for the discussion where the entire point of the article is that our starting conditions as a civilization are not directly transferrable to considering other alien life.
- ajuc 6y ago
  to be fair any advanced life will probably carry simpler, quickly replicating life with it
- unnouinceput 6y ago
  According to your argument then aliens should look exactly like us because we all come from the same single point called Big Bang. My point is that mutations happens a lot (see current situation where the pandemic might actually become endemic exactly because the virus mutates so much) and diversity will always happen. And in the grand scheme of time measured by millions of years the diversity will 100% happen to fill all the free niches, regardless of the founder.

piyh 6y ago

80% of the species was gone, but that's doesn't mean 80% of the genetic distance from species to species was wiped out. You could cull from all the branches of the tree of life evenly and keep wild genetic diversity vs killing off everything except for certain plants and bacteria. The genetic diversity of a new continent would be highly dependent on the founder. If the founder has near perfect genetic replication and long lifespans measured by the century, the genetic diversity will be less than if you drop something that divides every half hour into a virgin pond. You're also using extinction events on earth as a anchor point for the discussion where the entire point of the article is that our starting conditions as a civilization are not directly transferrable to considering other alien life.

ajuc 6y ago
to be fair any advanced life will probably carry simpler, quickly replicating life with it
unnouinceput 6y ago
According to your argument then aliens should look exactly like us because we all come from the same single point called Big Bang. My point is that mutations happens a lot (see current situation where the pandemic might actually become endemic exactly because the virus mutates so much) and diversity will always happen. And in the grand scheme of time measured by millions of years the diversity will 100% happen to fill all the free niches, regardless of the founder.