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How come in general evolutionary ancestors of most living species were bigger? Megalodon > sharks Sabre tooth etc > lions, tigers Prehistoric birds > modern birds Mammoths > elephants Ancient crocodiles > modern Moore’s law of evolved design miniaturization?
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That doesn’t affect max size inference. It’s obvious that the largest big cats in the past were larger than the largest ones today, regardless of smaller ones whose fossils didn’t survive for eg
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Most of the megafauna go extinct during major extinction events, also humans and their ancestors killed off most of the biggest game during the last couple million years
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Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” You need to analyze what advantage there is to being big. The advantage needs to be dinamic as the environment changes.
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