The meritMerit systemHierarchy (Chap. 10) is a natural driver of diversityDiversity in animalsAnimal and people. The early birdBird catches the worm. The early riser travels far. Each deserves the reward for having done more than its equals. Each is different, an individualIndividual. The features shared so clearly by athleticsAthletics and academiaAcademia are shared by the entire animalAnimal realm. Those features empower the biosphereBiosphere with the designDesign that sustains it and assures its futureFuture. An integral part of that designDesign is the meritMerit system. DiversityDiversity is not a continuum. It is the antithesis to continuum. No matter how broad the bandwidth populated by diverse entities, and no matter how big their number, each entity is an individualIndividual, eminently different than its neighbor.