Response to Comments on "Statistical Independence of Escalatory Ecological Trends in Phanerozoic Marine Invertebrates"

Roopnarine et al. and Dietl and Vermeij do not challenge our results but argue that escalation can be seen only at fine scales. This claim diminishes the theory and needs to be tested, not asserted. Roopnarine et al. incorrectly presume that our data are dominated by carnivores. Dietl and Vermeij overlook the fact that in addition to having no effect on global diversity, escalation has no effect on occurrence frequency.