Carey, Thanks for the clarification. As I was writing that I thought it seemed a bit squishy. I said,
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Since environments themselves are effectively random at the level of the organism (volcanoes, hurricanes, CO2 concentrations, migration of predators, disease organisms, etc.) what better way could be devised for species to adapt than for each generation to be able to select the best possibilities from a random set.
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I think what I was trying to say was that . .
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Since the changes in their environments that species must adapt to are effectively random at the level of the organism - like the changes caused by the meteor that hit this planet and prompted the end-Cretaceous extinction event - what better way could be devised for species to adapt to those changes than for each generation to be able to select the best possibilities from a random set.
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I should maybe add that by saying that
the changes in their environments . . . are effectively random at the level of the organism - I mean that that meteor was not a random event. It was a mass in the universe that was obeying all the laws of physics. But for the organisms that had to adapt to the changes it caused - it was not something that they could have evolved an ability adapt to - it was a non cyclic, non repeating event - therefore
effectively random.
Margaret