Crikey, you guys are quick! I wonder if I should still bother. O well, why not...
What would INDUCE adaptations? I thought mutations were random!?!
Mutations
are random. What is
induced is the keeping of certain traits (resulting from those random mutations), which happen to provide a benefit under the given circumstances, in that they keep the critter alive long enough, in the face of fierce competition, for it to produce offspring.
Surely you COULD have open-territory traits that come to pass while living in trees - and those traits are culled as they are useless in trees. - I thought that would be a better explanation - ho hum.
Indeed you could, I think we can agree on this. Traits that do not provide an advantage or are even disadvantageous (again, both varieties resulting from
random mutations), fade away, the former more gradually than the latter. Ho hum to you, sir.
I said "waiting in a tree" to make the point perfectly and sarcastically understood - understood?
I perfectly (but not sarcastically) understood that you used "waiting in a tree" as a slightly humourous way of saying "living in trees for an extended period of time", and I picked up on it, no offence intended. And I also realise the 'gazillion' may have sounded a bit harsh, for which I offer you my apologies.
"It's amazing what you can learn from DNA." - Desdamona.