Watching CH4's "Inside Nature's Giants" I noticed a blatant error in the picture of evolution being expounded. Its also the same error that perfuses through the whole of GCSE Biology. It is the error of essentialism...
That is to say that "species" are given an actual status. People then say things like "elephants are adapted to their environment by having big ears". One wonders what happens if an elephant adapts to living in water... is it still an elephant?
It is not that elephants are adapted to living in these conditions but that the animals that have this genetic history and are adapted to this environment are called elephants. Form, History and Environment are One in an organism.
So we can't accurately say that "elephants" are adapted to their "environment"! "Adaptation" is a very subtle concept that seem to suffer this crude misuse all the time even by the biggest proponents of evolution like Richard Dawkins!
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