Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-32918765-20171030193812/@comment-33185350-20171103183920

@Ithilion: The cave fish quote is really fascinating. There are two ways it could go: either the fish did adapt enough that they were eventually able to see, or they failed altogether, because Tolkien doesn’t specify if they did achieve sight in the blackness of the caves. Either way, this can be argued to be an example of adaptation. Tolkien doesn’t say “mutations accidentally made their eyes bigger so they lived.” The cause of the change is the environment the fish are in. Theoretically, evolution is mistakes that once in a while happen to be good, and natural selection keeps the good ones. The environment doesn’t cause the mistakes in the first place; they are random. When the environment directly causes the creature to become more suited to it, as described here, it’s adaptation. The range of eye sizes was already present in the fish’s genome before it swam in. But that is just my opinion on the subject.

@Kickratgames: I think it’s getting off-topic.