Organisms adapt to new habitats but remember where they came from.
Evolution is the teleological process of adapting to the extant environment. Adaptation may involve changes in physiology (phenotype), diet, mentation patterns and behaviors. Speciation occurs when populations diverge so much that the distinct groups no longer tend to interbreed.
Nature appears matter-based but is ultimately energetic. Energy patterns of every sort manifest in physical form. The mind’s fabrication of a material world is the fundamental deception.
Genetics, for instance, is the idea of traits stored in nucleic acids and associated molecular forms. The chemistry is merely a fascinating front.
Evolution is a strong proof of energyism (as contrasted to matterism). Adaptations are exquisitely specific to traits which enhance the prospects of species survival. This directed process cannot be explained solely in terms of molecules.
“Past experience affects future evolution,” says Chinese ecologist Jianzhi Zhang. “A phenomenon conserved from bacteria to vertebrates is that organisms remember their ancestral environments in the form of phenotypic plasticity,” observes Chinese ecologist Wei-Chin Ho. When organisms return to an ancestral habitat, they more fluidly, and typically more quickly, readapt than when entering a novel habitat.
Reference:
Ishi Nobu, The Elements of Evolution, BookBaby (2019).
Wei-Chin Ho et al, “Phenotypic plasticity as a long-term memory easing readaptations to ancestral environments,” Science Advances (22 May 2020).
“Past is prologue: Genetic ‘memory’ of ancestral environments helps organisms readapt,” ScienceDaily (22 May 2020).