When organisms have to adapt to their environment through physical alterations, how is that passed down to their offspring in the long run?
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You have it backwards – genes become physical adaptations.
Think of it like a car: each person needs to make a car from scratch, starting by copying the instructions for how to make a car from two different people, then making the car. However, sometimes you make a small mistake in the copying, and sometimes the instructions tell you to do things to the instructions (leave notes, erase notes, or actually changing the instructions themselves).
Those changes in the instruction manual over time results in different kinds of cars – maybe you miscopy a 2 as a 5, and now you have bigger wheels. Some of the changes might make the car not work – but fortunately, there’s a lot of error checking in those areas. And the better your car is, the more likely people will choose you to mentor them.
That’s life. The instruction manual is our DNA – and it slightly changes over time, some of it randomly, some of it as a result of DNA instructions (both from our DNA and outside sources). Those changes result in slight physical differences, some of which means the life form does slightly better – which means more offspring.
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