Agreed, I was surprised this was surprising. I saw some study where some moths can evolve from white to black in a couple generations if they go from white bark forests to black bark forests. But that doesn't mean they'll evolve into something unrecognizable in a hundred generations.

I was just looking at Taylor expansions today (guid uniqueness...birthday problem), so, this kind of reminds me of that. First you evolve, then you evolve the ability to evolve, then you evolve the ability to evolve the ability to evolve, etc. So maybe there's a formula.