This is also why the evolution of multicellular creatures has (meta-)evolved to proceed by discrete generations (birth & senescence) and Darwinian rather than Lamarckian inheritance.

Otherwise you over-adapt (overfitting) and lose the reservoir of variability required to cope with extraordinary circumstances.

Gregory Bateson describes it in one of his essays, I haven't had enough coffee yet but if you're interested bug me and I'll go look up which one. (It's in "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" or "Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity" IIRC.)