Quote Originally Posted by Alric View Post
I will take on the giraffe one and make it really simple. Think of it as selective breeding. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years, to get animals how they like.

Giraffes who necks are slightly longer than others, would be able to get slightly more food. The animal who gets the most food is generally the most healthy. The healthy animals always live the longest and breed the most. So over time, the slightly longer necked ones, breed with other slightly longer necked ones and with time they grow longer and longer.

Humans do this with like cows and stuff. Female cows that have larger udders are breed more often, than the others. Over time, the cows naturally have larger udders and produce more milk.

Even without any 'random' mutations the spices changes over time. We do the same thing with plants we grow for food, and it has been shown you can easily changes things like this.

As for the other stuff. If you live in a warm environment you don't need fur. Two legs offers some advantages over four. The most obvious is if you are walking on two legs you now have hands. A HUGE advantage, seeing as where we would be nothing without hands.

Anyway, you can see this everyday. A Japanese person has a baby with German person. Does that baby look Japanese or German? Or does it look like a combination? When two people have sex and have a baby they pass genes on to form a baby. A baby is a combination of the genes from both people. The random mutations are due to the resulting mix of genes which some times produce strange different things.
Bu there is a difference between changes that are already present in the genetic code, and mutations that just happen.

As for interracial, that's because two sets of genes combine, and the baby is born that way.

I really don't see what that has to do with mutation.