<< Evolution does not "plan" for things to happen. It is not a sentient being that says "Ok. for a woodpecker, I need to give this normal bird A, B, and C" and then makes all these changes like an engineer would blueprints.
Without going into amino acid and protein nitty gritty stuff... think about this, why ARE children different from their parents? Something happens to the information that stores what we are that changes it from generation to generation. You can say it gets "reshuffled". When this happens, you get different characteristics thatn your parents.
So.. going back to the woodpecker example. Let's say that a certain one now has a longer beak. So he thinks "hey. I can make little holes inside the tree and get worms near the surface now" and he does.. and lo and behold, he gets to eats more than his brother (with a normal beak) In a "normal" stress-free environment, this doesn't necessarily make much of a difference. But here comes the next Winter.. and it is unusually cold. Thus, plants don't start to bloom until about a couple of weeks after they usually do. With food being a scare resource during hard times, this causes a lot of woodpeckers to not be able to find enough food and die. But not Beacky. He was able to find more food by drilling into trees and reaching food others of his kind could not. His random extra long beak has now become an advantage to him.
You can see why this is a good thing to have (GIVEN THE ENVIRONMENT AND CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH BEACKY LIVES). Let's say this harsh winter happens twice in a row. End result... Beacky has less competitors and BY CHANCE... only because HE is there and other "normal" unmutated birds are there in a smaller proportion to the whole bird population, he gets luckier with the ladies. Consequently, a lot of baby birds now have long beaks. Give that enough time, this 'rapidly' spreads within the bird population. Give it more time and leave the ADVANTAGE TO HAVE IT (the cold long winters in this case) and Yatta, yatta, yatta... everybody has it.
Of course, it would be nice to have a longer tongue to use and a "brain dampening" system, and BY CHANCE, these happen in certain indivuals. These then have an advantage over Beacky, since they will still be able to see straight by the time they reach middle age. And will therefore have more time to have babies.. Hence.. more time to mate and spread their genes. Just by numbers and statistics alone... these "super" Beackys will reproduce with more ease than normal Beakies.
end result = a combination of advantageous traits is now found throughout a population. evolution. oh my :Q >>
You're sorta backing up my argument here. That beak would have to develop in one fell swoop, not a little at a time, for that woodpecker to gain that advantage you illustrate. The old theories were that a small mutation would happen, then another, and after a long time that beak would develop. Many scientists have reformed their theories to say that evolution would happen in large stages like that instead of in tiny indetectable steps. Where we deviate: I'm saying that the combination of all three traits would have to develop fully at the same time within the same bird for that advantage to work. Not only that, but it would probably have to come in more than one bird at the same time, and those birds would have to choose each other for mates so that the traits get passed on.