Dragon metamorphosis and regeneration (spoilers for Liveship and Rain Wilds books)

[redchild]

The last part about adaption... That can really be summed up in survival of the fittest... those who didnt adapt to it, died off...

More accurate to say that only those who were born with traits to protect them from acidic waters survived.
But really I found it interesting that Hobb did not mention spontaneous generation or intelligent design as the dominant theory. I'm wondering whether this is only the case for Alise because she is a scientist, or if intelligent design is actually the majority belief.

The attitude of Tintaglia is common for dragons... The cassarick dragons were malformed, and thus inferior. Inferiors are ignored.

In a normal situation, yes. But this was an entirely new situation for the dragons to deal with. If there were only a handful of individuals left of your entire species, one would take whatever steps necessary to be sure that that handful would survive and reproduce, even if they are deemed inferior. Tintaglia's choice must have been a difficult one.