What if the adaption is just a side-effect of another adaptation? As in, if there is no difference between surviving at -80 C and absolute 0?
Besides, I don't exactly see a point in some intelligent creature creating these little buggers with the ability to survive basically anything, yet giving them no other purpose. It's the equivalent of creating a computer program that is in all ways perfect, yet does absolutely nothing.
There is no intended implication for intelligence behind the extremophile behavior of tardigrades. Merely that it is curious how such a characteristic would have arisen given the absence of the environmental conditions (seemingly) needed to precipitate such traits.
Fair enough. I still think that it's not that surprising. For example, nobody in the part of my ancestry that matters evolutionarily had to jump out of the way of a moving car, yet I am able to do this. Perhaps this analogy is too simplistic, but I think you see what I'm driving at.
Besides, I don't exactly see a point in some intelligent creature creating these little buggers with the ability to survive basically anything, yet giving them no other purpose. It's the equivalent of creating a computer program that is in all ways perfect, yet does absolutely nothing.