Not really. A genetic defect is a precursor to evolution. If the trait doesn’t benefit the animal and isn’t passed on with reproduction there is no evolutionary process, just a dead mutant.
I'm an evolutionary biologist and in true Reddit pedant fashion, I logged into an account just to tell you this is incorrect.
Technically, evolution occurs any time the frequency of alleles changes in a population. Microevolution is still evolution. That means that a single novel mutation is still evolution, even if it doesn't spread to fixation in the population. Loss of that trait is also evolution.
This duck being deformed doesn't mean that the frequency of the allele has changed unless you know how many ducks were deformed in the prior generation.
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u/Lou_LL_11 29d ago
Genetic defect is just another word for evolution.