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 think it's more that they're trying to point out the difference between evolution and genetic mutations. Evolution is what occurs on a macroscopic level over a long period of time to organisms. Genetic mutations are what happens on the microscopic level that could play part in the evolution of an organism. That doesn't mean that a genetic mutation implies that the animal has evolved.
I'm an evolutionary biologist and this is incorrect. By definition, 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.
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u/Lou_LL_11 Mar 06 '25
Genetic defect is just another word for evolution.