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.
Right, but what I was trying to highlight is that evolution is not just microevolution. As you know evolution can be split into microevolution and macroevolution, and whilst they're both part of evolution they're not equivalent to each other. I'm sure it could've been done more eloquently but that's what I was trying to explain.
Okay, that's fair! Some people actually do straight up think that population genetics and microevolution aren't subfields of evolution and I thought that was what was happening. I have... feelings about how evolution is portrayed in pop science, haha. I see what you mean though
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u/Lou_LL_11 Mar 06 '25
Genetic defect is just another word for evolution.