Correcting Erroneous Views of Evolution Part One

A common question that could be used as an argument against evolution goes something like this: if evolution occurred because animals needed to change to survive in their environment, how did they know what changes needed to be made and how did they make them? This question relies upon the false premise that natural selection and adaptation is driven directly by the species in response to a need for change that it is apparently aware of as was proposed (or rather is interpreted as being proposed) by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. That is where the problem lies, a variation of the question would be: nature isn’t a conscious entity so how does it know what changes to make? The problem with that question is that it assumes that natural selection is doing any actual selecting. Aside from sexual selection in which attractive traits are chosen by the female or male partner, selection in natural selection is done simply by the survival or extinction of genes. However even in sexual selection traits are not chosen for the purpose of making the species more suited to its environment but because the selector has a predisposition to favouring mates with specific traits. The fact of the matter is that evolution is not about animals or nature being aware that they would survive better in their environment if they develop gills or legs or wings and then decide to do so. Evolutionary change and adaptation occur in spite of or regardless of the environment. It is not about the environment at all. Variations emerge in species and either they will be beneficial to the species’ survival or detrimental, leading to extinction. Variations do not emerge to make the species more suited to the environment, those that just so happen to be more suited will assist the species to survive and reproduce and develop more genetic variations which over time will lead to macro evolution. Changes occur not to suit the environment, but just because they occur. Evolution does not have a goal such as improving the creature or making it suited to its habitat. Evolution simply occurs either to further evolution or to dead ends in which the animal evolved in a way not suited to its environment. If evolution had a particular direction or purpose such as improving species we would not see these dead ends. It is a misconception that evolution occurs to make a species more suited to its environment; if a species is lucky enough to undergo beneficial variation then it will survive and reproduce.