genetics is random. Each new generation combines genetic material from their ancestors, plus some new random mutations.
natural selection, i.e. the environment they're born in, is what picks winners and losers among those inherited characteristics and mutations.
Almost all individual mutations on a genetic level are benign. It's the combination of (selection of specific trait + compounding change) that is what we know as evolution.
In this case, the "change to the genetic code" produces elephants without tusks. That happened by change. But now, the elephants without tusks are the ones who get to live, because they're not poached. That specific mutation allows them to live/thrive. In the same way better hearing might allow a bird to evade its predators.
"no change to genetic code" ignores the fact that there are elephants wandering around who don't have (and will never have) tusks. (also: evolution is quite slow. this by any right is a huge, "forced" evolution. not in that we forced a change in the genetic code through editing it, but we are changing the course of genetics in a species through our collective behaviour).
natural selection, i.e. the environment they're born in, is what picks winners and losers among those inherited characteristics and mutations.
Almost all individual mutations on a genetic level are benign. It's the combination of (selection of specific trait + compounding change) that is what we know as evolution.
In this case, the "change to the genetic code" produces elephants without tusks. That happened by change. But now, the elephants without tusks are the ones who get to live, because they're not poached. That specific mutation allows them to live/thrive. In the same way better hearing might allow a bird to evade its predators.
"no change to genetic code" ignores the fact that there are elephants wandering around who don't have (and will never have) tusks. (also: evolution is quite slow. this by any right is a huge, "forced" evolution. not in that we forced a change in the genetic code through editing it, but we are changing the course of genetics in a species through our collective behaviour).