Remarkably well-preserved 18,000-year-old puppy found frozen in Siberia

[Speedwell]

As far as I understand mutations are random because they do not produce a feature that may be needed for an environment. They just happen and anything that proves useful is preserved by natural selection. So if an offspring needed white fur to camouflage itself in snow country from predators that may or may not happen. It comes down to chance that a mutation will produce that feature. Though random mutation is constant it may not produce the right type of feature needed because it is blind to what is needed.

It still seems to me that you are confusing mutation and variation.

 

[pitabread]

Yes no problems. There are a number of mechanisms that can allow living organisms to acquire phenotype changes as posted below.

I should clarify, I'm not asking for evidence of proposed epigenetic mechanisms in and of themselves.

What I'm asking for is if there is any evidence in the domestication of canines that supports your contention:

I would assume that the loss of vertebrates in the tail would be the result evolution because of dogs not using their tail as much. The same as dog ears becoming floppy. But for me this points to a creature being affected by their environment rather than randomly mutating new variation to fit an environment.
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The reason I ask is because I already know there is documented evidence on identified alleles (e.g. genetic variants) in domesticated canine lineages. But is there any documented evidence which also supports your above assertion?

Also, if you are going to cite a reference, a link will suffice. Copy-pasting a wall of text with blue-italic font makes it unnecessarily difficult to read.

 

[stevevw]

It still seems to me that you are confusing mutation and variation.

Mutations is what produces the variations. If the right sort of variation is not produced then that's just bad luck for the species.

 

[Speedwell]

Mutations is what produces the variations. If the right sort of variation is not produced then that's just bad luck for the species.

Mutation contributes to variation, but it is not the sole cause. But yes, if the spread of variants produced in a generation does not contain individuals who can survive the changing selection criteria it is "bad luck for the species."

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I would assume that the loss of vertebrates in the tail would be the result evolution because of dogs not using their tail as much. The same as dog ears becoming floppy.

You were responding to a post about foxes, not dogs; but assuming you meant to say foxes, can you explain how you think that, in captivity, where the foxes were selected only for friendliness, evolution would cause the loss of tail vertebrae and cause floppy ears in less than 10 (IIRC around 5) generations through 'not using' them as much?

In other words, why would you assume that?

 

[pitabread]

Starting about 60 years ago the Russians started a still on going experimentation in the domestication of the blue fox. Domestication has led to evolution. The domesticated foxes have lost vertebrae in their tails and they now curl up rather than down, the ears no longer stand up and their coats are becoming piebald to name a few.

This seems relevant with respect to that experiment. It's a newly published study that suggests that the foxes in question were not strictly wild to begin with (e.g. they had already undergone selective breeding prior to the experiment): https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(19)30302-7