Ok, see here is the problem. You seem to be using the "it changed" definition of evolution and that is not going to work on a complex biological system. It's too simple. That definition works for your phone not an organism, but I'll get to that in a minute.
If there is no specific benefit aspect for the species then why would the trait be preferentially selected to the point of it becoming a hallmark of a species? If there is no concerted reason, like benefit, for the genetic herding then it should bounce around aimlessly not forming neat groups that we can use to tell creatures apart from each other. The only reason to preferentially choose big ears to the point of becoming common is because the one that hears farther gets off the scene faster leaving the little ears to get eaten. Otherwise, some might have big ears and another a long nose, one less foot, an extra eye. see what I'm getting here? Randomly chosen traits make no sense and even if they all got the same random trait it still doesn't explain the presence of enough preferential selection to allow the trait to take root and become fixed. Maybe a few get by with an extra foot, but that foot better be helping them or the ones that are better suited to the environment should have an advantage.
Adaptability is a main point of evolution. Now yes you could look at it as just changing because something around you changed. But if it is not changed to be better suited to the environment, beneficial change, what's the point? Why did it change if it was already sitting pretty or why was a maladaptive trait not weeded out? If it is a neutral change, what is the mechanism for making it spread through the species since there's nothing special about it? If it's just randomly mutating then there is high chance that there will be a bad or useless mutation and natural selection is supposedly going to root it out since it's supposed to prefer what is advantageous. But you can artificially select you say! Well, as I was saying with the dogs artificially selecting a species creates, at least in dogs, those lovely genetic bottlenecks which specifically reduce adaptability and could potentially lead to being genetic inviable. How are you going to get speciation, the forming of new species, like that? Speciation is a big deal since you know evolution is supposed to be there to explain how that happens. However, I will give you a break on plants since plants do seem to be a lot more receptive to such artificial measures than animals.
By the way, those definitions on that website are aren't going to cut it.
1. A continuing process of change from one state or condition to another or from one form to another.
2. The theory that groups of organisms change with passage of time, mainly as a result of natural selection, so that descendants differ morphologically and physiologically from their ancestors.
The first one is how it is used in common speech, like in describing the evolution of computers. It's a loose definition that could be used to describe an ice cube as easily as an animal, and more importantly, it is not the biological definition. The second is overly simplified and lacking key elements. Your children will differ from you in morphological ways. Your son will differ from you physiologically as a male. That doesn't mean his state is an evolved state of your own. In the case of you and your son, your son is still human and he is only expressing the traits that were included in the human genome not a true change in species or even down that path. And if he in turn has a daughter who also differs from him physiologically and in morphological ways that is not evidence that evolution went backwards.
Further, describing hair color difference as evolutionary makes no sense. I have brown hair and you may have red, but I could have a gene for red hair too. Even if I don't it's still in the human genome even if it isn't expressed in me as an individual. That's not an evolutionary difference between us. Especially since the smallest group evolution is supposed to happen on is the population level, not the individual level. You are still human and so am I with much variance in appearance but not true difference, and there is all the evidence in the world to support this. Especially as race has been proven to have no biological based. The reason I bring up race is because culturally we typically define race by groups of phenotypic traits like skin, hair, slight changes in shape of body parts, ect. Biologically we are all human meaning presenting phenotype as a true difference doesn't make sense as genetically we are just human.
But lets get back to the dog thing. Yes, Humans manipulated the changes in dogs, but they are still the same species. Now species is a funky definition to make. Sometimes it feels almost as bad as trying to define life but here's a definition and notice it already has some more details than your free dictionary definitions.
According to the biological species concept, a species is defined as a group of organisms that are able to breed with one another to produce viable offspring that, in turn, can also produce viable offspring by interbreeding. Species can also be defined by how many traits organisms share, how many genes they share, or by common ancestry.
Came from hereNow to artificial selection. Yes, people have played with the phenotype and they have even encouraged some genetic loss, but so far that path is leading down the build up of unhelpful genes not the potential path to a new species that will eventually be able to only breed within its own population. To give an example, lets think in terms of humans, say you have a human breeding program where you select preferentially for blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin and while you are executing this breeding program you increase the risk of these people having hemophillia. Now bear with me and ignore some of the blatant ethical issues because I want you to think in terms of humans so this stays familiar to you.
Now as you go on, you get a group of people who have blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and some have hemophilia. Did you make a change yes, but remember change alone can't be used as a definition of evolution. The ice cube changed from solid to liquid, it did not evolve from solid to liquid. These people are all still human. Now, this is your breeding stock. So you keep on your breeding program and to keep from getting variance you can only introduce people into the program that have the necessary requirements of blonde, blue eyes, pale. This limits your breeding pool but creates isolation, and that is supposedly one of the necessary tools for speciation but let's look at this.
Now you have an artificially isolated population; your breeding pool is limited. You have certain traits that you are breeding for, the hair eyes skin bit, but those aren't the only traits that are getting reproduced through the population. You've also got hemophillia and now you've also managed a cancer gene due to mutation. Now if you had a wider pool and you weren't artificially selecting, you might be able weed out the cancer and/or the hemophillia in time, but you don't have a wider pool, so you actually end up concentrating it. Or maybe you'd think, well just don't let the people who have those traits have kids, well that's still a problem. The more people you take out of the breeding pool, the smaller the gene pools becomes and the more likely you are to concentrate new genetic issues.
Well, you still continue your program but those genetic disorders are cutting into the participants who are in position to breed on their own but since you are artificially selecting, you are working to make sure that as many of them as possible can still breed. Those genes are getting passed on and you are deliberately inhibiting natural selection from intervening so you continue to concentrate less than helpful genes.
Now, I shouldn't have to continue the example for it to be clear that while you are affecting a change by limiting which traits get passed on, you are not creating new species nor are you going to anytime soon. They are human just like the rest, can interbred with the rest, and if they go on the future to mix in the general population that unique set of traits will blend into the whole and will no longer be expressed in their children to the exclusion of all other traits. All the efforts at change will be lost. Further, due to the small pool you are starting to accumulate other problematic genes which in high enough concentrations will actually start to either prevent the people from being able to live without severe intervention or will eventually render them unable to produce new generations. That's not sustainable.
Now to step back a moment, the issue here isn't actually people or dogs. But it's the process that is being explained as producing evolution in dogs. And I get it, if you google it a lot of places say dogs are examples of evolution. I saw that. But the issue is that this process is contradicting the definitions used to distinguish evolution from an ice cube melting simply because someone insists on using words loosely. Evolution is not just a change, a species is not just something that looks different. This is why we have definitions to try and keep from having concepts crash into each other like defining the changes in dogs as evolution when it doesn't properly fit into the rest of the framework. This process looks more like a controlled dead end than evolutionary anything. Which makes me worry more for dogs the longer we debate this.
