[fiftycents]

You are right. Evolution was a very poor choice of wording for variation. People then thinks evolution it has to be something good, when... it's just variation.

Same different: imaginary numbers. Not less number than others. There are plenty good ideas with a poor name: zero-knowledge encryption, and so on.

[PradeetPatel]

But born without tusks may be deemed "good" for the survivability of the elephants in the said environment. No tusks = no ivory, therefore minimising the incentive for poachers to hunt them.

My understanding of evolution is the ability to adapt and adjust to the ever-changing environment over multiple generations, and if we treat ivory poaching as an environmental danger, it makes sense for tuskless elephants to pass their genes on.

[fiftycents]

Yes. It's good to evade a predator. And the process you describe is accurate. But it occurs because the first elephant without tusks happens to live a longer life and prosper and left a large number of descendants just in time when they were hunting by their tusks. It just occurs, it's not a response in the sense of the specie but in the sense of the randomizing events we call world. That's why I said OP is, in the core of his argument, right.

[fastball]

Then the wrong word is "response", not "evolution". Because this is exactly what evolution through natural selection is all about.

[fiftycents]

Response would be a better wording. Yes, you are right. <<Evolution>> maybe lead you to assume that variation/response seems to move towards something. But, yeah. You are right.