[Ygg2]

> Te point OP is making is that being born without tusks is just a random chance

Yes. That's how evolution works. Your genes are randomized during life/mating.

Due to selection pressure one variation is favored over the other. That's evolution.

So in evolutionary response to poachers elephants evolve no tusks.

[nverno]

It is pedantic, but I see how 'response' here lends agency to evolution, and could be interpreted as implying an intelligent process, as mentioned above.

[akvadrako]

Evolution is an intelligence in the same way people call anything AI: it's a system which can learn and adapt.

[fastball]

If anyone thinks evolution has "agency" because the word "response" was used to describe it, their understanding of evolution is clearly very limited and I'm not sure how productively that person can participate in a conversation about such.

[Ygg2]

Same way any inanimate system can respond. Think of it more like action/reaction than anything else. I.e. there is no agency just a set of interacting rules.

[nverno]

Yea, I think the original wording is fine, although I'd think of it more like the elephant genes are a river that got dammed, so the river started flowing around. Saying the river responded to the dam would be similar.