[expazl]

> Often with natural selection people will presuppose that different traits must have purposes or necessary advantages.

This is very true and even experts with good communication skills fall pray of perpetuating this misconception.

It's because of all the synergies that emerge in nature, it gets so tempting and to explain these as if they happened through intention. "This butterfly has a pattern that looks like the pattern of trees that grow in it's habitat so it will blend in and avoid prey" sounds so much more like a good argument than "The random mutations in the patterns of these butterflies over time that made them stand out more probably made them easier pray, so survivors would be those that were best at hiding so over time with that selective pressure we are now seeing butterflies that blend in well with the trees, even though they where never at any point able to look at a tree and go 'I want to look like that'".