>>13251173>>13251356>Basically every stable feature has an evolutionary purposeThere is no such thing as an "evolutionary purpose" because that implies aimless processes create features that are being kept around for a future benefit without being selected for by natural selection.
Adding "evolutionary" in front of "purpose" is just adding a meaningless filler word.
In fact by definition evolution simply means change in gene expression of a population so if a feature is stable it's not changing any gene expression and therefore it's wrong to say a stable feature has an "evolutionary" purpose: no evolution is taking place.
The correct thing to say is every stable feature has an actual purpose.
The only time you might use the phrase "evolutionary purpose" is in cases like synergistic epistasis where a change occurred in a gene that is not harmful or beneficial but it's benefits are latent and could develop later as the gene spreads through the population and mixes with another gene that produces a benefit. But again that strongly implies useless genes are being kept around on purpose. They're not. It's all random until a benefit is expressed thus there really isn't a reason to say "evolutionary purpose"
