Natural Selection

Natural selection is often mis-summarised as 'random'. Only one half is random. Mutations that create variation are random; which variations survive and reproduce is the opposite of random. Start with a population that varies: some beetles are greener, some browner. If birds hunt on brown soil, the brown beetles hide better, survive more, and leave more offspring. The next generation has more brown beetles, not because any beetle changed, but because the browner ones out-reproduced the greener ones. Repeat this over thousands of generations and the whole population shifts. No beetle 'tries' to change; the environment simply keeps a biased scorecard of who gets to reproduce.