When all of your reasoning starts with the premise that because an animal or plant exists everything about it must have a required purpose, then the answer to every question is going to be the same. That isn't science.
Guided evolution requires a designer. I'm cool with that, but as you say that is taboo in science. Without a designer evolution cannot be guided, mutations simply happen and the species survives, thrives, diminishes, or doesn't survive, most have failed to survive.
Zebra and Wildebeest are very different, despite having the exact same predators and competing for the exact same food source, in the exact same climate. It is ridiculous to conclude that each somehow perfectly evolved to maximize its survival. Why don't herd animals, which are well equipped to kill their predators if they acted in mutual defense, do so? By theory of natural selection, that would be a very obvious adaptation that should occur via natural selection. All of the prerequisites are there, indeed some herd animals do act in mutual defense, so why isn't it the norm? The short answer is always, "Evolution is perfect because it resulted in what we currently see, and what we currently see is perfect because it evolved to be that way." Extremely circular logic.
Almost invariably it's the males with the brightest colors and females who are camouflaged.
The advantages seem pretty obvious -- male competition for mates favors those the females find most attractive, while females need camouflage to hide their nests & chicks.
What exactly is your problem with that?
SampleMan: "When all of your reasoning starts with the premise that because an animal or plant exists everything about it must have a required purpose, then the answer to every question is going to be the same.
That isn't science."
But certainly not all answers are the same!
But natural selection eventually eliminates body features which serve no real purpose.
In the case of birds, for example, their primary need to fly ensures body weight will be kept as small and streamlined as absolutely necessary.
Birds which no longer need to fly (i.e., Ostriches) soon lose their streamlined shape & weight in favor of other more helpful characteristics.
And your problem with this is what, exactly?
SampleMan: "Guided evolution requires a designer.
I'm cool with that, but as you say that is taboo in science.
Without a designer evolution cannot be guided, mutations simply happen and the species survives, thrives, diminishes, or doesn't survive, most have failed to survive."
But the scientific term is "natural selection", meaning, they say, nature itself selects which few modifications will survive & reproduce, and which many will eventually die out.
Of course, I can't say how often God intervenes miraculously, versus how much He allows nature to take its course naturally.
Regardless, I'm certain the Universe in general and the Earth specifically is doing exactly what God first intended.
We know this, for example, from Genesis chapter 1.
SampleMan: "The short answer is always, "Evolution is perfect because it resulted in what we currently see, and what we currently see is perfect because it evolved to be that way."
Extremely circular logic."
Like our friend csivils, you seem extraordinarily hung up on this notion of "circular logic", even to the point of misrepresenting evolution theory to illustrate your idea.
Why is that?
So let me repeat what I told csivils: nobody in the known history of the entire Universe has ever said: "evolution is perfect", that's ridiculous, since the very nature of evolution is: things change & evolve constantly.
That's far from "perfect", it's adaption within the limits of what evolution can accomplish.
So why would you misrepresent that?