ah, I never said it was a "quick" adaptation, now did I???? Besides, if you don't think you can adapt to your environment in some form....take me, a southern california girl, transplant her in Chicago and after a few years, the cold no longer bothers you. Yes, it's cold, but it doesn't seem as severe as the first year here. Or the fact that after a HOT chicago summer 45 degrees in the Autumn seems cold and everyone bundles up, but in the Spring the converse is true, suddenly 48 seems warm and everyone is wearing shorts. You'd be surprised how your body "adapts" quickly to environmental changes.
This case can also be made for us "lowlanders" moving to the Rocky Mountains....the first week in a place like Breckenridge, CO many people are sick, short of breath, etc., but after a month or two their body begins to "adapt" and the blood carries more oxygen to the body because it NEEDS to for the body to survive.
Certainly this is a much less grand scale than the adaptation of a species, but that is an illustration on how things "adapt" rather than "evolve"
Mutation is much different than evolution ;o) Mutation causes things like elephantitis (spelling?) and "lions" disease (think "Mask" with Cher)....are those TRULY new species???? No, they are "mutated" (by disease) humans.
As far as for it being "proven", now if that were true, you would be able to scream it from a mountain top and EVERYONE would have to buy it like the existance of the planets & stars. HOWEVER, you have little pieces of circumstancial "proof" that you twist into supporting your theory. It's as many holes as OJ's defense, and you've swayed about as many people to believe it as an absolute.
Evolution is the makings of a sci-fi movie, at best. Entertaining to think about, but no more real than The Matrix.
No, it's the driving force for it. The examples you gave are single incident happenings that have bad effect. There are mutations that have no, or inconsequential effect and those that have beneficial effect also.
The ability to adaptat as far as evolution goes is always measured as a comparison between the parents and their offspring. It's the offspring that contains the new code, not the parents.
Once man evolved the mind allowed him to flourish regardless of the conditions in the environment. If man didn't have a mind as developed as it is, he wouldn't know how to make fur coats and buckskins. Then where would he be if it got cold?