Evolution Vs. Adaptation

Edit: You should read about the central dogma, too.

Isn't this basically this:

I've always assumed the genetic change to not be related to the living conditions.

However one's physical traits may change won't affect the genetic make-up of that particular individual directly.
This is funny because I now realize it's the very concept of OOP. Store states inside and interact on the outside through functions.

Also, the idea of natural selection is clear; what I want to know is how it happens in the first place.
I understand that it is central to modern biology and it is often misunderstood as "evolving to a better state", but that is not the case here and I think I've failed to establish that, so I'm explicitly stating that now.

Okay, so we have 2 factors after all these posts: background genetic variations through reproduction and environmental variations.
Let's put environmental variation out of the picture for a moment.
Now we have an Asian lineage. Chances are that an Asian couple, though having potentially 2^32 x 2^32 possible combination of gamete coupling, will give birth to a fairly Asian-looking boy. Granted, his genetic information will be far different from that of either of his parents, but the outward traits shouldn't be outrageously varying.
This is probably accountable for geniuses emerging from time to time, but it surely isn't going to explain how fish started to walk on land. Even if it is, I'm not going to either easily or readily understand how.

With just this alone, I believe there will be no major "evolution" as time passes. After all, humans are humans, we aren't going to grow fins, scales and maybe another eye just because the ground gradually sinks into the sea.
And we will be wiped out, most likely.

So that sort of puts me under the impression that major changes in history was driven by something else, something that breaks the cycle, something from OUTSIDE the cycle.
Though, environmental effects aren't exactly reflected in genetic levels, as suggested by the central dogma (again, muscular dads don't produce muscular boys), so they don't really contribute to the variety of alleles there are.
So it must be something else, that I concluded. What is that something else? I knew of radiation (often known to cause cancer, which is most likely an undesired mutation), mishaps in reproduction, viruses, etc... but none of that would explain even the skin color of different people in different continents.

This has been bugging me until earlier when it suddenly dawned on me that environment could DRIVE the mutation whereas natural selection will guide it; the two are fairly separated. Such as people in a highly radioactive area have a higher chance to mutate. The ones who mutate the "right way" will be fittest to live in that area (e.g: shorter height for instance because there is a beast that hunt tall people). Without the radiation, no people will have the chance to become short enough to survive, for example.
They may also host less desirable mutations such as cancer, but in the general picture, they are more fit to live in that particular area than those without cancer but too tall.

Makes sense.