Err not exactly there bub...
Adaptation aka natural selection aka micro-evolution are changes in the natural selection process choosing traits between the 2 sets of DNA [mother vs father] while mutations are damages to the DNA code that may get corrected through the copying processes, may have no effects, often have damaging effects leading to disease and premature deaths, while a very few are actually described as beneficial even though it represents a loss in the genetic code it can in rare instances produce slight beneficial results but often at a cost somewhere else in the normal life cycle. Gradual decay of the DNA is one of the 101 signs of a young earth and universe and is thought to lead to species becoming extinct. Basically the observational evidence of DNA indicates devolution.
“The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation 30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel’s Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.”
A little research can produce a long listing of relatively recent DNA mutations which have proved somewhat beneficial -- my listing from memory: lactose tolerance with the introduction of dairying, sickle-cells to help protect against malaria, certain adaptations for high altitude, low oxygen survival, and on and on...
What they prove is that evolution begins immediately to adapt to new and more difficult environmental conditions.
So, what exactly is the difference between these short-term adaptations and long-term evolution?
Answer: that's it, a longer-term.
Short term beneficial mutations accumulate & accumulate over millions of years until separated populations can no longer interbreed, at which point we humans name them as different species.
BrandtMichaels: "Gradual decay of the DNA is one of the 101 signs of a young earth and universe and is thought to lead to species becoming extinct.
Basically the observational evidence of DNA indicates devolution."
But DNA does not only "decay", rather because of natural selection, it also changes and adapts to changing natural conditions.
So even if nine out of ten -- or 99 out of 100 -- DNA mutations are harmful, those will not reproduce so well, and the one in a 100, or one in 1,000 mutations which is beneficial can reproduce more abundantly.
So the net effect is not "decay", but improvement and long-term increased complexity.
That is both what evolution theory and many confirmed observations (aka: facts) tell us.
BrandtMichaels quoting Sanford: "The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago."
But human & other genomes do not overall decay, instead they often grow slowly but steadily more complex, due to the effects of natural selection.
This is highly consistent with fossil records and DNA analyses suggesting life on earth began as vastly simpler organisms at least hundreds of millions of years ago.