hmm...you used the word "advance" which also implicity contains a value judgment, no?
As I understand it, Darwin had a highly-technical definition of "fitness" which was limited strictly to how well an organism could survive
in a particular setting. In other words, you might say "all evolution is local." Change the environment, change the selection pressure.
There was a famous case about moths in England. Their wings mimicked the coloration of the bark on certain trees. Usually the bark on these trees was something like light gray, and so most of the moths were light gray. Then a factory opened nearby (this was like in the 1950s if I recall correctly) and soot from the factory discolored the bark on the trees, making it dark gray. Pretty soon, most of the moths were dark gray.
There's no "advance" one way or the other, there is merely adaptation to the circumstances at hand.
In the post that started this mini-firestorm, I was engaging in banter more than serious talk. Nevertheless, the subsequent dialog does indicate that human beings also respond to selection pressure, and much of our recent debate has been over how to adjust the incentives to which people respond. Many of us feel that it is far too dangerous for the moral health of society to degrade the concept of personal responsibility and accountability for the consequences of one's actions. Look at how obesity is becoming such a problem! Yet rather than incent obese people to change their behaviors, we are asking businesses to accomodate obese people instead.
Slothfulness is also a growing problem, yet the most popular "solution" is to punish the industrious ones.
