"Tim Tyler"  wrote in message
news:cjfi44$23c0$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Rob  wrote or quoted:
> 
> Individual species can - of course - decline as well as progress.
> 
> Hill climbing can result in sinking beneath the waves, if you
> are hill-climbing on an island that is sinking into the sea.
> 
> It is only evoultion as a whole that is progressive.
> 
> Following the fate of an individual species is *much* less likely to show 
> a progressive character - since the fate of most species is extinction.

I think your range of comments to the question could be more confusing than
clearifying.
It is as if your own perspective on (this question about) evolution keeps
going in and out of focus.
(You bet you can see what I mean.)

Evolution is a patterning process that in the case of evolving species
(inclined-to-reproduce individual *and mainly cellular* organisms
classified by some similarity-criteria) tends to find new and on the whole
increasingly complex ways by which individuals interact with (most
generally exploit opportunities and cope with adversities presented them
by) their environment.

The only problem with this understanding of what Evolution (as a whole)
*progresses towards*, is that it is hard to pin down the relevant meaning
of "complexity".

P
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