Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
Indeed - there are fish that live in dark caves that don't have eyes. These eyeless mutants wouldn't survive outside of the caves, but inside, they have an advantage because they don't have to spend the energy to grow and maintain eyes. Neither the eyeless fish nor their sighted cousins are 'more' evolved, they are just adapted to their environment.
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I don't think it's wrong to attribute degrees of success to evolution, because we are judging here in Darwinian terms. Like, bacteria are not lifeforms we aspire to or discuss in pubs but in Darwinian terms they are the most successful lifeforms.
If one remembers some of the Science Fiction of previous decades, like 2001 A Space Odyssey, there are better evolved lifeforms. These are species that only exist in fiction but it's worth taking them into account. Like if there are aliens whose technology is like magic, or whose bodies allow them to survive in space, I'd argue these are better organisms because they transcend their mother planet and are free from their environments.