Myth Three, The Ladder of Progress, explores the myth that humans are the goal of evolution, in that there's a natural progression from lower life forms leading eventually to human beings. An excerpt is found below:

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In 1579, the Franciscan missionary Didacus Valades penned a metaphorical drawing of the ordered levels of all living things from the lowliest life-forms--which he placed at the bottom of his drawing--to the highest life-forms at the top. His drawing shows these levels connected together by a ladderlike chain. Today, many people believe that evolution is similar to Valades' drawing, involving a ladderlike progression, as though nature had a built-in aim to strive ever "upward," rung after rung, from simple to more complex organism, finally culminating in humans--the ultimate goal of evolution--perched triumphantly at the top rung of the ladder. It's thought that this striving in the direction of perfection (meaning humans, of course) is part of the natural process of evolution.

This idea of evolution or any natural process having an ultimate goal or a purpose is known as teleology. But scientists, for all their searching, haven't discovered any evidence of teleology in evolution. There appears to be no inherent drive that propels the evolution of species "upward" toward the ultimate goal of humans, or of any other species. But this idea of higher and lower levels of life has a long history, and perhaps a look at that history will explain why this image is still with us today.

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Excerpt from The Top 10 Myths about Evolution by Cameron McPherson Smith and Charles Sullivan, pp. 43-44, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books). Copyright (C) 2007 by Cameron M. Smith and Charles Sullivan. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

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