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One of the most common misunderstandings of evolution is that one species can be "more highly evolved" than another, that evolution is necessarily progressive and/or leads to greater "complexity", or that its converse is "devolution". Evolution provides no assurance that later generations are more intelligent or complex than earlier generations. The claim that evolution results in progress is not part of modern evolutionary theory; it derives from earlier belief systems which were held around the time Darwin devised his theory of evolution. In many cases evolution does involve "progression" towards more complexity, since the earliest lifeforms were extremely simple compared to many of the species existing today, and there was nowhere to go but up. However, there is no guarantee that any particular organism existing today will become more intelligent, more complex, bigger, or stronger in the future. In fact, natural selection will only favor this kind of "progression" if it increases chance of survival, i.e. the ability to live long enough to raise offspring to sexual maturity. The same mechanism can actually favor lower intelligence, lower complexity, and so on if those traits become a selective advantage in the organism's environment. One way of understanding the apparent "progression" of lifeforms over time is to remember that the earliest life began as maximally simple forms. Evolution caused life to become more complex, since becoming simpler wasn't advantageous. Once individual lineages have attained sufficient complexity, however, simplifications (specialization) are as likely as increased complexity. This can be seen in many parasite species, for example, which have evolved simpler forms from more complex ancestors.

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