Interesting comments Anna.
I think this is a general difficulty with evolutionary schemes; whether they are true or not, they easily lead to interpretations of superiority,
at the same time, I do think there is such a thing as the evolution of the complexity of consciousness, which has been noted by many researchers (even if the need for such complexification may be a result of disfunctions of the society in which they occur)
my way out of this conundrum is the concept of Equipotentality,
http://p2pfoundation.net/Equipotentiality, i.e. the social design of contributory projects where everyone brings something to the table which is exactly right for the particular project, and hence can and has to be honoured,