Misinterpretations of Evolution
There are many misconceptions of evolution. One in particular which many people fall prey to is the Lamarckian view of evolution: adaptation due to necessity. Mutations are random. Natural Selection however, is NOT a random process in that survival and proliferation are the goals, and alleles and mutations which promote those things will be selected. Another misconception is in the form of the idea that evolution is a progression. While there is a progression of complexity in form, evolution is more "everything goes" than that. In other words, complexity does not equate with success. For example, simple sponges, considered by most to be the first multi-cellular animal still thrive today whereas humans have only been around for a miniscule portion of the history of life. Another misconception has been dubbed "the Adaptationist Programme" by Steven Jay Gould in The Spandriels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm. This in general discusses many people's propensity to mythalize evolutionary history. Atomizing organisms into a list of adaptations and then attempting to understand each of them in terms of how they were used is the wrong way of looking at things. This is like saying that humans have a nose in order to place glasses on them and causes problems when attempting to understand the organism as a whole.