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"However, when he can’t find an advantage to the individual, he looks for an advantage to the group, or even the entire species."

Thank you for that explanation, but I have to ask: if those assumptions really do drive researchers, doesn't that suggest that the researchers have an underlying belief that there must always be some benefit somewhere in a given trait?

I think a cursory glance at the fossil record shows that there were all kinds of dead ends and that would belie the researchers' apparent assumptions. If I understand you correctly, it sounds like researchers try, in some cases, to make a square peg fit into a round hole - which doesn't sound very scientific.

[Erasmus]

Thank you for that explanation, but I have to ask: if those assumptions really do drive researchers, doesn't that suggest that the researchers have an underlying belief that there must always be some benefit somewhere in a given trait?

Oh, no. It shouts it out loud. ≤}B^)

I think a cursory glance at the fossil record shows that there were all kinds of dead ends and that would belie the researchers' apparent assumptions.

I believe that there is universal agreement that there are many dead ends in the fossil record. I do not believe that this in itself belies the evolutionary workers' assumption. Just because a species was adapted to a particular environment doesn't mean that it will survive forever, because the environment changes.

(Here I mean 'environment' in the general sense meaning the entirety of the bisophere, which includes for example the rise of competing species.)