Japanese scientists setting us back millions of years

AP reports that Japanese researchers hope to produce offspring of the woolly mammoth using sperm from the frozen animals found in Siberia, and implanting it in modern descendants of the extinct animals, such as elephants. There are, of course, problems with degradation and radiation, but the scientists are hopeful that soon, they can overcome any obstacles.

Well, I'm confused. I thought that Darwin's sacred teaching of survival of the fittest proves that the modern descendants of the woolly mammoth are a better, stronger, higher species than their predecessors. In other words, if we reverse millions of years of natural selection by mixing the lower form with the higher, won't their offspring be a lower form of life than the modern species? How is that progress? If we seriously set back the evolutionary process after all these billions of years, are we jeopardizing delaying the next level of evolution by millions of years?

But I guess questioning the ethics of such a procedure is an inconsequential argument since there is no creator, no higher being controlling the universe, and therefore, no one to answer to for our actions. What's the difference whether we, as mankind, seek to alter the course of the most powerful cosmic force in the universe - the evolution of mankind by natural selection?