>>"failure" and "success" are notions relative to goal achievement, and biology doesn't have goals - it's a mechanistic process.
Of course biology has goals. Every living organism's goal is to propagate its genes to the next generation. For details on this, read The Selfish Gene.
I haven't read The Selfish Gene, but from what I've heard it tells the exact opposite: That every gene's goal is to propagate, for which task it merely employs the living organism.
Talking about "goals" and "desires" can sometimes be a usefully simplified way to think about biology, but it's not really accurate. A bacterium doesn't "want" to reproduce anymore than a rock "wants" to roll downhill. Only quite complex animals can be truly said to have goals.
Of course biology has goals. Every living organism's goal is to propagate its genes to the next generation. For details on this, read The Selfish Gene.