[That Subliminal Kid]

Is that what you'd call evolution? To my mind, when a population is killed off, for whatever reason, those who survive already possessed the genetic traits required to survive. That's why they were able to pass those traits on to progeny. That seems to me a poor example of true evolution. It's a great example of natural selection at work, but I'm not sure that there's any new genetic information being added to the pool.

[Right Wing Professor]

Is that what you'd call evolution? To my mind, when a population is killed off, for whatever reason, those who survive already possessed the genetic traits required to survive.

That was exactly what Darwin called evolution - the survival of the fittest. The Origin of Species is online . See for yourself.

I'm not sure that there's any new genetic information being added to the pool.

I'm not sure what you mean by adding 'new genetic information'. If I generate all posible combinations of 50 letters and spaces, I've written the first line of every one of Shakespeare's sonnets. But is the information really in there? Information theorists would say no; you only add information when you choose the combinations that are meaningful. So, the addition of information isn't in the random mutation, it's in the selection.

[Virginia-American]

A good example of *obviously new* information in the genome is the Nylon-eating bacterium