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Greetings to all. I'm new to the Free Republic and this topic (although I have read the last 100 or so posts) so my apologies in advance if this has already been discussed.

Instead of jumping in late on the existing threads, I thought I'd propose (what I think is, for this forum) a new line of discussion: How does the theory of evolution account for the creation of new information? I think everyone can agree that human beings have considerably more information imbedded in them than do amoebas. This is obvious simply based on the relative complexities of the two organisms. The current view from science is that most, if not all, of this information is stored in DNA. The sequencing of genomes in recent years indicates that, indeed, human beings have more genetic material than do amoebas. Some information may very well exist outside of the genome but, regardless of where it may be stored, naturalistic philosophy requires that it be stored somewhere within the material world of the organism.

Regardless of the mechanism, any naturalistic theory of the evolution of less complex organisms into more complex organisms must account for the origin of the information that is in higher life forms. Natural selection, the fundamental driving force in all theories of evolution, does not explain the origin of new information. It simply says that an organism will be more likely to survive than another if it has certain traits that give it a reproductive advantage. i.e., survival of the fittest. Or, as some have pointed out, the survival of those who survive. The point is, the principal of natural selection, which is easily observable in the every day world, does not explain where the traits come from that help the organism survive and reproduce.

Darwin originally proposed the inheritance of acquired traits, but 20th century science rejected that and instead proposed mutations of the genetic code as the origin of new traits. Whether it is the inheritance of acquired traits, micromutations over long periods of time ,or Simpson's Punctuated Equilibrium, the problem is the same: all naturalistic theories of evolution propose that undirected, purposeless forces are responsible for the origin of the information that is in higher life forms but not in lower life forms.

This is a profound concept that, I would suggest, has no parallel in any other theory in any field of study and, in fact, is diametrically opposed to all of our experience with the natural world. In no case has information been observed to spontaneously arise out of the undirected actions of the laws of the natural world. Quite the contrary, our experience with the natural world teaches us that, without the intervention of intelligent agents, or safe-guarding provisions made by intelligent agents, purposeless natural forces acting upon stores of information will cause information to be lost, not gained; ever. Pick you favorite information store: books, video tapes, computer disks, the internet, etc., and find an example to the contrary.

How does the theory of evolution account for the creation of new information?

Welcome to the threads. One way to account for new genes is to recognize the existence of duplication mutations.

A recent article on Free Replublic reports on duplication in action.

To catch up on what has already been covered, you might also want to check out Junior's most recent opus, The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [21st Revision]

Darwin originally proposed the inheritance of acquired traits ...

That was Lamarck.

... or Simpson's Punctuated Equilibrium ...

S.J. Gould and Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium.

In no case has information been observed to spontaneously arise out of the undirected actions of the laws of the natural world.

Did you know the cosmic microwave background radiation reveals that the universe was once quite evenly filled with a hot gas of hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium? Nothing else, just that? Would you say the information content of the universe has gone up or down since then?

Well Said!

Look forward to your further contributions.