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Limiting factor

Given genetic change, speciation and huge amounts of time what is your limiting factor?

If I understand correctly, the idea of evolution is that everything around us is not designed by a great designer, but by the mindless processes of genetic change, natural selection (survival of the fittest). Then all you need is huge amounts of time to let this happen, and, ta-da, mind-bogglingly complex creatures that human beings struggle to comprehend.

I see design, but evolutionists do not. Let's call it something else... encoded in DNA is a "recipe for a creature". At the beginning, the recipe must have been basic, and now it's complex. So there must have been a net increase in "information" in the recipe over time. What I am still trying to hunt down is evidence of mutations and natural selection improving the recipe and giving a net increase in information.

Speciation is given as evidence: new species = improvement. But that seems a crude and inadequate measure of increase in information. I question whether speciation implies increase in information.

Furthermore, in many examples of natural selection given, they seem to actually show natural selection from a pool of pre-existing genetic material, not natural selection of mutations. Thus, no net improvement in the recipe, and no genuinely new information, just picking the best combination out of the available pre-defined options that suits the prevailing conditions. Darwin's finches and the peppered moths would be the classic examples.

In summary, as far as I can see it:

  • natural selection is convincingly demonstrated
  • speciation is convincingly demonstrated
  • existence of mutations is convincingly demonstrated
  • mutations that increase an organism's fitness in a certain environment is convincingly demonstrated
  • mutations creating a net increase in information has not been demonstrated

Thus, to answer your original question, I reckon the limiting factor is the inadequacy of micro-evolution to actually increase information, never mind how much time it's got.

But maybe I'm missing something... please point me to the biology textbook that contains the piece of the puzzle that I'm missing.

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