Read about two new discoveries here and ask yourself how creationists can possibly go on denying the obvious, then act suprised when they do.
Blogging evolutionary stories isn’t by itself actually all that much fun compared with blogging the wacky and often bizarre people lined up against it. For some great examples of that genre check out Pharyngula, or Darksyde’s superlative series at Kos.
canuckistani
If creationists were going to listen to logic and evidence, they would have been convinced by evolution decades ago. They believe in creation because they want to, and the more evidence we provide, the tighter they will close their eyes and the louder they will yell.
DougJ
I know you’re all sick of hearing this, but the fact remains — there is no sound science supporting the theory of evolution. I’m not shutting up about this until you moonbats admit this once and for all.
Punchy
There’s no way to convince the creationsists. No way. They long gave up on logic, reason, the scientific method, and carbon-dating. If it’s in The Bible, it’s the truth. No fossil, find, pathway, ancestor, theory, or research paper is going to sway them. Ignorant is as ignorant does.
DougJ
If you think a 300 million year-old fish is going to make me stop believing in Jesus Christ, you’re in for a surprise.
KC
If you think a 300 million year old fish with attributes of a creature that could walk on land is going to change the minds of young-earth creationists, hell is already pretty cold.
Halffasthero
DougJ notwithstanding. Discoveries, in and of themselves, are only discoveries. This find, while nice and probably a lightning strike for expanded interest, could also be a hoax. That has happened a few times in the world of archaeology and will likely happen again. I doubt it happened here but I would wait and let them digest this a bit before going on about Darwin’s theory. The confirmation of evolution is probably never going to happen entirely for the simple reason that natural selection itself is probably not a sufficient explanation in and of itself. Remember that Darwin’s theory was “survival of the fittest” and based it on the killing off of weaker species by stronger more suitable ones. While I don’t consider ID to be a suitable replacement (and a fraud) I think that “survival of the fittest” is only one of many ways that changes occurred.
One scientist came up with evolvement or development of the species through cooperation between organisms which I only listened to briefly but sounded very interesting. It helped to explain what seemed to be a relatively fast development from the primordial soup through the grouping of organisms by symbiotic relationships and such. That is only another theory of course and is pretty crudely explained here, but it did make some sense. If I can find something on it I will link it.
Bob In Pacifica
The fundamentalist mindset is perfect for our current group of fascists. Don’t question authority. Bush is a kind of American Jesus on Earth. He talks with his Higher Father, Who concurred with or even suggested invading Iraq.
Religion is mystical thinking. This guy walked on water, therefore if you don’t obey you’re going to hell. Hmm. Makes sense. Obey Jesus, obey God, obey Dubya.
SeesThroughIt
Hahahaha! That is perfect: creationism encapsulated.
Historical Wit
What does Jesus have to do with a 300 million year old fish? Just kidding…Why can’t evolution be god’s way of creating life? Humans measure in known measurments, god works in evolution because it is creation outside the boundries of time. Time is something humans invented so everything did not happenat once. God probably does not have much use for a concept like time. But evolution is something god could use…
fwiffo
I love the smell of straw man in the morning.
Yes, out of literally millions of fossils, there have been, what, half a dozen hoaxes of significance?
That’s like saying “gee, I just don’t think that physics can be explaned only by Newtonian laws.” Nevermind relativity, quantum mechanics, etc. To ignore modern additions to evolution is grossly dishonest. Even Darwin did not claim that evolution acted ONLY by natural selection (he offered sexual selection also, and many other mechanisms have been added since). You might as well attack “Darwinism” because it lacks a system of genetics. Let’s just ignore 150 years of research since Origin.
This story has been seriously overhyped by the popular press. The discovery merely fleshes out some of the details of the transition from lobe-finned fishes to tetrapods. It’s not some sort of “missing link” in the popular sense of the term. There are already a number of well established transitionals between fishes and tetrapods. This is just another point on that line — a point that was predicted to exist. It’s good research, and a valuable specimen, but it’s not some magical missing holy grail. The evidence supporting evolution is already overwhelming.
Punchy
Ha ha! No offense, but this isn’t “survival of the fittest” at all! Maybe this was snark. Stonger species did NOT kill off weaker ones; “stronger” means more well-adapted, and they survived longer to reproduce more often, thus making their gene pool larger and more common. In contrast, the “weaker” ones simply didn’t/couldn’t adapt, thus lived for less years, fewer progeny, less genes in the pool, etc. Mulitiply this phenom over millions of years, and only the strongest’s (most adapted’s) genes remain.
There is absolutely NOTHING unsure, unproven, unreliable, untested about that theory. It’s as legit as gravity. Want proof? Ask yourself how antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains came to be. That’s Darwin in a nutshell.
DougJ
DougJ notwithstanding.
Huh? It seems that you and I are in agreement. We share the same disdain for science, which can only discover, and never prove.
ppGaz
Even for you, that’s a great line. Tip-o-the-hat.
Alex
I don’t think the lay public has any idea of the sheer size and scope of the evolutionary research establishment, nor of the magnitude of the evidence. Evolution is not the purview of some eccentric old Darwinian professors with drawers of fossils, pounding their fists in atheistic fits. Rather, evolution is the central organizing principle behind the work of tens of thousands of professionals working in fields as diverse as genomics, epidemiology, forensics, and ecology. The evolutionary sciences are staggering in their productivity, supporting thousands of research labs around the world, publishing dozens of articles weekly across hundreds of reviewed journals.
The new fossils, while interesting, aren’t as important as the hype suggests. They are a single example that captures the public imagination, just one additional piece of a puzzle that literally has dozens of new pieces added every week in the technical literature. For every Tiktaalik you read about in the Times, there are thousands of studies that don’t crack the popular press. Even as you read this post, there are articles going to press presenting yet more evidence.
It’s a real shame that the fundamentalists have managed to put up such a smoke screen of obfuscation over one of the most dynamic and successful of our scientific disciplines.
DougJ
Thanks, ppgaz.
ppGaz
Next, let’s poke fun at history.
I mean, what’s the point of it? It’s all about the past, and I’m all about the future.
Halffasthero
If you read my post carefuly, you would know that you just proved my point. And DougJ, I don’t “disdain” science, I am a firm believer in it.
Agree 100% – “Stronger species” depends on your definition which I didn’t want to take up a whole post defining. You did that better than I could have. I am sayng that this is not the sole explanation. Do I think it has merit? yes. I am saying the finding of this fossil while possibly important, has not proven anything. Eintein himself said that when he tests a theory, he is less concerned with the ones that prove it than the one that doesn’t.
I said it had likely NOT happened. Please read carefully before responding.
ppGaz
Be all that as it may, according to Jay Leno, the new fossil was the oldest one discovered since Abe Vigoda.
wilson
Name me one species that has come into existence since Darwin wrote Origin of Species in 1859 or so.
I am not a doubter about evolution, but I am troubled by nothing that I have seen listing all the new species (if any) that have been identified in the last 150 years or so.
We hear all about extinctions, but nothing I have seen about new species. Am I simply missing the relevant literature?
Mike Crichton
DougJ: I’m sure that the 99+% of Biologists who accept the reality of evolution will be disappointed that “no sound science” supports their research. Devestated, even. Good thing you were there to set them straight, they could have spent the rest of their _lives_ fixated on a paradigm that our friendly and helpful ID advocates can so easily demolish. :-P
Alex: What’s _really_ cool about Tiktaalik is that it was a genuine Darwin Fish! How cool is that?
Mike Crichton
Wilson: There have been numerous new species selectively bred in labs ( http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html , http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html ), but I somehow think that’s not what you meant. It takes _time_ for speciation to occur in nature, and we haven’t really been watching long enough. We’ll have to keep observing for at least another few thousand years to see speciation in the wild, and even then, the creationists will still insist that it didn’t count.
Alex
Wilson,
I suspect you’re missing the relevant background in evolutionary theory. With the exception of instanteous speciation by polyploidy (observed in a number of plants), species aren’t expected to suddenly poof into existence in an instantly recordable manner. Rather, the process is hypothesized to be a relatively slow one, whereby isolated populations diverge from each other over the course of many generations. For more information, you may wish to read the book “Speciation” by Coyne and Orr.
Of course, the vast majority of our species are “new” in a taxonomic sense since 1859. But that has everything to do with the pace of descriptive taxonomic work, and not so much with the speciation process.
jg
Why? What would that prove?
canuckistani
.
Three objections:
1) The fossil record leads us to believe that it takes hundreds of thousands of years for new species (an arbitrary, man-made label) to develop. One hundred and fifty years isn’t much time.
2) If I found an unknown species of mole-rat in the Amazon jungle, how would you know if it had existed 150 years ago? If the first of its kind appeared 10 years ago, how could you tell? You could probably trace its evolution back over thousands of years using the fossil record, but that isn’t very precise over spans of tens or hundreds of years.
3) Do viruses count?
ppGaz
the Neocon?
Andrew
Hmmm, perhaps this is an excellent spoof. I mean, you’d have to be really ignorant to have never heard of penicillin resistance.
tBone
Note to canuckistani: I guess viruses do count.
DougJ
Obey Jesus, obey God, obey Dubya.
You talk as if they were different people. I guess you don’t believe in the three-in-one, the true Trinity of modern Republican politics.
DougJ
the Neocon?
Marx began writing in the 1840s, so the origins of neoconservatism predate Origin of Species.
Andrei
I’m continually fascinated that the human brain is so well designed as to allow the average human to do such incredibly complex tasks like drive a car, but fail to be able to think through even the most simplistic of logic problems.
150 years when compared to the billions upon billions years of time and evolution compared to trillions upon trillions of years the entire universe has existed and obviously you have a relevant question, right?
Punchy
They did say they found a Fish, right? Who knew they were talking so literally?
tBone
Shouldn’t that be “They,” rather than “they?” Show some respect, man.
Ancient Purple
Lies! The Earth is only 6,000 years old, bucko. Man and dinosaurs lived together in harmony for centuries until the dinosaurs disappeared (or were raptured).
If you want to see a great historical documentary on humans and dinosaurs living in peace, I suggest all 166 wonderful episodes of “The Flintstones.”
You won’t see truth like that on The Discovery Channel.
BIRDZILLA
Evolutionists are the biggist bunch of crack-pots around they find a few bone fragments then claim its proof of DARWINS rediclous theory
canuckistani
Birdzilla, you are living proof that evolution is a lie.
Andrew
And yet, BIRDZILLA isn’t man enough to take last year’s flu vaccine.
ppGaz
BIRDZILLA ain’t afraid of any stinking bird flu!
He’s in a fowl mood today, though!
fwiffo
If you don’t feel like getting smacked around like a creationist, you shouldn’t use nonsensical straw-men to describe evolution. That’s exactly like saying “I can’t grow trees in my back yard because I can’t buy oranges at my supermarket.”
If you support science, it’s a good idea to have at least a basic understanding of the topic at hand before you go spouting off about it.
SeesThroughIt
Now now…let’s not go ruffling his feathers!
tBone
Yeah. If you piss off Birdzilla, it could really cause a flap.
JWeidner
Yeah, otherwise he’ll just bring us all down.
Zifnab
What happens if its a Jesus fish?
Halffasthero
Let’s assume for the sake of argument I didn’t understand “the basics” of what I am talking about. You are essentially saying I have no right to speak up about it. Not a very impressive point of view considering you are on an open forum blog.
I am not sure what straw-man you are talking about but I think that the development of this world was probably more complex than Darwin’s theory. If that makes me a creationist then you have built a very large tent of what makes one. I never once referred to divine inspiration or intervention as part of it and that is for one simple reason: divine intervention cannot be disproved. If it cannot be disproved it cannot be tested and has no place in science.
You are essentially saying anyone who thinks Darwin’s theory is an incomplete explanation of “what is” a creationist. You are starting to sound no better than the ID people you are mocking.
Pb
Halffasthero,
Let’s compare:
It’s a good idea to have at least a basic understanding of the English language before you go spouting off about it.
Halffasthero
With you so far…I am waiting on the point.
ppGaz
My hunch is, that would have included Darwin himself during his lifetime. In any case, though, “completeness” is not really an issue in terms of the basic model’s value though, do you think?
LITBMueller
No way. We need to debunk this “theory of gravity!” Only a fool would not recognize that only an intelligent super being could be pulling things back down to the earth with such force.
Its Intelligent Pull, dammit!!!!!
Halffasthero
Indeed, I think Darwin would have. It is a model and certainly is valuable. I am only stressing that it is a theory or hypothesis at this time. Although it is a hypotesis with good merit. I did say there were some alternatives that were worth considering however and allow me to steal from an article I came acros to help me out:
Here is the link to the entire article
ppGaz
H.a.hero, don’t have time to read it right now … maybe later tonight or tomorrow …. but ….
I don’t subscribe to the idea that evolution requires progress toward “better” organisms or features … I see it as a more or less random set of genetic changes that come along, some of which will serve to help the organism adapt to some challenge or opportunity, and some of which will have the opposite effect, and many of which will have no profound effect at all.
Over time, characteristics and organisms are culled out. It’s the culling that really does the work. The genetic changes are just the raw material.
That’s ppG’s Theory, as yet unpublished.
Andrew
I think ppGaz has stumbled across a radical new concept. I call it “Darwinian evolution,” so named after ppGaz, its creator.
Also, I saw the blog ad about a book on “joining the conservative revolution” and for a second I wondered what it was doing on a liberal site. Hmmm.
marchmadness
It appears to me that the supernewcons and the superneolibs are at it. Neither side on the creationis-evolutionist argument is able to concede the points of truth that apply to this topic. Emotion and fanaticism don’t belong in a rational debate. Science is rational, and proof of any single theory is only one step to what may never be proved, because it is still just a theory. In other words, truth is relative only until it can be proved absolutely. God, if it exists, is absolute, but no one really knows god, (in my opinion, no matter what anyone may say.)
“The confirmation of evolution is probably never going to happen entirely for the simple reason that natural selection itself is probably not a sufficient explanation in and of itself”
This is true. Because evolution is not dependent on natural selection. Evolution occurs because an organism needs the requisite elements to survive. The creature with a way around a destructive force will survive. For example, humans with enough brain were able change their environment to help them survive in a hostile world, despite being vulnerable. Did the development of the bigger brain in humans occur because the cro-magnon with the bigger brain survived, and the less brainy died, leaving bigger and bigger brained CMs to eventually become Homo Sapiens? Blonds developed because they needed the sun as they moved north.
I’m no expert, but the less some people know about a subject, it seems that less tolerance they have about it.
ppGaz
Please call my theory “Darwinian Shoving of Sharp Sticks Up the Asses of Creationists” because that was my intent.
It’s intended to simply illuminate that it’s the selection, the culling, that eventually gives you the new organisms, not just the changes that are being culled. Without the selection, the changes are just changes. The selection process is not required to be smooth, intelligent, or even beneficial at any level, in order to work. It simply has to select.
The boneheads are apparently trying to argue that since the process produces what appear to be “good” results, the process itself must have some “good” component that isn’t explainable by Darwin’s work. You know, like a Spaghetti Monster choosing the cutest creatures, that sort of thing.
Andrew
Oh yeah? So how do you square that with the midgit? He’s one ugly bastard.
Halffasthero
I needed to redo the link. I linked the cached version.
Here is the corrected link.
ppGaz
Well, everyone knows that the Intelligent Designer has to have a sense of humor.
canuckistani
Ah, the pleasures of a bad metaphor. Evolution is not a chain. It goes in a million random directions all at once, and the chain you see is what gets left after all the blind alleys and accidents of fate have trimmed down all the potential evolutionary paths. Any experience with random walks should tell you that they rarely end up anywhere near the starting point. But there is no design. Evolution never meant to get to people, we’re just a lucky accident. Maybe will people will evolve further, maybe we’ll settle into a niche, maybe we’ll go extinct. Our niche in nature could have been filled by lizards or birds or nothing at all. It’s just the way the breaks went. The right mutation at the right time, or at least not at the wrong time. Nothing that can’t be understood by modern evolutionary theory.
ppGaz
Once we are rid of the neocons …..
marchmadness
You want to get rid of one species of humans?
fwiffo
Halffasthero, you’re still not getting it. When you describe natural selection as the only mechanism of evolution, you’re setting up a straw man. Modern biology includes other mechanisms for evolution.
When you describe it as Darwinism or Darwin’s Theory in this context, you’re implying that the theory of evolution is as it was described by Darwin. It’s not, it’s changed a lot since then. Just like the theory of gravity, which has changed since Newton (e.g. relativity).
You also don’t understand the meaning of the words “hypothesis” or “theory”. Evolution isn’t a hypothesis, it’s a well tested theory, as strongly supported as any in science. All scientific theories are by their nature incomplete (our knowledge can never be truly complete), but you only single this out as a problem for evolution. Why?
I only had time to skim the article you linked. It just seems to be some thoughts about evolution by a non-scientist. I don’t see anything in there that challenges evolution. He does discuss some open questions (or questions that were open at the time he wrote it – it appears to be somewhat out of date), but nothing earth shattering. There is absolutely debate about details and mechanisms, but that is not something unique to biology. Ask a group of physicists how they reconcile relativity and quantum mechanics, and they’ll admit it’s a big unknown.
When I say “smacked around like a creationist,” it’s because you’re using the same bogus arguments that creationists use. I can only assume this comes from ignorance, which is why I’m annoyed.
Mike Crichton
BIRDZILLA: Bone fragments, Genomic analysis, comparisons of existing species to each other and their antecedents… ALL of these point to the currently accepted evolutionary theories as being better models of reality than the creationist “God just poofed everything into existennse! And if you don’t admit that, you’re a BIGOT!!!!111!~” non-theory.
That’s not to say that current theories are “true” in an absolute sense, they’ve got plenty of gaps in them that we’re working on filling, and there are surely all sorts of flaws that we just haven’t noticed yet. When we do discover those flaws, we’ll adapt the old theories to account for them, or come up with new ones. Either way, our model of reality will steadily improve as we understand more and more pieces of it. That’s how _science_ works. Fundamentalist religion, on the other hand, already claims to be “perfect”, with any change being heresy, so no progress in possible. You may like the idea of a static world, but I don’t.
Broken
Carbon 14 dating cannot be reliably used for samples older than about 20,000 years. It is useless for most fossils.
Most radiometric dating of fossils is done with other isotopes, such as Potassium-Argon dating. This is because radio-isotopes of potassium have much longer half-lives than carbon radio-isotopes.
However, potassium crystals suitable for use in dating are usually only found in volcanicly deposited rock layers. Therefore, a fossil must be located between two layers of volcanic rock to be dated by this method.
S.W. Anderson
The thing about faith is, you don’t need facts or reality. By definition, verification isn’t necessary. You just have to believe this, that or whatever.
This can be convenient, especially for those who find true, verifiable facts unacceptable.
Broken
The view that evolution progresses only towards increased complexity is an illusion. There is indeed much random walking involved. A better analogy might be an ink-drop spreading in a water filled glass. Each molecule of ink might move randomly, but as a whole, the ink slowly and surely disperses through the entire glass.
Species disperse through evolutionary space much like the ink drop. Once the space of simple life-forms is filled, species disperse into more complex forms, and yet more complex forms.
Halffasthero
I never said it was a problem. I said it is not proven. And the link was just one crude search that I located based on a disussion I saw on some cable channel (National Geographic or Discovery, not sure which) regarding symbiotic or cooperative development or something of that nature. It was similar to what I had heard and I thought it nteresting. As for not understanding the difference between theory and hypothesis, if my entries were off, it is because I am somewhat rusty on my usage. Darwin created the hypotesis of evolution (natural selection) after seeing different types of finches on Galapagos. It developed into theory after further observation but not by him. Don’t make me drag out the dictionary to explain the scientific method. Look it up. I am too tired.
I am not a creationist which is why I am also annoyed. So let us agree to disagree.
The Other Steve
In other news involving the evolution of the Party of Corruption…
New Hampshire Phone Jamming linked to Whitehouse
Not surprising, I guess, considering the mastermind was Bush’s campaign chair in 2004.
Halffasthero
Not bad thinking. Right now I am not able to come up with a good argument against that. The Law of Entropy (all things tend towards disorder) is the best I can think of but I am not sure that would apply. I am still trying to disprove that law using my place as the test lab. My thinking is it will reach a point where it is such a mess that it will naturally start to get cleaner on its own.
So far all results are negative. I will keep you posted.
Broken
Actually, what I described with the ink-drop analogy IS a process driven by entropy. Systems of many components evolve towards maximum entropy.
Maximum entropy means “most likely” not “most disordered”. Entropy does NOT equal disorder, contrary to what some bad science books will tell you.
For example, take a glass of water super-saturated with salt. This unstable system will evolve toward a stable one with crystals of salt stuck to the sides of the glass. The crystals are highly ordered, even though the net entropy of the system is maximized at equilibrium.
canuckistani
The Second Law of Thermodynamics (The “Entropy” Law) only applies to closed systems. If you are able to add energy to the system it is possible to locally reverse entropy. Add sunlight to a planet and you can manage all kinds of organizational tricks, at the expense of a lot of entropy being created at the energy source.
nyrev
Blasphemer! The Earth is only 6,000 years old. Carbon-14 is the devil’s isotope.
MrSnrub
I thought that was Carbon-666
Halffasthero
So… you are saying that, most likely, my house is likely going to remain a mess? Incidentally I did take that in physics but that is going back roughly 20+ years. Needless to say, Boyles Law went the way of a few brain cells after a lot of happy hours.
All kidding aside, excellent explanation. Where were you when I was taking that damn class? : )
Ryan S
On the subject of entropy, it is important remember that there are two different but somewhat related kinds of entropy.
The first is thermodynamic entropy. This one is associated with physics. This kind of entropy only describes the behavior of energy within a closed system.
The second is informational entropy. This entropy is closely tied to computer science. This entropy deals with the fact that without work/energy order or information is lost.
Now these two are closly related, but not always. For instance water ice is at a lower thermodynamic level than that of liquid water, however liquid water is at a lower informational entropy level that that of water ice.
In fact most crystallites behave this way, interestingly DNA, and proteins are crystallites. So one might say that DNA probably crystallized out of the primordial soup.
However a intermediary molecule was probably involved.
nyrev
Please. Like the devil would be that cliche.
tBone
Whenever a creationist or ID proponent points to the eyeball or some other example of “irreducible complexity” as proof that there’s a Designer behind it all, I like to pull out this passage from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
Mike Crichton
If you ever get a creationist who actually understands some physics, ask them to explain how a refrigerator works without violating the laws of thermodynamics. After all, it causes heat to flow from an area of low temperature towards an area of high, which is _clearly_ a physical impossibility. :-)
Barry
wilson: “Name me one species that has come into existence since Darwin wrote Origin of Species in 1859 or so”
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5
“Am I simply missing the relevant literature?”
Looks like it.
Barry
Wilson, a google search for ‘observed speciation’ will yield a lot of nice stuff. And you won’t have to wait geologic time for the results :)
Mike Crichton
Barry: To play devils advocate, none of the observed speciation events resulted in major morphological changes. Most of them, the resulting ‘new’ species are just barely different enough that they can no longer reproduce with the original population. For the plants, even that’s iffy. Also, most of them resulted from deliberate selective breeding by human researchers. What the creationists demand to see is major changes (like, say, a hyena-like scavenger becoming a whale), utterly without _any_ sort of human intervention, and they demand to see them NOW!!!!! Even if _we_ can cause such major changes using only selective breeding, that wouldn’t prove to them that such things could EVER happen in nature. They’re a bit obstinate that way.
Broken
Not quite. The entropy of statistical thermodynamics applies to systems at equilibrium with their environment, open or not. Entropy applies to non-equilibrium systems as well, it’s just a much messier problem.
Actually, the information theory version of “entropy” is most equivalent to the “free energy” of thermodynamics. Free energy is the information that you know. Entropy is the information you don’t know. The equation is:
E = F + TS, where E = total energy, F = free energy, T = temperature, and S = entropy.
The free energy is the amount of work you can extract from a system, and it equals the amount of information you know times the temperature.
In other words, it takes work (free energy) to “learn” information, and if you “forget” information, entropy is created.
In some sense, the total information is conserved: some is known and some is unknown. If you learn information, the unknown information decreases.
For example, take a deck of cards. If you know the exact order of the deck, you know all the possible information (maximum free energy), and the entropy is zero. If you scramble some of the cards, the known information (the free energy) drops and the unknown information (entropy) goes up.
No, you are confusing things. Not your fault: the problem is that the “information theory” version of entropy is the NEGATIVE of the thermodynamic entropy. In other words, the IT version of entropy is related to the free energy, not the thermo entropy.
You have more information about the water molecules in ice, so it has a lower entropy than water at the same temperature.
The strongest hypothesis, at least in my mind, is that life based on DNA as the primary information molecule was proceeded by life based solely on RNA. RNA can both replicate information and act as a catalyst much like a protein.
The most basic molecules of metabolism, ATP, GTP, cyclic AMP, etc are all RNA based. Ribosomes, the machines which translate messenger RNA into proteins, are built primarily of RNA.
DNA was likely added at a later point in evolution because it stores information more reliably.
Ryan S
Sorry, I was completly wrong about information entropy, I should have read this.
Shannon entropy
Halffasthero
So was I (in general). Completely explains why I only got a B- in 2nd quarter Physics. (might have been a C)