An Evolution Question

This is a sincere question, not a challenge.


It is my understanding that theory of evolution states that we all evolved from the same organism. (I might be wrong.)
It is also my understanding that human beings and apes and such have more genetic information than simpler life forms i.e. bacteria.
If my assumptions are true, where did we gain new genetic information?
Don't mutations just change existing DNA?
How could that cause an increase in total DNA?

I am not trying to threaten anyone, I am just curious about the subject.😕

I just realized that I made my title very similar to another thread. This is probably a bad idea if I want it to be read.

Oh well, at least you're reading it.😕

Originally posted by Codfish
This is a sincere question, not a challenge.


It is my understanding that theory of evolution states that we all evolved from the same organism. (I might be wrong.)
It is also my understanding that human beings and apes and such have more genetic information than simpler life forms i.e. bacteria.
If my assumptions are true, where did we gain new geneti ...[text shortened]... se in total DNA?

I am not trying to threaten anyone, I am just curious about the subject.😕

No, humans have no more genetic info than other organisms. Humans have 46 chromosomes, potatoes have 48, armidilloes have 64, squirrels have 44, chicken have 78, drosophila has 8, house flies have 12, barley has 14. No correlation whatsoever. As for where extra DNA comes from, why is this considered a problem? One way that extra DNA can be synthesized is the duplication of genes or parts of genes, or the insertion of nucleotides by mutation. Sometimes a bacteria or virus will inset it's DNA into another organisms genome, and this isn't always removed completely.

Originally posted by Codfish
This is a sincere question, not a challenge.


It is my understanding that theory of evolution states that we all evolved from the same organism. (I might be wrong.)
It is also my understanding that human beings and apes and such have more genetic information than simpler life forms i.e. bacteria.
If my assumptions are true, where did we gain new geneti se in total DNA?

I am not trying to threaten anyone, I am just curious about the subject.😕

It is also my understanding that human beings and apes and such have more genetic information than simpler life forms i.e. bacteria.

Please define 'information' in a mathematical way so that having "more" of it means something. How do we measure or count 'information'?

Don't mutations just change existing DNA?
How could that cause an increase in total DNA?

Some mutations change existing DNA by adding more base pairs to it. These are known as insertions. Does that help?