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To answer your question, the information was evolved with the method you have just described

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1. a population of organisms which have a lifetime and which can reproduce in a challenging/changing environment
2. a way of continually generating diversity in new 'child' organisms.

And that's the only two rules that 'govern' our universe. Even the survival of the fittest principle has emerged by these two rules(organisms which tend to have healthy, fertile children will dominate(i.e. their descendents will).

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Yes. Pretty much the standard theory. It is even axiomatic is it not? However, if you or I found that this process did not work as a universal law(or governing 'rules' as you so aptly stated), or if we even cast a shadow of doubt upon it, we would placed under much disdain by Dr.David Corne and many other theorists. It would be intellectual suicide to blaspheme this rule in our education system. However, dont worry, while it is WAY too late for me (for I questioned it a looong time ago) I dont think its too late for you.

ok. All kidding aside.

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Just want to clarify here, that mutations are always random, and never biased or inherited. I'm sure we're on the same page but maybe someone else would find this post informative..

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through copying errors, although i wouldn't call them errors per se..

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Here is the point of your error. You think that mutations are a 'good' thing. However it is a very serious thing, many people die from mutation. The amount of families hurt by genetic birth defects is tragically high. So mutation is a real catastrophic problem in our society and is not merely an academic problem. I dont see anyone hopping underneath an x-ray machine hoping to get a mutation.

But from a evolutionary perspective, as you have suggested, are mutations good?

For the last 100 years scientists have been trying to find mutations which have caused new, novel information, and I have to say that from what I have seen, there really havent been any mutations which have been seen to have unambigously created information. There certainly have been mutations which have been considered "beneficial" which however resulted in a loss of information rather than the creation of it. For illustration purposes some people might consider a broken car alarm to be "beneficial". However, even though such changes may be considered "beneficial", they still represent a "breakdown" of the car. This is an actual case, for example, in chromosonal mutations for for antibiotic resistances in bacteria. That bacteria has not evolved, it has become defective.

Yet evolutionists are persistent in believing that mutation/selection is the building block process responsible for all life. So we have to look at mutations closely. We specifically need to look at what kinds of effects mutations have on organisms. Limiting ourselves to point mutations as it relates to the amount of damage they can do they can come in three different flavors:

1)No effect at all
2)Subtle effects
3)dramatic effects

For current evolutionary theory to work, the mutations have to be relatively subtle (2) or have no effect (1) because a dramatic effect would be selected out fairly quickly.

(here is where some mathematicians come in and start to calculate the probabilities of mutations adding novel complexity to the genome)

To break it down to an analogy it does not take a genius to understand that most mutations are NOT going to add new protein building information, and there are huge amounts of harmful(3) or subtle effect (2) mutations for every one theoretical mutation which adds anything new.

So current evolutionary theory holds that these "harmless mutations" will not be selected out while the organism "waits" for all these good mutations to come together. Why wont they be selected out? Because they are harmless right? Wrong. They are harmless as individuals, but not in the huge numbers that they occur. Here is where the complexity issue comes in.

Basically I have a bunch of people here that are saying that complexity does not matter and that simple reductionist thinking that it all just somehow "works" with the amazing machine of mutation/natural selection, yet they really have no idea why it doesnt work, why it cant work, and why it has never been observed to work. Well Ive got some news for you, most of you dont know anything about how mutations act on organisms and on populations, yet you depend on the mutation/selection scheme to create the new information needed to produce an eye. Its crazy. And Larry_Laffer, as I will show you given enough time(for this post is just an abbreviated version just lightly skimming on some facts)your evolutionary computing is just a theoretical dream which makes very little sense in the light of real genetics research.(edit:well perhaps I shouldnt say in that way, because I know nothing of that kind of thing evolutionary algoritms are not something I ever really learned about) I am just saying that I am 99% positive that there are things involved with population genetics and genetic research which are definitely not considered in most evolutionary computing algorithms.