Evolutionary Informatics

Evolutionary informatics, a branch of information theory, studies the informational requirements of evolutionary processes. Its most significant result is a conservation principle. According to this principle, the information needed to find a successful search is never less than the information required to make the original search successful. Consequently, the higher-level search for a search is never easier than the original lower-level search. Conservation of information implies that information, like money or energy, is a commodity that obeys strict accounting principles. Accordingly, searches, in successfully locating targets, cannot expend more information than originally deposited. Conservation of information has far-reaching implications for evolutionary theory, pointing out that the success of evolutionary processes in exploring biological configuration space always depends on preexisting information. In particular, evolutionary processes cannot create the information required for their success from scratch.
  - William Dembski, "What Does Information Tell Us About ID?", Salvo