OK, maybe its not entirely random, but consider what information is there in the environment, there's a night, there's a day, there's an up and there is a down. A few more simple things like this. The proposal that it is possible to extract more information from the environment is absurd. Do you propose an additional source of information? If so, then you are not an evolutionist anymore, as evolutionist dogma dictates nothing but random sources of information.
"Random mutations come from the environment. So does natural selection. In the end the only input to the proposed evolution function is random. "
Natural selection comes from the environment, but is not random. This is a flaw in that statement.
"Extracting information from a truly random stream is not possible."The information that a harmonic oscillator is outputing, is already part of the information of the oscillator. If we have already labeled something an oscillator, then it is possible through the laws of physics to deduce more or less, at which frequencies it would vibrate. Therefore no new information is brought about into existance when it actually does vibrate.
You can absolutely consider the environment a non-random input to this system if you so choose to model it this way. The idea that evolution is impossible because it implies an unachievable creation of information from randomness is invalid.
Can a harmonic oscillator not produce a periodic sinusoidal signal given a white input? Does this periodicity (of the "fittest" frequency, if you will) not contain information about the environment and the machine itself?
If you admit that information can be destroyed through mutations (say, one codon gets replaced with all A's, producing a dysfunctional but maybe surviving organism--I hope you will not argue that mutations are impossible!), then how can it not be created by a symmetric mutation? A one-time, random event, that survives and replicates due to the mechanics of the machine (DNA, cells) itself as well as the surrounding environment.
There are a number of problems here. First, consider a random event that changes the properties of some protein that results in an animal of a different color, for example. This would be an example of micro-evolution. In this case no new information has been added to the system, as both colors were implicit in the original protein.
Now consider, the case of macro-evolution. For example, an entirely new organ system. Here an accumulation of small changes would be required. Problem, is the changes are not independently beneficial, only together, so natural selection would tend to get rid of these changes, preventing the new organ system from coming into existance.
But the fundamental problem, that evolution cannot answer, and the reason that I consider it to be a major conspiracy to obscure the nature of the universe, is that evolution cannot point to the original source of information. Darwinist dogma demands randomicity.
There is not even any kind of a mathematical process proposed that could somehow generate new information just using random information as the input. I mean, think about this, if there was such a mathematical formula, it would be taught as part of Biology classes. Darwinism also denies any other sources of information. Instead of what you get is misdirection and implying that information is created by combining two differen random streams of information. Again two, is not really different than just one, mathematically speaking.