Increases in Genetic Information

So what you are saying is that we are approximately 50% more complicated than an amoeba? What does that say about the water flea Daphnia pulex which has 31,000 genes?

So on the one hand we have the theory of evolution suggesting that we share a common ancestor with the great apes and it was in this common ancestor that the ability to produce vitamin c was lost due to a mutation on the gene. This did not pose a problem because, like the majority of the great apes, this common ancestor existed in tropical rain forests which have different species of fruiting trees throughout the year, providing a constant supply of vitamin c in their diet. As this common ancestor evolved, this same vitamin c pseudogene was inherited by it's descendants, today's great apes including humans.On the other hand we have the argument we were specially created with a broken vitamin c gene, carrying the same disabling mutation as the other great apes, but not bats, guinea pigs and capybaras. And the reasoning behind this is what, exactly? Is it the same reasoning we share other pseudogenes with apes, or the shared ERV sequences, or that extra centromere sequence on chromosome 2?

You talk of this as if changes in regulation of genes is unimportant, yet in multicellular organisms it is of fundamental importance to how species evolves. As a general idea consider the skeletal structure of tetrapods, whether it's a human, bird, lizard or amphibian. The basic structure is the same, but it is through changes in gene regulation that allows this basic structure to be adapted, so for example an arm becomes a wing.It can also be seen in human evolution with the gradual increase in brain capacity from Australopithecus to Homo Sapiens (a picture of this was posted recently but can't remember if it was this topic or another). So consider Human Accelerated Regions. These are regions that are highly conserved, the example in the article is HAR-1 which is a 118bp section which only has 2 nucleotides different between chickens and apes. But from apes to man, this region acquired 18 mutations. What is important is that this region includes part of two non-coding RNA genes which are expressed in the brain during foetal development in the telencephalon, and in adults throughout the cerebellum and forebrain. So this change in expression of regulatory genes could have precipitated the evolution of our brain.
Another 48 HAR's have also been identified and many of these have also been associated with neurodevelopment.Edited by Malcolm, : No reason given.