/an/ — how can evolution yield entirely new features out of nothing

Millions apon millions of years of additive development.

>>5133776 (OP)
genes are units of information, so making random changes can yield practically infinite combinations of genes resulting in new features.
There is no real limit to genome size, there's some fern with hundreds of billions of base pairs. Genes are made up of base pairs, and by creating new combinations you create new genes. So in the same way that there's only 10 digits in base 10 numbers but infinite combinations of digits, there are infinite combinations of units of genetic information. But it takes a very long time for change, because each change has a very small chance of making something that works.

>>5133776 (OP)
It's not out of nothing. In your example, the cell had some basic nutrient processing system at first that became more complex over time.

>>5133776 (OP)
One way is gene duplication. Imagine the word "biscuit" this represents a gene for a a existing feature. So how do you get a new feature/word, the gene duplicates so you get "biscuitbiscuit". Next, there are point mutations every conception, every generation. There are additions, subtraction, and substitutions. So the next generation could be substituition "tiscuitbiscuit" then subtractions "tiscuibiscuit". Eventually you could end up with "tastey biscuit". That's how intelligibility emerges blindly without foresight.

>>5133776 (OP)
because on a large enough time scale atoms just sometimes do their own thing

>>5133776 (OP)
I've been wondering about something in a similar vein. Let's say a beneficial mutation does pop up, how the fuck does it spread? Even if one mutation pops up in one individual animal, it spreading to the entire species seems absurd, and the same mutation popping up in several individual animals, and spreading that way, also seems unlikely. It would have to be ridiculously advantageous, considering the species has already lived for hundreds, thousands or millions of generations already, meaning it's already adapted to its environment.
It would also mean that every single animal with that mutation has the same ancestor, and that also goes for every single mutation since life started.

>>5133875
>It would also mean that every single animal with that mutation has the same ancestor, and that also goes for every single mutation since life started.
this is the correct answer, the mutation doesn't "spread" to other individuals of the species aside from getting passed down through reproduction

>>5133875
It spreads over generations. If food is 10 ft high and a population has 8-11 ft animals, the 8-9's will die out and the 10-11's will repopulate the species with their tall genes. Not all the 8-9s will die out in one generation, it will take several generations of decline before the tall genes win over the gene pool. So the population numbers stay the same but the tall genes grew in number as the short ones decined. Evolution is all about rivalries winning out through attrition over many generations.

Every characteristic a species has derived from a single individual and spread over generations. Its almost always a male since they can reproduce much faster and spread the gene much more efficiently.