Cohen preservation and independence

We provide a general preservation theorem for preserving selective independent families along countable support iterations. The theorem gives a general framework for a number of results in the literature concerning models in which the independence number i is strictly below c, including iterations of Sacks forcing, Miller partition forcing, h-perfect tree forcings, coding with perfect trees. Moreover, applying the theorem, we show that i=ℵ1 in the Miller Lite model. An important aspect of the preservation theorem is the notion of “Cohen preservation”, which we discuss in detail.