"Orchids are just one of many reasons I believe in God. The incredible
intracacy and beauty is, in my opinion, not the result of chance.
Evolution is not a law....it is a theory."
The notion that one cannot both believe in God and accept Evolution is totally puzzling to me. I have no trouble doing both. Certainly one cannot accept a literal interpretation of Genesis as related in the Torah and also accept Evolution. But Darwin's theory says nothing about the existence of God, and not all who believe in God follow the Torah or the Gospels. Catholicism, and most branches of Judaism accept the Theory of Evolution as compatible with their theology. And the Jewish and Christian holy books are but two of many in the world!
Orchids provide one of the most elegant examples of evolution: with divergence of species, convergent evolution, introgression, co-evolution of flower and pollinator, and other mechanisms of evolution clearly visible throughout the family. Many consider the Orchids to be the most evolutionarily active of plant families. Speciation does not occur by chance, but in response to selection pressure of all sorts. This pressure may or may not be random, who knows? And even if it is random, how does that diminish the wonder and amazement this world inspires in most people?
The reality of evolution is well documented. The mechanisms are fairly well understood at this point. Studies of fossils, field studies, genetic analyses, and experimentation show evolution at work on all time scales. Unfortunately plants leave fewer fossils than animals, so paleobotany gives few clues about the origins of Orchids, but cladistics has helped work out the family tree.
A theory in scientific usage does not have quite the same meaning as in common usage. A theory in science must both explain the observed facts and be able to make predictions. Opinion and belief have no part in it. In common usage it seems to mean the same as a hypothesis does in scientific usage. Theories are subject to revision as new information is found, they are not set in stone. As scientific theories go, evolution is holding up quite well; it has lasted better than Einsteinian Relativity has (Relativity is currently under assault by Quantum and Superstring theory, and will probably emerge greatly changed).
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