Charity16 said:
yes, but what is with the evolutionary system being random?
Evolution is not random. While mutations might be more or less random, the benefits to reproduction provide a decidedly non-random direction to evolution.
Charity16 said:
how can we gradually go from one lung to two? or from a single circulatory system to a double?
It occurs just as you said; "gradually". Provide a little bump at the base of a single lung. Over generations, watch as that nodule provides better oxygenation of the blood and less tiring of the muscles. That provides the organism with greater endurance when attempting to elude predators. As generations continue and the nodule grows, other organs cannot be pressed aside. So the nodule, now a sizeable fraction of the parent lung, begins to separate into a second lung, attached to the first only through bronchi.
That may not be quite how it happened. In fact, I'm not aware of any animals which have only one lung so it may be that symmetry itself provides a benefit to survival and hence, reproduction.
You're attempting to present irreducible complexity. Even Darwin puzzled over such a possibility. But as evolution has continually been challenged with such assertions, each challenge has failed and evolution has continued to answer every question. It has even offered a significant degree of predictability to some medical processes.
Charity16 said:
there must be a stage inbetween, but how can we evolve something that isnt even useful to our body yet?
If it isn't useful, it will not find favor across many generations. The common example of something thought not to be beneficial until fully formed is the eye. But that is the result of misunderstanding they way things form rather than a violation of evolutionary processes. Not only can something as complex as the human eye form through evolution, but models have suggested it could happen in as little as 360,000 years.
Charity16 said:
i think that the idea of evolution is sound, but not that it was spontaneous, as i believe there must be some divine intervention in it.
And yet it works theoretically, mathematically and demonstrably without any divine intervention at all.
Charity16 said:
most people say that religion and science contradict each other, but that's only if you take the bible literally, which obviously stems from misinterpretation.
Actually, it is more a case of science and religion agreeing only when re-interpretation of religion is designed to facilitate religious texts within the framework developed through science.
Take, for example, the configuration of the universe. The Bible strongly suggests that the Earth is stationary at the center and all other bodies cycle around the Earth. And this was indeed what the church taught and held to be true for hundreds of centuries. Then along comes Galileo, following in the footsteps of Aristarchus and Copernicus, and offers data showing that the Earth actually revolves around the sun. Well, in those days the church had enough power that this suggestion was declared to be heresy, and therefore illegal. Galileo only managed to escape with his life by agreeing to publicly denounce his own findings. After doing so, he was placed under house arrest where he lived out the remaining 9-years of his life.
But today we know that Galileo was correct. So rather than recognize the fallacious nature of the Bible, it was specifically reinterpreted to bring it more in line with what science already knew. And for the most part, people simply don't look to those particular verses of the Bible anymore. Most Christians declare that the Bible insinuates no such thing, but have no idea which scripture non-believers might be referring to.
And so it is today with creationism verses evolution. Remember the Scopes Monkey Trials? This was another attempt of the church to silence the findings of science where it contradicted what is claimed by the Bible. And again, this is a struggle which has gone on for many, many years. But, as with the other examples, people slowly begin to come around to the fact that science is right. So rather than abandoned their Bible, they simply seek to re-interpret it specifically to agree with what science has already demonstrated to be correct.
It's a matter of proclaiming that the Bible must be accurate because it is the word of God. Little focus is ever placed on the fact that there has never been a single demonstration of validity to such a claim, it's just the assumption believers operate within. If they ever admit that equating the Bible to the word of God is but an unsupported assumption, the whole of their belief system crumbles in seconds.
So as long as science continues to demonstrate the fallacious nature of the Bible, there will be continued fights about which is correct and which is simply wrong. And each time, people will eventually come to realize that science is right because it is based upon careful, objective analysis of the evidence -- seeking the nature of reality by observing the nature of reality. And as the last few fundamentalists fall to silence, the book is again reinterpreted with the specific and distinct intent of bringing it in line with what science has already shown to be true.
Charity16 said:
anyways, the theory of evolution is still a theory, it hasn't yet been proved. and in effect, darwin disproved his own theories.
just a thought.
And this thought reflects something we often see -- the laymen's definition of "theory" applied to the scientific realm. In science, no complex construct ever rises above the level of theory. A "theory", in science, is the ultimate of credibility. There is no such thing as anything being proved in science because science demands recognition of the fact that we can never know if we have all of the relative evidence. And with new evidence may come new challenges to accepted theories. So the methods of science have lead to a system too wise to ever use the term "prove". When a concept has been declared a "theory", it means it has undergone attacks from hoards of researchers, who are all hoping they can present the tiny bit of evidence which will find a chink in the concept's armor. So far, evolution has shown itself to be in complete agreement with all of the credible evidence. And being in agreement with the evidence is what reality is all about.
And while the theory of evolution hasn't, as you say, "been proved", evolution itself has been observed. There have been in fact, dozens of properly documented, observed cases of speciation both in the wild and in the lab. We know that organisms can evolve from one species to another. There really is no reasonable doubt about that. But the Theory of Evolution goes into much greater detail than simply claiming that the process does occur. It attempts to tell us specifically how it occurs. And this aspect of science is why we have both the
law of gravity, which tells us that objects of mass attract, and the
Theory of Gravity which attempts to tell us how and why this attraction occurs and how the force is transmitted across space from one object to another.
It shouldn't be forgotten that while no theory is ever "proved", we openly accept gravity, while some of us wish to present arguments against evolution. Yet the Theory of Evolution is far more stable, when viewed from a position of substantiating evidence, than is the Theory of Gravity. The reason people dispute evolution while openly accepting gravity is very simple. The Theory of Gravity doesn't contradict the Bible, while the Theory of Evolution clearly does. People who deny radio-carbon dating, the stability of the speed of light, evolution and even (sometimes), heliocentrism always do so because of religious bias. You'll amost never see them arguing against any scientific concept unless it violates their religious beliefs. And yet all of the discoveries of science come about utilizing the same methodology. It's as though they honestly believe that science presents its impressive degree of accuracy in almost every realm it touches, but by some strange coincidence, only when it comes to those things addressed by the Bible does science fall on its face.
Of course the evidence supports the opposite: Where the Bible attempts to describe concepts of science, it falls flat on its face. And it does so for very good reason; it is but the conjecture and legends documented by ancient men.
