I respect your approach that you want to explore evolution in purely scientific manner. In fact it is the most logical approach provided you don’t have any judgmental biases such as the ones I have pointed out. We are in the philosophy section and it was imperative for me to define my standing in that context.
Please ignore the religious dimensions from my posts. I have tried to explain you the difference between mathematical/scientific concepts. I am posting another link for you to study the meaning of science theory or a concept.** Science does not explore/investigate/probe the level of certainty of an idea on the basis of a belief as some posters are trying to misguide the readers in this thread by projecting evolution as a belief system because of the non availability of evidence of their personal liking.. rather science relies on observed data.** I am sure once you will start exploring evolution on the basis of observed data.. you will increase your idea about it’s level of certainty. The figures are quoted to show you most of the scientist subscribe to evolution with a very high degree of certainty not only in USA but every where in the world.. just google and you will be amazed at the figures/percentages of scientist who lean towards the validity of evolution..
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#e1
Misconceptions about evolution and the nature of science
1-Evolution is not science because it is not observable or testable. This misconception encompasses two incorrect ideas: (1) that all science depends on controlled laboratory experiments, and (2) that evolution cannot be studied with such experiments. First, many scientific investigations do not involve experiments or direct observation. Astronomers cannot hold stars in their hands and geologists cannot go back in time, but both scientists can learn a great deal about the universe through observation and comparison. In the same way, evolutionary biologists can test their ideas about the history of life on Earth by making observations in the real world. Second, though we can’t run an experiment that will tell us how the dinosaur lineage radiated, we can study many aspects of evolution with controlled experiments in a laboratory setting.** In organisms with short generation times (e.g., bacteria or fruit flies), we can actually observe evolution in action over the course of an experiment. And in some cases, biologists have observed evolution occurring in the wild. To learn more about rapid evolution in the wild, visit our news story on climate change, our news story on the evolution of PCB-resistant fish, or our research profile on the evolution fish size in response to our fishing practices. **To learn more about the nature of science, visit the Understanding Science website.
2-Evolution is ‘just’ a theory. This misconception stems from a mix-up between casual and scientific use of the word theory. In everyday language, theory is often used to mean a hunch with little evidential support. Scientific theories, on the other hand, are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. In order to be accepted by the scientific community, a theory must be strongly supported by many different lines of evidence. Evolution is a well-supported and broadly accepted scientific theory; it is not ‘just’ a hunch. To learn more about the nature of scientific theories, visit the Understanding Science website.
3-Evolutionary theory is invalid because it is incomplete and cannot give a total explanation for the biodiversity we see around us. This misconception stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific theories. All scientific theories (from evolutionary theory to atomic theory) are works in progress. As new evidence is discovered and new ideas are developed, our understanding of how the world works changes and so too do scientific theories. While we don’t know everything there is to know about evolution (or any other scientific discipline, for that matter), we do know a great deal about the history of life, the pattern of lineage-splitting through time, and the mechanisms that have caused these changes. And more will be learned in the future. Evolutionary theory, like any scientific theory, does not yet explain everything we observe in the natural world.** However, evolutionary theory does help us understand a wide range of observations (from the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the physical match between pollinators and their preferred flowers), does make accurate predictions in new situations (e.g., that treating AIDS patients with a cocktail of medications should slow the evolution of the virus), and has proven itself time and time again in thousands of experiments and observational studies. To date, evolution is the only well-supported explanation for life’s diversity.** To learn more about the nature of scientific theories, visit the Understanding Science website.
4-Gaps in the fossil record disprove evolution. While it’s true that there are gaps in the fossil record, this does not constitute evidence against evolutionary theory. Scientists evaluate hypotheses and theories by figuring out what we would expect to observe if a particular idea were true and then seeing if those expectations are borne out. If evolutionary theory were true, then we’d expect there to have been transitional forms connecting ancient species with their ancestors and descendents. This expectation has been borne out. Paleontologists have found many fossils with transitional features, and new fossils are discovered all the time. However, if evolutionary theory were true, we would not expect all of these forms to be preserved in the fossil record. Many organisms don’t have any body parts that fossilize well, the environmental conditions for forming good fossils are rare, and of course, we’ve only discovered a small percentage of the fossils that might be preserved somewhere on Earth. So scientists expect that for many evolutionary transitions, there will be gaps in the fossil record. To learn more about testing scientific ideas, visit the Understanding Science website. To learn more about evolutionary transitions and the fossils that document them, visit our module on this topic.
Misconceptions about the acceptance of evolution
1-The theory of evolution is flawed, but scientists won’t admit it. Scientists have studied the supposed “flaws” that anti-evolution groups claim exist in evolutionary theory and have found no support for these claims. These “flaws” are based on misunderstandings of evolutionary theory or misrepresentations of the evidence. As scientists gather new evidence and as new perspectives emerge, evolutionary theory continues to be refined, but that doesn’t mean that the theory is flawed. Science is a competitive endeavor, and scientists would be eager to study and correct “flaws” in evolutionary theory if they existed. For more on how evolutionary theory changes, see our misconception on this topic above.
2-Evolution is a theory in crisis and is collapsing as scientists lose confidence in it. Evolutionary theory is not in crisis; scientists accept evolution as the best explanation for life’s diversity because of the multiple lines of evidence supporting it, its broad power to explain biological phenomena, and its ability to make accurate predictions in a wide variety of situations. Scientists do not debate whether evolution took place, but they do debate many details of how evolution occurred and occurs in different circumstances.** Antievolutionists may hear the debates about how evolution occurs and misinterpret them as debates about whether evolution occurs. Evolution is sound science and is treated accordingly by scientists and scholars worldwide.**
3-Most biologists have rejected ‘Darwinism’ and no longer agree with the ideas put forth by Darwin and Wallace. It is true that we have learned a lot about evolution since Darwin’s time. Today, we understand the genetic basis for the inheritance of traits, we can date many events in the fossil record to within a few hundred thousand years, and we can study how evolution has shaped development at a molecular level. These advances — ones that Darwin likely could not have imagined — have expanded evolutionary theory and made it much more powerful; however, they have not overturned the basic principles of evolution by natural selection and common ancestry that Darwin and Wallace laid out, but have simply added to them. It’s important to keep in mind that elaboration, modification, and expansion of scientific theories is a normal part of the process of science. For more on how evolutionary theory changes, see our misconception on this topic above.
