In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other lingustic oddities.

In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other linguistic oddities.

EDIT

I pose a statistics question to you. Your answer to this statistics question states how you approach the definition of some very key words, so the answer as to whether evolution is true or not will depend on them.

I flip a coin multiple times. There's no reason to presume it's a fair coin, so no reason to presume P(heads) = 50% like in so many coin tossing problems. I flip the coin a million times. It lands heads every time.

I am about to flip the coin again. Is the statement "The coin will land heads up" a true statement?

If you answer "no," because the coin flipping problem is in the domain of statistics, and statistically prior observations do not define the results of the next flip (though they obviously suggest at it), then your answer should be "evolution is not necessarily true," There's an extraordinary body of evidence supporting the claim statistically, so we can certainly make the claim "we are quite confident that evolution is true," but we cannot take the leap to declare it is "true" because we are basing our position in the statistics that form the foundation of modern science.

On the other hand, if you answered "yes," then you may state "evolution is true" to your hearts' content. You have made the presumption that a bunch of evidence is the same as truth. Of course, you make that statement without the backing of mathematics, so you don't actually have any proof to back your statement. You are, in fact, making as religious of a statement as the claims that evolution is false made by creationists. You are declaring something to be true, simply because you believe it to be true.

Why do I make such a big deal about this? Because claims such as "evolution is true" are making it harder and harder for people who do not believe in science religiously to accept the results of science. If I can talk to a creationist about evolution, I can get them to understand our POV in about 5 minutes... but it takes 30-50 minutes of battling them to get there. Why? Its because they have been told over and over a point of view about what science claims which is not technically accurate and conflicts with their beliefs. The overstatement of the confidence in evolution from "very confident" to "100% proof positive without a doubt confident" actually gets in the way.

So please, decide which version of the word "true" you wish to use, the mathematical one or otherwise, and make your statements accordingly. Just know that the mathematical rigor behind the study of evolution is only applicable if you're using mathematic's definition for key concepts like truth.

Tl/dr: No, evolution is not a fact. And if that phrase ruffles your feathers, it suggests you should read the rest of this answer. I usually wouldn't put the Tl/Dr here on this particular topic, but apparently people have been unhappy with my answer being burred in it.

Richard Dawkins is a very loud personality who has demonstrated a consistent interest in silencing dissenting opinions.

Evolution is a theory which seeks to explain the world and predict future events. It has entered a special class of theories where we have observed so much evidence to suggest that theory accurately models our world that people find that society operates smoother if we pretend that it is 100.00000% true. In reality it is not. It could be wrong. However, we in society have a choice: we can pretend it is 100% true, or we can acknowledge that there is a tiny shred of doubt that must exist due to the nature of the scientific process. In general, we have found the negative impact of pretending it is "true" is much smaller than the negative impact of people hearing that there's some doubt and presuming there is more doubt than there really is.

In my opinion, what has made evolution so tricky in the political world is that those who understand science well enough to actually understand what is meant by the statistical data captured to support evolution are generally happy "rounding up" evolution to 100% true, because they understand how to use the statistics, and there really hasn't been enough of an advantage to keeping track of the sliver of doubt. Science always has a sliver of doubt, so they're always watching out for it anyways (no scientist is going to say "you can't be alive" to a new species because it didn't fit the model). Those who find enough value in that doubt to take the time and energy to call it out by name typically do not have enough of a science and mathematics background to really comprehend what that level of doubt is, or how to manipulate it, so there is a trend of them doing so poorly and coming to very questionable conclusions. Probability is full of such cruel scenarios, such as the prisoner who runs at a wall repeatedly, once every second, and you may be asked to calculate how long it will take for him to have a 50% probability of quantum tunneling through the wall to escape. Depending on the numbers, that timeframe may be more or less than the heat death of the universe, but the probability is absolutely there, and its never zero! (hint: if you get in prison, try to get out on good behavior... the running at the wall solution isn't the best approach)

In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other lingustic oddities.

Tl/dr: No, evolution is not a fact (unless your definition of fact defines evolution to be a fact, in which case it is a fact...). And if that phrase ruffles your feathers, it suggests you should read the rest of this answer. I usually wouldn't put the Tl/Dr here on this particular topic, but apparently people have been unhappy with my answer being burred in it.

Richard Dawkins is a very loud personality who has demonstrated a consistent interest in silencing dissenting opinions.

Evolution is a theory which seeks to explain the world and predict future events. It has entered a special class of theories where we have observed so much evidence to suggest that theory accurately models our world that people find that society operates smoother if we pretend that it is 100.00000% true. In reality it is not. It could be wrong. However, we in society have a choice: we can pretend it is 100% true, or we can acknowledge that there is a tiny shred of doubt that must exist due to the nature of the scientific process. In general, we have found the negative impact of pretending it is "true" is much smaller than the negative impact of people hearing that there's some doubt and presuming there is more doubt than there really is.

In my opinion, what has made evolution so tricky in the political world is that those who understand science well enough to actually understand what is meant by the statistical data captured to support evolution are generally happy "rounding up" evolution to 100% true, because they understand how to use the statistics, and there really hasn't been enough of an advantage to keeping track of the sliver of doubt. Science always has a sliver of doubt, so they're always watching out for it anyways (no scientist is going to say "you can't be alive" to a new species because it didn't fit the model). Those who find enough value in that doubt to take the time and energy to call it out by name typically do not have enough of a science and mathematics background to really comprehend what that level of doubt is, or how to manipulate it, so there is a trend of them doing so poorly and coming to very questionable conclusions. Probability is full of such cruel scenarios, such as the prisoner who runs at a wall repeatedly, once every second, and you may be asked to calculate how long it will take for him to have a 50% probability of quantum tunneling through the wall to escape. Depending on the numbers, that timeframe may be more or less than the heat death of the universe, but the probability is absolutely there, and its never zero! (hint: if you get in prison, try to get out on good behavior... the running at the wall solution isn't the best approach)

In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other lingustic oddities.

Richard Dawkins is a very loud personality who has demonstrated a consistent interest in silencing dissenting opinions.

Evolution is a theory which seeks to explain the world and predict future events. It has entered a special class of theories where we have observed so much evidence to suggest that theory accurately models our world that people find that society operates smoother if we pretend that it is 100.00000% true. In reality it is not. It could be wrong. However, we in society have a choice: we can pretend it is 100% true, or we can acknowledge that there is a tiny shred of doubt that must exist due to the nature of the scientific process. In general, we have found the negative impact of pretending it is "true" is much smaller than the negative impact of people hearing that there's some doubt and presuming there is more doubt than there really is.

In my opinion, what has made evolution so tricky in the political world is that those who understand science well enough to actually understand what is meant by the statistical data captured to support evolution are generally happy "rounding up" evolution to 100% true, because they understand how to use the statistics, and there really hasn't been enough of an advantage to keeping track of the sliver of doubt. Science always has a sliver of doubt, so they're always watching out for it anyways (no scientist is going to say "you can't be alive" to a new species because it didn't fit the model). Those who find enough value in that doubt to take the time and energy to call it out by name typically do not have enough of a science and mathematics background to really comprehend what that level of doubt is, or how to manipulate it, so there is a trend of them doing so poorly and coming to very questionable conclusions. Probability is full of such cruel scenarios, such as the prisoner who runs at a wall repeatedly, once every second, and you may be asked to calculate how long it will take for him to have a 50% probability of quantum tunneling through the wall to escape. Depending on the numbers, that timeframe may be more or less than the heat death of the universe, but the probability is absolutely there, and its never zero! (hint: if you get in prison, try to get out on good behavior... the running at the wall solution isn't the best approach)

In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other lingustic oddities.

Tl/dr: No, evolution is not a fact. And if that phrase ruffles your feathers, it suggests you should read the rest of this answer. I usually wouldn't put the Tl/Dr here on this particular topic, but apparently people have been unhappy with my answer being burred in it.

Richard Dawkins is a very loud personality who has demonstrated a consistent interest in silencing dissenting opinions.

Evolution is a theory which seeks to explain the world and predict future events. It has entered a special class of theories where we have observed so much evidence to suggest that theory accurately models our world that people find that society operates smoother if we pretend that it is 100.00000% true. In reality it is not. It could be wrong. However, we in society have a choice: we can pretend it is 100% true, or we can acknowledge that there is a tiny shred of doubt that must exist due to the nature of the scientific process. In general, we have found the negative impact of pretending it is "true" is much smaller than the negative impact of people hearing that there's some doubt and presuming there is more doubt than there really is.

In my opinion, what has made evolution so tricky in the political world is that those who understand science well enough to actually understand what is meant by the statistical data captured to support evolution are generally happy "rounding up" evolution to 100% true, because they understand how to use the statistics, and there really hasn't been enough of an advantage to keeping track of the sliver of doubt. Science always has a sliver of doubt, so they're always watching out for it anyways (no scientist is going to say "you can't be alive" to a new species because it didn't fit the model). Those who find enough value in that doubt to take the time and energy to call it out by name typically do not have enough of a science and mathematics background to really comprehend what that level of doubt is, or how to manipulate it, so there is a trend of them doing so poorly and coming to very questionable conclusions. Probability is full of such cruel scenarios, such as the prisoner who runs at a wall repeatedly, once every second, and you may be asked to calculate how long it will take for him to have a 50% probability of quantum tunneling through the wall to escape. Depending on the numbers, that timeframe may be more or less than the heat death of the universe, but the probability is absolutely there, and its never zero! (hint: if you get in prison, try to get out on good behavior... the running at the wall solution isn't the best approach)

In the end, it's all linguistics. An interesting tangent is the use of "fact" in philosophy. In philosophy, "fact" doesn't always mean exactly what you may intuitively think it does. Many philosophers declare that an auditory or visual hallucination is a "fact" because it meets the philosophical definition of "a state of affairs," lending itself to strange phrasings such as "a fact about something which is not real" and other lingustic oddities.