Stimulus failing miserablyFollow

all of whom were men of the Enlightenment and firm believers in science.

kids in college learn to debunk it in Biology

I'm afraid that it's you that doesn't know the difference.

A law is a description of a phenomenon.
A theory is an explanation for a phenomenon.
A proof is a logically sound progression from a set of axioms (that may or may not be true, and good luck showing which is the case).

No one of these is, in reality, more valid than the others. They are all different things, rather than a progression of respectability.

Is Evolution a fact or a theory?
The theory of evolution explains how life on earth has changed. In scientific terms, "theory" does not mean "guess" or "hunch" as it does in everyday usage. Scientific theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses. Biological evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for the enormous range of observations about the living world. Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong.

Why isn't evolution called a law?
Laws are generalizations that describe phenomena, whereas theories explain phenomena. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe what will happen under certain circumstances; thermodynamics theories explain why these events occur. Laws, like facts and theories, can change with better data. But theories do not develop into laws with the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the goal of science.

Laws don't explain macro-events, theories do. Since the events they explain can't be replicated, theories by their nature can not be proven. However, they can certainly reach the point of being far more rational than any other explanations and contain millions of data points gained through observation of smaller events.

Just like the fossils!

I was trying to dumb it down as much as possible for Varrus' sake.

But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact.

Since the events they explain can't be replicated, theories by their nature can not be proven. However, they can certainly reach the point of being far more rational than any other explanations and contain millions of data points gained through observation of smaller events.

Epigenetics is the most vivid reason why the popular understanding of evolution might need revising, but it's not the only one. We've learned that huge proportions of the human genome consist of viruses, or virus-like materials, raising the notion that they got there through infection – meaning that natural selection acts not just on random mutations, but on new stuff that's introduced from elsewhere. Relatedly, there is growing evidence, at the level of microbes, of genes being transferred not just vertically, from ancestors to parents to offspring, but also horizontally, between organisms. The researchers Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfield conclude that, on average, a bacterium may have obtained 10% of its genes from other organisms in its environment.

The whole point of Darwinian evolution is that it has no mind, no intelligence. But to "select for" certain traits – as opposed to just "selecting" them by not having them die out – wouldn't natural selection have to have some kind of mind? It might be obvious to you that being the same colour as your environment is more important than being white, if you're a polar bear, but that's because you just ran a thought-experiment about a hypothetical situation involving orange snow. Evolution can't run thought experiments, because it can't think. "Darwin has a theory that centrally turns on the notion of 'selection-for'," says Fodor. "And yet he can't give an account – nobody could give an account – of how natural selection could distinguish between correlated traits. He waffles."

It's the difference between "handcuffs are used for sex," and "handcuffs are used in sex."