Is The Theory Of Evolution Anything More Than An Idea?

The word "Idea" defined.

Included in the definitions and usage are the words "conviction", "opinion" and "principle".

I have this "idea" (conviction, based on logic and principles -- ie., other ideas) that stealing is wrong.  It's a conviction of mine,  Just an idea, though.  Other people are perfectly free to disagree, naturally.

And I have the "idea" (conviction, based on evidence and logic) that life has evolved over an extremely long period to produce the most wondrous living creatures, far beyond the imagination of intelligent design.  Mostly by sheer luck as so few planets in the Universe have the right and stable conditions to nurture life.  And I also have the "idea" (conviction, based on what other religious people have told me) that the Creation story as written in the Bible was written as an allegory and metaphor, something which the Vatican Church readily acknowledges today.  People who believe the world was created relatively recently by an intelligent being in the space of 168 hours and hasn't really changed since -- I have the idea (opinion, based on logic) that these people are happy with their delusion.

Just ideas, though.   Other people are perfectly free to disagree, naturally.

An idea is like a hypothesis, something to be tested to see if it is likely to be correct.  Evolution has been and continues to be tested all the time and over long periods of time.  The evidence for it is virtually ironclad and continues to mount.

Therefore evolution is more than an idea.  It is an extremely well supported and universally accepted (by experts) theory, observation, and fact.  Evolution can be all three of those things because the word has different meanings in different contexts.  

Observation and fact because we can see and measure evolution occurring in real time especially with organisms with fast generation times.

Theory because the 'modern synthesis' as it's called, has very high explanatory power in our observations and understanding of the world.  It is continually supported by observations and tests and fits perfectly with knowledge from related sciences like geology, chemistry, and astronomy.