“- thus evolution is a fact.”
Uh. No it’s not. Not if you are talking about Darwin’s theory. Maybe if you are talking about Obama’s position on gay marriage evolving then it is a fact that some activity that can be described as “evolving” does indeed exist.
But if you are talking about a whole systematic organization of biological data into paradigm describing the origin of not only species in general but specifically the human species, then no.
Or if you want to say it is a fact that evolution is a theory then evolution is a fact in the sense that it exists as a theory. But that is just semantics. You could say that about anything. I could say my opinion is that liberals are crazy. Since I know it is truly my opinion, then it is a fact that I think it so. It does not follow that it is a fact that liberals are crazy. It still remains my opinion.
Adaptation is a fact because it has been observed. Adaptation is a lynch pin of evolution. Some would describe it as a step of evolution and therefore we are witnessing evolution. Nope. Circular. That would only be true if evolution as whole were an observable fact. It is not. There is much extrapolation of the data.
And it does not matter if facts are predicted or randomly discovered. Either kind of fact adds credibility to a theory equally. This is because hypothesizing does not cause the prediction to be true or false. Weighting one type of fact over another is purely emotion. Prediction is only meaningful if it is the result of controlled experimentation. That is because it illustrates causality rather than coincidence. It is like if predict the Texans will beat the Packers in the Super Bowl by two points. If that turns out to be true it will be an amazing coincidence. It does not constitute a scientific test for my ability to predict super bowl outcomes. This is true even if the game was rigged and I knew the inside scoop.
The “predictions” of evolution are almost universally of finding facts about things that have already happened. These are not directly observable. They are not in a controlled environment. I have read hundreds of news articles which describe surprised evolutionary scientists because of some startling discovery that did not match their predictions, or at least their expectations. Did they throw out evolutionary theory. No. Why not? You expect successful “predictions” to support the theory. These “tests” are not falsifiable. That’s why. And that’s why they provide little real support to the theory. The theory itself evolves. It adapts to the observable facts. As such, it is hardly worthy of the name “theory”. As a whole, there are no tests which could ever possibly falsify it. If it were up to me I would label it a biological data organization schema, because that is all it really is. It is nothing more than the Dewey decimal system of biology - a paradigm rather than a theory.
I accept adaptation because it is observed. I accept speciation because it is well supported. I reject the popular idea of all life on the planet having a common ancestor. It is pure speculation driven by a need to know, understand and explain what we can observe. But the need to know does not constitute the basis to call your best guess a fact.
Saying evolution is a fact is nonsensical. It is like saying biology is a fact. No, biology is a science, a study of facts and the theories that explain those facts. Except some want to use multiple meanings for the word, but then turn around and claim they are the same thing.
The only way evolution could ever be a fact is if you could accelerate the process to the point of observing speciation of known species into other, drastically different, known species. Or, build a time machine and observe the process. Otherwise, it remains, at best, a theory to explain the facts.
Face it. Evolution is NOT a fact. Saying so just confirms my “law of fact conflation”.
Evolution is the change in a species, now known to be through change in DNA, over time. That is a fact. What you called adaptation is a consequence of that fact. Speciation, common descent of species, the historical consequences of such are all theoretical consequences of that fact. Natural selection is the theory that explains the fact of what you want to call adaptation, but is more accurately defined in biology as evolution. Evolution is change and it is inevitable. DNA cannot replicate itself with 100% accuracy or keep itself inert.