Evolution is but a small segment of science, yet it has a broad range of meaning. What overarching theory or fundamental assumption undergirds it? That matter is constantly in a state of change?
There are certainly many people who find a progession from simple to complex (i.e. amoeba to man) to be explanatory of biological history. It seems to me most biology and paeleontology books present history in this way. This is a reasonable way to view things, to be sure. It is also somewhat reasonable for one to assume that an infinite combination of matter over an indefinite period of time could, weithout the direction of any intelligent agent, produce the same universe we know and experience.
But the evidence for that "rival theory" has not been accumulating by my observation. (I do not live in Washington D.C.) What appear to be morphological similarities in the biosphere can just as easily be explained by an intelligent designer as by some arbitrary processes such as natural selection and mutations, both of which tend to be explanatory only after they have taken place.
I don't have an axe to grind with atheists and evolutionists, and if it take one up or behave as such, then I shouldn't. They make legitimate observations, especially from a deductive standpoint. But I do not know of any branch of science that is entitled to make statements "ex-cathedra" while enjoying the support of the federal government in going unchallenged.