Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws." (Courtesy of VadeRetro.)
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific theories from matters of faith.
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."
Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific theories can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific theories are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific theories are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.
Law: a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature; "the laws of thermodynamics."
Model: a simplified representation designed to illuminate complex processes; a hypothetical description of a complex entity or process; a physical or mathematical representation of a process that can be used to predict some aspect of the process; a representation such that knowledge concerning the model offers insight about the entity modelled.
Speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence). When a scientist speculates he is drawing on experience, patterns and somewhat unrelated things that are known or appear to be likely. This becomes a very informed guess.
Conjecture: speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence); guess: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence; reasoning that involves the formation of conclusions from incomplete evidence.
Guess: an opinion or estimate based on incomplete evidence, or on little or no information.
Assumption: premise: a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn; "on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not to play"
Impression: a vague or subjective idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying."
Opinion: a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty.
Observation: any information collected with the senses.
Data: Individual measurements; facts, figures, pieces of information, statistics, either historical or derived by calculation, experimentation, surveys, etc.; evidence from which conclusions can be inferred.
Fact: when an observation is confirmed repeatedly and by many independent and competent observers, it can become a fact.
Truth: This is a word best avoided entirely in physics [and science] except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from ‘it seems to be correct’ to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it’s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no final or absolute truths. Source.
Science: a method of learning about the world by applying the principles of the scientific method, which includes making empirical observations, proposing hypotheses to explain those observations, and testing those hypotheses in valid and reliable ways; also refers to the organized body of knowledge that results from scientific study.
Religion: Theistic: 1. the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2. the expression of this in worship. 3. a particular system of faith and worship.
Religion: Non-Theistic: The word religion has many definitions, all of which can embrace sacred lore and wisdom and knowledge of God or gods, souls and spirits. Religion deals with the spirit in relation to itself, the universe and other life. Essentially, religion is belief in spiritual beings. As it relates to the world, religion is a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life.
Belief: any cognitive content (perception) held as true; religious faith.
Faith: the belief in something for which there is no material evidence or empirical proof; acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or observation. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
Dogma: a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without evidence.
Some good definitions, as used in physics, can be found: Here.
Based on these, evolution is a theory. CS and ID are beliefs.
[Last revised 9/26/06]
To support my position I will give you some examples.
If you believe that gravity is a scientific fact, you are basing that fact on the well know theory of gravitation.
In addition, if you look at the sky you may theorize that it is in fact blue or the grass is in fact green. This may well be a fact at present because currently the majority of the population is not color blind. Two thousand years from now people with color blindness may be dominate and at that time the grass and the sky will "in fact" be colors of gray.
"Facts" are as fluent as osmosis.
One way to neutralize a success-word is to put it in quotation-marks. Thus, in certain circumstances a journalist might write "The Minister `refuted' the allegations", meaning, and being understood to mean, that the Minister did not refute but only denied them. This might be thought a device too unsubtle for authors such as ours to have made use of. It is not so, however. In any case some variations on the device are not altogether without subtlety. One such variation is what I call "suspending" success-grammar: putting a success-word in quotation-marks, not necessarily in order to neutralize it, but just with the intention, or at least the effect, of leaving the reader uncertain whether you have neutralized it or not. (This is the effect momentarily produced by signs advertising `fresh' fish). Another variation is, using the same success-word several times in close succession, and sometimes putting it in quotation-marks and sometimes not, but with no reason that the reader can discover for so doing. Such variations as these can achieve, partially or gradually, that separation of a success-word from its success-meaning, which quotation-marks sometimes achieve completely and abruptly. They are devices, therefore, which are not at all too unsubtle, nor yet too subtle, to be of some use to a philosopher interested in making irrationalism about science plausible. It would be no use for such a philosopher, and everyone now knows it would be no use, to cry "stinking fish" about science. But it may well be some use for him to praise science as "`fresh' fish"; especially if he does it often enough.
Lakatos has certainly done it often enough. Enclosing success-words in quotation-marks was in fact a kind of literary tic with him. He could scarcely have gone to more extravagant lengths in the use of this device, if he had been trying to bring it into disrepute; which, however, he certainly was not.
Take his Proofs and Refutations. The first word in this title is of course a success-word. In the book it is subjected countless times to neutralization or suspension of its success-grammar by quotation-marks. Often, of course, perhaps equally often, Lakatos uses the word without quotation-marks. But what rule he goes by, if he goes by any rule, in deciding when to put quotation-marks around "proof" and when to leave them off, it is quite impossible for a reader of that book to discover. Nor does the reader know what meaning the writer intends to leave in this success-word. He knows that the implication of success is often taken out of it; or rather, he knows that on any given occurrence of the word in quotation-marks, this implication may have been taken out of it. But what meaning has on those occasions been left in it, he is entirely in the dark. Indeed, by the end of the book, or even half-way through it, the reader no longer dares attach success-grammar to "proof" or "proved", even when they occur without quotation-marks. Will any reader of Proofs and Refutations undertake to say what the first word of the title means in the book?
By the time Lakatos came to write about empirical science, his tic had got worse. I draw an example from `Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes'. One short example will suffice, because Lakatos's English is everywhere much the same, and anyone familiar with it will recognize in the following a representative specimen of it.
"One typical sign of the degeneration of a programme which is not discussed in this paper is the proliferation of contradictory `facts'. Using a false theory as an interpretative theory, one may get---without committing any `experimental mistake'---contradictory factual propositions, inconsistent experimental results. Michelson, who stuck to the ether to the bitter end, was primarily frustrated by the inconsistency of the `facts' he arrived at by his ultra-precise measurements. His 1887 experiment `showed' that there was no ether wind on the earth's surface. But aberration `showed' that there was. Moreover, his own 1925 experiment (either never mentioned or, as in Jaffe's [1960] misrepresented) also `proved' that there was one (cf. Michelson and Gale [1925] and, for a sharp criticism, Runge [1925])" [17].
Here, in the space of seven lines of print, Lakatos manages to neutralize by quotation-marks three success-words, two of them twice each: "facts", "showed", and "proved".
The effect on the reader is characteristic. An episode in the history of science has been described to him, and it is described, as we see, entirely in words importing cognitive achievement. Yet by mere dint of quotation-marks, every single implication of cognitive achievement has at the same time been neutralized or suspended. The reader, remember, almost certainly has no knowledge of his own of the episode as would enable him to object, for example, that Michelson really did show one of the things that Lakatos says he "showed". Nor has the reader any idea, as I said before, how much if anything of the ordinary meaning of the various success-words the writer is leaving in them: he only knows that their success-implication has been, or may have been, taken out. What, then, will the reader be able to carry away from this passage? Nothing at all; except a strong impression that despite all the success-words used in describing it, there was, in this presumably representative episode from the history of science, no cognitive achievement whatsoever.
This passage is a very model of irrationalist philosophy of science teaching by example, and being made plausible by example. Yet it depends entirely for its effectiveness on a device at first sight so trivial as the use of quotation-marks to neutralize success-words.
Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists, D. C. Stove, 1982
It's fine with me if you want to take up such a philosophy, and the philosophy of history that results. But you're kidding yourself if you think the rest of the world is bound to accept these as purely objective, i.e. science in the strict sense, much less if you expect them to enjoy exclusive benefits in public schools and universities.
The interpretation of that record is subjective, depending on what conclusions one draws after examining it. That puts it in the category of *belief*.