A meaningless statement...define vast. How many is "vast"? I could say a significant number of people believe in the Tooth Fairy too, but without any defining context, the statement is meaningless. Religious people believe in things that are not strictly a part of their religion, whatever it may be. Let's be honest here...we all are aware of quite a number of people who exhibit very little evidence of any kind of real reasoning power. To put it bluntly, there are a lot of stupid people out there. If you are citing those people in your "vast numbers" of people who believe in evolution, your argument loses a lot of its steam, because those people haven't really thought about it to any degree. They are just parroting what they've heard. Sheer numbers do not establish the correctness of anything, let alone evolution. In order for your statement to have any real weight, the "vast numbers" of people cited would have to be people who have actually studied all the evidence with an open mind, have examined both sides of the issue, and have drawn a conclusion based on their studies. To borrow your phrase, I'd venture to say that vast numbers of people who say they believe in evolution have never seriously considered either evolution or the alternative. They simply haven't thought about it at all, and are therefore unqualified to have an opinion either way.
And before you say it, I will..."opinions are like a__holes...everybody has one"...
I was being presented with a dichotomy that amounted to, "Either you're religious and believe in creation or you're an atheist and believe in evolution." The dichotomy is false.
To put it bluntly, there are a lot of stupid people out there. If you are citing those people in your "vast numbers" of people who believe in evolution, your argument loses a lot of its steam, because those people haven't really thought about it to any degree.
One survey I've seen is that the percentage of people who believe in evolution goes up and up as you sample higher and higher educational levels. But you're still off track.