Is Evolution a science or a faith?

[Thumpalumpacus]

There's a difference between "having beliefs" and "having faith". If I believe that the universe can be comprehended it's because there is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting that belief. OTOH, faith is belief in spite of no or insufficient evidence.

If you have faith in someone or something, you feel confident about their ability or goodness even without having any evidence. Belief is something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion. Belief may require, but not necessarily, the evidence.

All this reduces to the fact that without faith, belief has no meaning. If you do not have faith in science, you cannot do science no matter it puts mountain of evidence in front of you.

Your logic is far too reductionist to be useful for anything but rhetoric, mainly because you're confusing denotations of both faith and belief. Let's look at the definition of belief to see what you're up to:

Definition of belief in English:
belief
Syllabification: be·lief
Pronunciation: /biˈlēf /
NOUN

1 An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists:
his belief in the value of hard work
a belief that solitude nourishes creativity

1.1 Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction:
contrary to popular belief, Aramaic is a living language
we’re prepared to fight for our beliefs

1.2 A religious conviction:
Christian beliefs
I’m afraid to say belief has gone
local beliefs and customs

2 (belief in) Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something:
a belief in democratic politics
I’ve still got belief in myself

[emphasis added by Thump to differentiate examples from definitions]

As you can see, you're picking the two denotations which support your argument, and ignoring the two which apply to science, (1 & 1.1). Cherry-picking your definitions does little to buttress your point, especially when you are clearly ignoring those which undermine it.

Science depends on faith, without FAITH, our minds reject any evidence.

So let's do the same exercise with faith:

Definition of faith in English:
[b]faith[/b]
Syllabification: faith
Pronunciation: /fāTH /
NOUN

1 Complete trust or confidence in someone or something:
this restores one’s faith in politicians

2 Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

2.1 A system of religious belief:
the Christian faith

2.2 A strongly held belief or theory:
the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe

[Again, emphases added by your ob'd'nt servant]

As you can see, the only denotation that seems to touch on faith's application to science seems to be the fourth one. However, it is clear from the example sentence that they are using the colloquial meaning of theory and therefore not referencing science. To ensure that this was the case, I linked to their "Get More Examples" link and got these:

Consider a faith, a belief system, as a theory about how the universe works.

This at least is the assumption of many writers and readers, and in Latin America it amounts to something like a political faith.

Arthur had a strong faith and belief in Rome and what it stood for, but that changes in the movie.

And clearly they are using "theory" in the colloquial sense, except in the first one, which is a questionable conflation of "faith", "belief", and "theory".

Getting back to the denotations of faith:

1) doesn't apply to science because in the scientific method there is no such thing as "complete trust or confidence"; indeed the very acceptibility of a theory depends in part upon its supporting observations and experiments being replicable (which is another way of saying "we don't trust your results, we want to see for ourselves").

2) is the standard religious conception of faith.

3) is the sociocultural construct of faith; it is a form of synechdoche, usoing a part of something to represent the whole (in this case, using faith to represent religion).

4) is a future-tense variation on belief.

Clearly, none of those denotations apply to science. So please, quit equivocating your faith with a process which demands evidence.

It strikes me as an insecure faith that would strive to equivocate itself with that which it detests, simply in order to garner the cache that its apposite carries. If your religion were a more powerful way of grokking the Universe, where are its inventions? They are in the arts. Where are its discoveries? They are in the field of psychology, that wobbliest of fields. Where is its universal application? Certainly not on this Earth. You cannot convincefive billion others of the truth of your faith, yet you bleat on about science on a computer posting on the internet.

If your faith reflected reality, you should be able to simply pray to change our minds. How galling it must be to you that you must use the tools of science to pick up the slack of "unanswered" prayers.

______________________

ETA: And yes, I did use the word "grokking", ladies and gentlemen.