I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks

There's an ongoing discussion about whether one believes in evolution or creationism.  Every time I run into the argument I twitch a little, less because of the ardent creationists than because of the ardent evolutionists.  Personally I find the arguments put forth by a scientific discussion of evolution as the means by which species change over time and possibly give rise to new species over even longer periods of time to be compelling.  When someone asks me if I believe in evolution however, I'm being asked a religious question, not a question about science and understanding.

In the context of the discussion a creationist will use the term belief to mean roughly the same thing as belief in God or Republicanism.  It's a statement of faith of trust in the unseen and unknowable.  For those that think I'm being too snarky about Republicans, I'll point out that I can show you a Republican and even offer reasonable, scientific evidence of their existence.  I can't show you God and I can't show you Republicanism in a laboratory setting.

Belief is a loaded term.  If I shout, "I Believe!" spontaneously in the street, the assumption is that I'm talking about something religious, not about the accuracy of signposts or the efficacy of crosswalks.  Evolution the theory is a testable, scientific approach to certain kinds of information and even allows for some amount of testable prediction.  Evolution the belief is simply a rejection of the beliefs of a subsect of certain Children of Abraham and is no more based on a scientific evaluation of evidence than the argument it rejects is.

Here's why I think it matters:  We live in a country where the right to practice, and by extension, believe what you will and to pass those beliefs on to your children is protected by law and by common practice.  So when the vast majority of the people making the case for teaching children about the theory of evolution treat evolution as a belief, as a set of facts that are written down and immutable they play right into the hands of the folks in the opposite camp. 

We as a society have always protected the right to teach whatever the prevailing belief in a localized society is.  For anyone who doesn't believe me ask someone from north of the country about the civil war and then ask someone from the south.  Their history books aren't quite the same.  Belief is protected territory in the US.  You can make the argument that it shouldn't be and you will almost certainly lose.