'But that doesn't prove evolution'

Scientists believe that there is plenty of evidence for evolution, so evolutionary research now is to find out what exactly happened and when and how and what we can learn from it. So the chances are, a piece of research or facts given about evolution are not dealing with the evidence for evolution. For example, a scientist might say ‘[species] must have evolved from an ancestor with [feature]’; a creationist might argue that such a conclusion assumes evolution is true and that there’s no ‘must’ about it - it could have been separately created. The scientist’s statement, however, would be made on the basis (not assumption) that evolution is a fact for which there is ample evidence.

‘But it isn't proven!’ you might be thinking, but then you need to argue with what scientists believe is evidence that evolution is a fact. There's a difference between evidence for evolution and research on the basis of that evidence.

This misunderstanding also leads to conversations like this:

1. A creationist makes a statement about something they feel is a problem with evolution.

2. An evolutionist replies to the statement, giving an evolutionary/mainstream scientific view.

3. The creationist says ‘but that doesn't prove evolution’.

In this case, the chances are that it's not something that is meant to 'prove' evolution, it's meant to provide an answer to the original issue raised by the creationist. The problem is with the issue raised in the first place: if the reply is not about something that would provide evidence for evolution, the chances are the original statement was not about something that would disprove evolution.