Evolution is the change in a species, now known to be through change in DNA, over time. That is a fact. What you called adaptation is a consequence of that fact. Speciation, common descent of species, the historical consequences of such are all theoretical consequences of that fact. Natural selection is the theory that explains the fact of what you want to call adaptation, but is more accurately defined in biology as evolution. Evolution is change and it is inevitable. DNA cannot replicate itself with 100% accuracy or keep itself inert.
“Evolution is the change in a species, now known to be through change in DNA, over time.”
When people argue evolution to be a fact, they are trying to argue that speciation, common ancestry, and billions of years of biological history are also facts. While adaptation is an observable fact, it is a non sequitur to say ALL of evolutionary theory is a fact because evolutionary theory encompasses more than adaptation, much more. The term evolution has many meanings as I pointed out earlier, but in the context of evolution vs. creation debate, it is a theory or group of theories. To call it a fact is semantics designed to distract from the weakness of a failed logical argument.
Evolution is the multi-level marketing of science - a biological ponzi scheme. If we could set aside what Pasteur showed regarding spotaneous generation and assume that simple life forms in an earth-like environment would often, easily, and automatically form from simple non-living ingredients abundantly available here; or if we assumed they have routinely been spewed toward Earth from outer space frequently enough to overcome the likelihood of repeated extinction-level events that would certainly occur in millions of years, let alone billions; and if we assumed the variation of genetic information that occurs during reproduction is sufficient to cause a constant flux of change; we still could not use such a theory to explain the unchanged nature of certain life forms over millions of years in a constantly changing environment nor the tendency for life on earth to generally become more complex and sophisticated over time. Why has life “evolved” to greater complexity and sophistication while at any moment over billions of years all of the progress could be laid waste by similar simple variations in microscopic organisms capable of wiping out all of this complexity?
Evolution is a tautology, hardly worthy of being called a theory. Evolutionists argue against this, or rather mock this statement, based on the idea of being the fittest means more than just survival. The problem is the fittest are also coincidentally over billions of years progressively more complex and sophisticated. We don’t find more sophisticated and complex creatures than man say 50 million years ago which became extinct and replaced by more fit but less complex and less sophisticated life forms. No, things are always getting better, just like in a liberal utopia. Evolution proponents claim the theory explains the origins of the species, i.e. biological complexity and sophistication, but it does not ever explain why adaptation, mutation, survival, or even speciation should lead to more complex and sophisticated life forms as a universal generalization. Nor can it explain why life in general has tended to survive rather than become extinct. There is no general law about any one single aspect of evolutionary theory that explains this tendency. Thus, it is a tautology.
To accept that mere forces of nature operating randomly has resulted in the complexity and diversity of life we see today is to accept as an article of faith something so drastically against all of the odds stacked against it as to be complete absurdity as opposed to the rational faith evolutionists are so prone to mock.