The process of evolution is hardly that much of a "progressive ideology"; the general idea is change over time with respect to living creatures, based on mechanisms such as sexual selection and fitness based on environmental situations. The gist of it: if you can't survive in your environment long enough to mate, your genes (and thus your traits) will not pass on. If no one wants to mate with you, your genes will not pass on. Those who can get that far get to pass on their genes, and prevailing traits become more predominant. Not that big of an idea, really. I believe most people are highly confused about what the "Theory" of Evolution is. Evolution is proven; living things do change over time. The "theory" part, though, is HOW this happens; the "Theoretical" part of this is a question of what mechanisms drive evolution. Darwin's theory was that it happens because of "natural selection". What Darwin's theory lacked was the knowledge of genetics, which better explained the phenomenon of evolution. To put it in perspective, take a look at the "Theory" of Gravity; The question is not whether Gravity exists or not (as it certainly DOES), but WHAT Gravity is caused by. Scientific meanings of words differ from common language, which is another problem. "Theory" in common language is a guess. "A theory in science, however, is the result of a hypothesis which has been tested by many other scientists from different perspectives and which holds up to experimental tests . . . A theory is an idea that has a large body of observational evidence to support it and that has come to be accepted by most scientists in the field of study." (http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/phys_math/science.html) Science, as taught in high school, is the tip of the iceberg, at best (*I mean, look at what most adults think: they think that the Big Bang has something to do with Evolution of Species. That's just kind of sad that people confuse cosmology with biology). To be truly up-to-date on the subject, the best thing to do is expand your knowledge by reading articles in various scientific publications on it, follow up on news stories where this topic is discussed, etc. A high school biology class does not teach much anything about evolution; classes in genetics and zoology in the college level would better explain such things. *added note