Yes, because it is based on evidence that can be corroborated by one or more of the natural sciences.

Yes. Here some misconceptions about evolution: "- In biology the word evolution describes the changes in gene frequencies that occur in populations of living organisms over time. Describing these changes does not address the origin of life: for that, see abiogenesis. The two are commonly and mistakenly conflated. Biological evolution likewise says nothing about cosmology, the Big Bang, or where the universe, galaxy, solar system, or Earth came from. - The word "theory" in "the theory of evolution" does not imply doubt in mainstream science about the validity of this theory; the words "theory" and "hypothesis" are not the same in a scientific context (see Evolution as theory and fact). A scientific theory is a set of principles which, via logical deduction, explains the observations in nature. The same logical deductions can be made to predict observations before they are made. The theory describing how evolution occurs is a "theory" in the same sense as the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity. - Evolution is not random; rather, the random results of genetic mutation are filtered by the non-random processes of ontogeny, natural selection, and other non-random mechanisms. On the other hand, some evolutionary changes result from genetic drift, and are entirely random. - Humans did not evolve from monkeys, chimpanzees, or any other modern ape. Rather, humans and other apes share a common ancestor that lived around 7 million years ago in the late Miocene epoch.[39][40] However, fossil discoveries of "recently" (as in, only millions of years ago) extinct species are, in the experience of paleontologists, rarely direct ancestors of living species. - The process of evolution is not necessarily slow. Millions of years are not required to see evolution, or even to see speciation in action. Indeed, it has been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.[41] - Speciation does not happen within a single organism: a chimpanzee cannot be born a chimpanzee and turn into a different species within its lifetime. Evolution deals with changes to the gene pool of a population, which accumulate only over generations. Similarly, organisms cannot pass on acquired traits to their offspring; a bodybuilder's children are not born with bigger muscles (but see epigenetics). - Evolution is not a progression from "lower" to "higher", and evolution does not require an increase in complexity (see Evolution of complexity). A population can evolve to become simpler, and have a smaller genome — often called "devolution", but that is a misnomer.[42][43] - The theory of evolution does posit "transitional forms"... but not "endpoint forms". That is, every animal, plant, fossil that exists, is an example of a transitional form. Evolution is an eternal and continuous process.[44][45] (See also List of transitional fossils.) - The claim that "almost all mutations are harmful" is false. In fact, most mutations have no noticeable effect. One study gives the average number of mutations that arise in a human conception to be around 128, with an average number of harmful mutations per conception of 1.3.[46] - The claim that evolution is not scientific since it cannot be experimentally refuted is invalid. Any number of discoveries could potentially refute the theory of evolution - for example the discovery of a contemporary mammal fossil in ancient rock strata. - The claim that evolution makes no meaningful predictions is not true - for example the discovery of the relationship between chromosome 2 and chimpanzee chromosomes at the end of the completion of the human and chimp genome projects was predicted, and makes meaningful sense as evidence of a common ancestor. - The characterization of evolution as the "survival of the fittest" (in the sense of "only the fittest organisms will prevail", a view common in social Darwinism) is not consistent with the actual theory of evolution. Any organism which is capable of reproducing itself before dying is considered "fit". If the organism is able to do so on an ongoing basis, it will survive as a species. A more accurate characterization of evolution would be "survival of the fit enough"." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misconceptions#Evolution Further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_theory_and_fact