I'm saying that later on its factuality was recognized and accepted as such. Before that the evidence was too sparse to consider it as anything more than a theoretical possibility. Some people didn't think organisms could evolve (as some even do today) while others thought they did. Until evidence proved them correct those thinking evolution was true had nothing of substance to point to, hence they were in no position to claim evolution to be a fact. When the evidence did start to accumulate to the point where the idea of evolution could no longer be questioned it was promoted to the position of fact.
As Tumbleweed said, the fact/observation of evolution came before the theory. Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus, and Lamarck both knew that organisms had evolved over time before Darwin's theory was developed, and made their own models for how evolution worked. So the fact of evolution came well before the theory of natural selection. As time went on, Darwin's ideas (or neo-Darwinian ideas) became supported more and more.
The scientific power of Darwinian evolution grew to the point where the theory of evolution is now one of the best supported scientific theories out there.
Not really. Among those in science it is, but not out in the wild wonderful world of creationism. Creationists absolutely love to glom onto the phrase "the theory of evolution" and claim it means evolution is only a theory for explaining the diversity of organisms in the world.
True. Although I once saw a video where they said that evolution couldn't even be a theory because a theory required evidence, therefore it is a falsified model. Those crazy creos, what'll they think of next?
