Why do many of the religious not seem to grasp the meaning of "theory"?

Gravity is just a theory!

@PaulCyp - Christian biologist? Then you do understand that evolution - and history - completely disprove Luke 3 right?

Correction on theory - they are all and always provisional. Come up with better mechanism or model that fits the facts better and the older theory will be discarded. New facts may modify or overthrow an existing theory or make it only a special case theory.

To reach the theory stage in science takes a lot of supporting evidence and withstanding criticism and review. It must also make testable predictions.

"Theory" has different meanings in different contexts. In the vernacular, it is often used as a rough synonym for "hypothesis." In science, however, it is at the opposite end of our spectrum of justification, and means something like "a schema for organizing and explaining the relationships between established facts."

Some people confuse these two meanings, some purposefully equivocate on them in order to serve some agenda. Neither are being reasonable.

'little' book, below, illustrates this confusion perfectly.

Because they think that when scientists talk about a theory, they mean it in the same way a layman would use the term, which would be what scientists would call a hypothesis. I imagine most of them are just ignorant of this fact.

OR...

“Fact = verifiably accurate data

Law = statement which is always true under specific circumstances

Hypothesis = testable, potentially falsifiable, explanation of facts/laws

Theory = unifying framework explaining all of the above.”

~

Those who deny evolution and claim it to be only a "theory" obviously don't know what a scientific theory is , and have not studied the concept.

Daphne and you don't think religions cherry pick. I'll put it this way there is a number of the population who let other people do their thinking.

These kinds of religious folks live in a completely contrived universe inside their own heads where evidence doesn't matter and nor does the definition of common words. They make it all up to suit their own purposes.

Because they (most of them) only speak in the layman, and apply layman tongue to everything else.

A theory is a 'best guess' very much unlike your definition -

close, but no cigar!