Religious preachers, inspired by religious authorities, often tend to describe certain (if not all) religious claims as being symmetric to opposing scientific or other claims. You say evolution created humans? We say God did. Why should your so-called theory be better than mine? You say religion coerces its rules on secular people? We say secularism coerces its own habits on us.

Talking is cheap, you know. Similar argumentation of symmetry can be used in many circumstances not approved by most religious and secular people alike. Imagine a serial killer arguing the symmetry between gun shooting and cellphone radiation. Thing is, the very act of claiming something has a totally different significance if claimed by an individual (even one that carries some academic degree), or by the scientific community as a whole, based on scientific methods.

Things are not symmetric when it comes to complying with the scientific methods. You cannot “believe” in evolution or “disbelieve” in it, same way you cannot choose to “believe” or “disbelieve” in the earth circling the sun. Obviously you can still claim it doesn’t, for what it’s worth. The reason for the asymmetry has to do with the way science and scientific disciplines produce their claims, which by definition avoids conflicting statements to be tagged as ‘true’ at the same time.

A good and short discussion about it may be found in the IAP Statement on the Teaching of Evolution:

Scientific knowledge derives from a mode of inquiry into the nature of the universe that has been successful and of great consequence. Science focuses on (i) observing the natural world and (ii) formulating testable and refutable hypotheses to derive deeper explanations for observable phenomena. When evidence is sufficiently compelling, scientific theories are developed that account for and explain that evidence, and predict the likely structure or process of still unobserved phenomena.

Human understanding of value and purpose are outside of natural science’s scope. However, a number of components – scientific, social, philosophical, religious, cultural and political – contribute to it. These different fields owe each other mutual consideration, while being fully aware of their own areas of action and their limitations.

While acknowledging current limitations, science is open ended, and subject to correction and expansion as new theoretical and empirical understanding emerges.