neither process has been witnessed in the lab or in the wild to add new information to an indiviuals genome or to a population's gene pool. If I'm mistaken then present me with evidences to the contrary.
I'd be happy to do so, provided you can tell me precisely what you mean by information. There are multiple different possible metrics for measuring information content, some of them are easily applicable to genetics and some are highly subjective and almost impossible to use meaningfully.
There are several informational metrics by which it is trivial to show examples of increasing information in the genome as a result of mutation and/or natural selection.
it has never been observed to transform an indivual into something else so that it can no longer be called its former self.
Indeed, this isn't how evolution or natural selection work. It has been observed that individuals descended from the same ancestral population may diverge into distinct species, even in experimental populations.
Mutations are harmful,fullstop.
This is simply untrue. Nor is it true to say that only most mutations are harmful. Most mutations are neutral, they change the genetic composure of an organism in such a way as to have no effect on it at all. Either the occur in stretches of DNA where they have no functional effect, due to the region they occur having no functional significance or because the change in the DNA doe not cause any functional change in the gene/region it occurs in, in the case of non-synonymous mutations in protein coding genes they may simply exchange one amino acid for an equivalent amino acid having no functional effect on the protein product.
Harmful mutations certainly do outweigh beneficial mutations but to deny the existence of beneficial mutations requires ignoring a vast body of evidence, not to mention imposing some magical barrier for which there is no evidence to prevent certain specific mutations arising.
How can anything random and sudden be beneficial especially when it comes to life-forms
Winning the lottery? I admit there is an argument to be made against sudden wealth being generally beneficial but I think you get my point.
A mutant cell is out of control and wayward it violates regulation and disturbs normal body function and growth.
This is not true. The most obvious forms of cellular mutation to us, those leading to cancers are obvious precisely because they do this. This doesn't prevents every child from having roughly a hundred
de novo mutations which distinguish them genetically from their parents but which do not cause them to become an uncontrollable cancerous growth.
Other than this what other evidences have been used to back the theory of evolution? close to nothing.
Multiple lines of evidence from paleontology to comparative embryology and genetics.
TTFN,
WK