I haven't read every single entry in this debate so please forgive if I repeat. I see the original posters point that to understand evolution today you need suchs a degree of expertise that you get indoctrinated on the way. I disagree, but I understand it. My point is that he is only looking at evolution TODAY. We have to remember that evolution started with very simple data that was fairly easy to interpret. Darwin and his colleagues weren't talking about alleles, DNA, or any of that fancy stuff. It was a simple matter of seeing progressions in animal fossils and noticing their placement, groupings, layers, etc... Any layman could look at the evidence in probably half an hour and draw their own conclusions.
Only recently has it gotten much more technical and difficult for the layman to really engage in the debate. But part of that is because those who would refute darwin's basic premise (which has been tweaked over the 150 years since it's introduction!) make it impossible to do so in a simple matter. Mostly by the time-honored technique of lying, they muddle the issue of whether layers really are the way scientists have been observing since such observations began. Or whether those jawbones really changed into earbones. So scientists have to point to more technical proof "See how the genetic mutation rate points to comm ancestors of these 2 animals about 4 million years ago?" or some such. Then the doubters throw back stuff about misreading data on DNA. So it's a vicious circle.
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