how were you going about trying to demonstrate and prove evolution, and what problems did you encounter?
LOL I've started this post twice, and I can't decide how much to share without going into to much detail.
I will say that it was partially a backwards working process - I recognized that we were simply told conclusions based on observed evidence, and set out to offer a better education on the process. In part, I just assumed it would be possible because I had trusted my education up to that point, and I thought surely some intellectual giants somewhere along the way had just done the "heavy lifting" for us, and my desire was to make that more accessible to students (since it certainly wasn't broadly available, but I did assume it must exist), and also because I was always a sort of perfectionist.
One example - the theory that animal x developed from animal y and before that from animal z. There are many, many such claims. So, instead of just lining up a series of animals and telling students to memorize the history, I went in search of clear indications of development. True intermediate forms have never been found, but of course I expected to be able to explain and demonstrate with fossils we DO have. But I found that I couldn't do it. There were assumptions, certainly, and again, they are as good as any idea one might propose, but I failed to offer anything better than that (as indeed, no proponent of evolution has ever been able to do more than that). Not only is there no real evidence, but there is not even compelling evidence that necessarily leads in this direction, to the exclusion of competing possibilities, if one is honest.
One good method for assembling proofs is sometimes to attempt to prove the opposite, btw, even when you believe it to be false. This will show the inability of competing theories and highlight your strongest competing evidences, and can also help to sort of clear the mind of preconceptions so that one is able to build one's case without replying on presuppositions that one's opponents may not share. But applying this method to fossil evidence of advancing forms was like blowing down a house of cards.
Next I turned to functional changes, and that was even more of a disaster, and had to be abandoned early (intermediaries would be at a disadvantage compared to both prior and later forms, lacking adequate functionality, and the development of more complex structures and processes just begs the idea that something more intelligent and purposeful than mere chance was driving it.) This is something evolutionists often don't tend to address.
Looking at climate-driven changes (or other short-term environmental factors) is satisfactory in terms of evolution (or change) WITHIN a genera, but I still couldn't use it to begin to demonstrably account for earlier branching. And it is this more easily demonstrated change that has been a sort of launching-board for more far-reaching evolutionary claims.
There were other areas I looked at, but these were major areas.
And it might be a bit underhanded to mention honest errors that found their way into especially early inquiry, and in some cases outright deception. What I found personally disappointing about these is not that they happened, but that they were still deemed worthy to include as "evidence" in textbooks in some cases. But that did help a bit with pulling aside the curtain, as it were, to reveal the little man in charge of the great wizard.
Which is only to say it helped more for me to hold everyone at arm's length and "trust no one" and instead demand that ALL claims and foundations be proven before proceeding with them as a basis for further claims and interpretations.
I'm rambling, sorry. There were so many little instances and ups and downs in the process, and it was almost 20 years ago. I wasn't sure if you wanted details or generalities.
But I hope that answers your question.
