Seriously though, I wanted to offer the perspective of someone who has accepted evolution. I'm writing my PhD thesis right now, so I am unlikely to be able to respond to further posts. But I would like to share a good resource for learning what evolution actually says, and why we should believe it's true. Here it is:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
The author helpfully starts by defining evolution, as \"common descent\". Note that this adds a tremendous amount of clarity to the discussion. It's a simple, testable idea. Moreover, it doesn't trivialize the topic: evolutionists accept it, and anti-evolutionists deny it. In fact, it distills the very essence of what we're arguing about when we argue about evolution. The author explains in a lot more detail why this important; I highly recommend reading the introduction.
This definition also leaves out a lot of distracting \"side stuff\", including the origin of life itself. True, one way of looking at \"evolution\" could include the origin of life. But I think it's better to leave it out, because (a) it makes the topic too broad to be easily covered, and (b) there is already plenty we disagree about and can discuss[1], without it!
If anyone is really serious about learning about evolution, I recommend this document. It requires slow, careful study. At the end of it, I came to the conclusion that either evolution really did happen, or God arranged irrefutable evidence to make us think that it did. (At which point, why not just play along? :) ) In particular, I think the \"protein functional redundancy\" and \"endogenous retroviruses\" (for example) are powerful and compelling, and do not have credible alternative explanations.
So this is why I (and others) accept evolution. And this is why claims of missing evidence --- evidence that, in fairness, we would not expect to survive even if evolution were true --- does not persuade me otherwise. Because the evidence that it did happen is too overwhelming and unambiguous.
[1] Yes, I realize it's silly of me to say \"discuss\" when I don't plan to return to the discussion, due to severe time constraints on my doctoral thesis. Send me a message in September and I may be willing to talk more then.
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And let me respond to the watch analogy, too. Analogies are helpful ways of understanding things that are alike in some respects, and unlike in others. What's critical is that the comparison depends only on the alike parts, and not any unlike ones! Here's what I mean: evolution absolutely requires that the things which evolve are self-replicating, and that offspring can differ slightly from their parents. This is not remotely true of any watch I have ever seen. The analogy fails at a critical point.
If the intent is to expose a genuine flaw in the basis for evolution, I hope honesty will compel you to stop using the analogy if you've now seen how it fails.
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