The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation we have for the diversity of life on Earth.

As my opponent forfeited the last round I'll delay the portion of my argument planned for this space and instead clarify why the TOE is considered uncontroversial among scientists. I've provided a concise, uncontroversial definition of The Theory of Evolution, albeit simplified. It nonetheless describes the theory within which the overwhelming majority of working biologists view our history. Of course Darwin's theory was formed before we knew many things about the nature of the physical world and it could be argued that, based upon the available evidence at the time, he could have been mistaken. More recent scientific discoveries serve only to strengthen and confirm the validity of the theory. I'll outline a few here. Darwin apparently never read Mendel's published work, so although he knew that traits were inheritable, the mechanism remained a mystery. Mendelian genetics replaced Lamarckianism and ultimately Watson and Crick discovered DNA, clarifying the process of inheritance and introducing the concept of genetic mutation. These discoveries, had they been different in nature, could have proven the TOE false, but instead they strengthened it, fleshing out large gaps in Darwin's theory. [http://www.smithsonianmag.com...] The fossil record has greatly improved since Darwin's time to the extent that we now have fairly fine-grained sets of specimens for many species, including quite a few complete transitions. Reptile to mammal, dinosaur to bird, fish to amphibian: these are only a few of the fossil lines which by any definition must be considered transitional. Talk.origins has an fairly exhaustive list which I encourage you to read if you'd like more information. The point here is that the transitional forms predicted by TOE are being discovered. No reputable biologist feels otherwise. [http://en.wikipedia.org... and http://www.talkorigins.org... list an overwhelming number of examples, sources, and papers] Finally, we know that endogenous retrovirii leave snippets of their genes mixed in to the junk DNA of their hosts. A prediction could be made using this information: If our distant ancestors became infected with such a virus the ones who survived (and their offspring) should have snippets of genetic code in common. It turns out that this is true. Ask yourself this - are the chances of multiple long segments of DNA appearing in the same places amongst species which we believed to have shared a relatively recent common ancestor, but not appearing at all amongst species which the TOE predicted shared common ancestor older than the approximate era when the retrovirii would have infected their hosts and left trace DNA? [http://en.wikipedia.org... gives a good overview with plenty of supplementary citations if you're interested.] As new information comes to light the TOE has become more robust. In the last case predictions regarding what should be the case predated our ability to test DNA with any reliability, so here we have a perfect example of falsifiabilty and of predictive power. TOE passes both tests with flying colors. The current TOE consists of information and research from multiple scientific fields, all of which confirm its soundness. It's known as the "Modern Synthesis." It is widely held by scientists to be strong, validl theory which accurately explains the diversity of life. No competitor currently exists which can rival it's scientific merit or comprehensiveness. [http://en.wikipedia.org...] I'm going to outline the dearth of competing theories next. I hope my opponent will acknowledge his misunderstanding of the word "theory" and make some positive claims to bolster his argument so we can move forward. Thanks.