The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution
bbc.com

I am a layman but one criticism of the theory of evolution that seems sensible to me is the absence of intermediate forms.

For example types of ape that could mate with say gorillas and chimpanzees.

All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a continuum.

It absolutely is evolution, what it isn't is 'speciation'. For speciation to occur you would have to have enough reproductive isolation and enough time to allow for sufficient change - let's say in the range of thousands/millions of years, rather than a decade or two. Biologists will tell you anyway that the concept of a biological species is a bit hard to pin down anyway.

I don't quite understand your criticism regarding intermediate forms. There are many clusters of species where interbreeding is possible to some extent - Zeedonks, Ligers et all, not mention types of bluebell, dandelions etc. Moreover there are many many species where there are distinct varieties which are still similar enough to interbreed, but may be on their way to separating if given enough time and isolation.

However, imagine rabbits on an island. There are zillions of them everywhere and there is a wide variety of mutations. Mostly it doesn't matter because most of them can interbreed, and the ones that don't die out. But one day the rabbits get a terrible disease and almost all of them die. The ones that don't die have a mutation that makes them resistant to the disease. Now you have a different kind of rabbit where they are all resistant to the disease.

This keeps happening. Not always disease. Sometimes their food source disappears. Sometimes a new preditor arrives. Sometimes the weather changes. Each time, they almost all die. Only the ones that could survive live.

After all of that, the island rabbits are very specialised. They might not even be specialised for the current conditions. For example the disease may no longer exist. The weather may have changed back. The predators may have died out. But it doesn't matter. They are very different than the original rabbits, and also very different from the rabbits on the mainland. So much so that the two can't interbreed.

There is no intermediate forms because they all died. If they had not died, the specialised form would not have developed.

We can observe this both in the wild and in laboratory conditions. Especially with short lived insects (usually fruit flies) we can actually see evolution happening in this way. But with rabbits... we tried to kill all the rabbits in Australia with a disease and ended up with lots and lots of rabbits who are resistant to the disease.

This is why it is important to teach evolution in school.

Criticism of evolution isn't sensible, it's ignorant (which is fine). It's an observable phenomenon, each piece of which can be reasoned about without too much specialised knowledge.

Being ignorant about evolution is fine, and you asked politely and seem to have an open mind, so I don't think you should be downvoted. I think people are just a bit tired of creationists mis-using terms, lobbying, etc, so are sensitive on this topic.