Steve.... first, dont see this discussion between me and you as a war, i am smiling while posting here, not waging war.
Your exposition of the DNA it's almost correct (with the exception that some triplet seem to relate with different ammino in the same time, but this is still a "frontier" in study), and we can go on expanding the concept.
A sequence of triplets instructing (using RNA messenger) the specific cellular structure to "build" or better assemble a polypeptide it's called gene.
There are large functional holes in a "chromosome" (hope it's correct translation in english), with unused sequences.
What is amaizing, now that we can sequentiate (sp.) the DNA, is that have been observed that the "active" genes in largely different form of life are very similar.
The combination of different genes, and, susprise, in different times of the growth can result in the great differences we observe in life.
Even the apparently vastly different plants and animals, share not only the same "construction set", but even a large number of genes are completely equal.
Now the traits:
As already observed centuries ago, there are multiple similarities between the anathomy of the living being.
theese similarities are stronger between some species and lesser between others, so it was easy to regroup the species in families, "and then was thassonomy".
It was'nt a fixed structure, since by further study some of the "determining" traits of some species were discovered as "evolutive convergence" (a real trap for thassonomy).
BTW the thassonomy has adapted to new discoveries, and it's still refining (thank to the aid of genetics, that it's a fine tuning tool).
A century (almost) ago, there were discovered strange bones of unknow animals, with a structures a lot different with the living ones.
After some try, and after discovering almost complete skeletons, the scratching head scientists had to admit that there were species that no longer live on this world, "and then comes the estinction".
Someone was astonished that in older layer of terrain there were some of the actual species missing, something like if some of the actual species did'nt existed before, "and then comes speciation (sp?)"
And then a speculative guy ask himself "what if...." maybe there's a mechanism that permit the dissapearing and birth of species.
Since this guy was observing birds of the same specie that showed to have developed differences in the shape of the beck (beak??) depending of the alimentation, he argued that this isolated birds were "adapted" to the alimentation available in the respective island.
The way this worked started a huge debate for those times, with someone stating that the adaption system was a positive feedback between the habits and the body structure (Lamark).
But this theory was discarded, since even by forcing an animal to act in a way theorically prone to start changes on the body structure, theese changes were'nt ereditary, not trasmissible to the successive generation. (here here, the science at work).
So there was a different mechanism, some scientist pointed at the "natural selection", very similar to the "artificial selection" that the human being is operating since some tenthousand years on the domesticated form of life.
What if the same pressure that human pose, by breeding the individual with the interesting caratheristics between them, and not allowing the others to breed, is almost the same method (or, better, again mechanism) that change "savage" species?
This what if (and the science is a "what if") seemed to be the better fitting answer to the problem, and it's still accepted as a good model.
Each new "transitional" specie that we find, it's a new clue about the good approx. of this theory, note the approximation term, since we are not speaking about a dogma.
And, there are a lot of transitional forms.
Now, we go on your position.
You are discussing (in a lawyer way
) the commonly accepted theory, but still are'nt explaining your position.
Maybe do you believe that now and then some supernatural power play with the bricks He created, and build a new race from nothing?
Or that the same supernatural Being created the bricks, set the rules, and let the "experiment" go on?
Notice that none of the 2 options are in contrast with the evolution scientific theory.
But both are a different "religious" interpretation of the selection, or, better, "religious" answers to the why that evolution pose.
On a final note a lot of scientists are religious, and I dont see contraddiction in this.
