There is more evidence for evolution probably then any other single idea in science.
Evidence itself is open to interpretation. One can use the same evidence to make fit to several mutually exclusive theories.
A long long time ago (1986)*, I did a course at university called ‘Pre-history’ at the Australian National University. Our textbook was
Poirier, F E, “In Search of Ourselves: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology”, (to which I will be referring specifically to p346ff).
My textbook stated that each of the following;
the Unilinear School;
the Polyphyletic School’
the Preneanderthal School; and
the Presapiens School
were all valid possibilities to the pathway our ancestors took. All were based on the evidence available - the same evidence. All were mutually exclusive, in that if we’d evolved along one model, we’d not have gone along the others.
All these theories have now gone the way of the dinosaurs, and two new, mutually exclusive models have emerged; the “Out-of-Africa” model, and the multi-regional model.
Not only, as you said, does it elegently fit all available evidence, which is part of what makes a scientific idea a good one, but it’s been good at predicting future discoveries as well. For example, common decent predicts a so called ‘tree of life’ which we see confirmed from a variety a angles; morphological (appearence and structure of animals), biochemical, genetic, geographic; all which indicate the same tree of life.
Which might have happened due to directed evolution.
For example, almost all the marsupials are limited to Australia.
This is a rather strange example to make use of, because it still has exceptions such as one in North America.
We have also found transition fossils,
Transitional fossils are often highly contentious too.
In 1870 a Darwinist named Hyatt worked on specimens of ammonites and arranged them Aegoceras (oldest)-Androgynoceras-Liparoceras (youngest)
In 1938 L F Spath looking at the same evidence arranged them Liparoceras (oldest)-Androgynoceras-Aegoceras (youngest)
In 1963 Blockely said that they were all a variation of Androgynoceras, and the range was explained by sexual dimorphism.
All of which Richard Milton says “It is a prime illustration of the infinite elasticity of Darwinian theory: of its ability to interpret the data in any one of a number of completely different ways - even with diametrically opposed conclusions - as long as those ways are consistent with the central belief in Darwinian evolution itself.”
in “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism”, p113 by Richard Milton
and animals also sometimes have vestigial characteristics, such as sightless eyes or wings useless for flight.
The idea that they are useless is also flawed. Within humans, for e.g. there was, at the beginning of the 1900s, deemed to be dozens of these things, but over time we have found use for many, thus the tonsils are found to help fight infection. The idea that because we don’t know what something for equals we know it’s not for anything is plainly wrong.
Also atavisms sometimes occur. An atavism is the reappearance of a character present in a distant ancestor but lost in the organism’s immediate ancestors. We only see atavisms consistent with organisms’ evolutionary histories.
Such as?
“There are, for instance, more than 800 species of frogs, all of which look superficially the same. But there is a greater variation of molecular structure between them than there is between the bat and the blue whale”
Milton, R, “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism”, p184
The list goes on and on, and all of this data is confirmed acrossed many different fields of science.
None of this explains the difference between a directed evolution and an non-directed one as per the OP.
I’m gonna sic Cardinal Schonborn on you. Not sure if you’re Catholic, maybe not, but here is what a leading Cardinal in the Catholic Church says on your brand of “creationism” :
