You have a funny way of not getting drawn into it , dave.
so to answer your points, and you can choose if you want to come back on it or not.....
it is irrelevant how many people believe it, unless it can be demonstrated to be the only interpretation of the data. science would be severely stunted if we had been satisfied with a theory just because most people believe it.
whether a scientist is at the very top of his profession or not is not the crucial point.   but , they are up far enough not to be discredited. the arguments validity is paramount.
the scientific and logical challenge to evolutionism is not framed on what we don't know primarily, but on what we do know.
and, it seems to me, your jumping off a cliff analogy seems irrelevant to the argument.    jumping off cliffs is experimentally verified as likely to be fatal!. there is nothing experimentally verified about the general theory of evolution, so I feel like I am on safe ground in questioning it.