New species have in fact been seen to evolve many times. What this means, applied to sexually reproducing organism, is that specific populations differentiate to the point where they can no longer exchange genes. And such speciation (species formation) has taken place both in the laboratory and in the wild, for instance with several kinds of fruit flies and other insects.
One problem in getting this fact across is that people often demand to be shown entirely novel kinds of organism appear before their very eyes. But it doesn't work that way. Even rapid speciation usually takes thousands or at the very least, hundreds of years, and especially when we are talking about megafauna like horses and humans. That is why we are normally confined to seeing evolution unfold in the fossil chain, which inevitably leaves some leeway for the willful disbelief of dogmatic creationists ("hey, that Brontosaurus is constructed out of chicken bones! It says so in this pamphlet!")
That, IMO, is the problem. If you'd argue that species change/mutate within themselves, then I'd agree. But it's the idea that monkeys BECAME people (ie. one kind of DNA turning into another kind of DNA) that disproves Darwin's theory for me (and, I suspect, more and more scientists as more is learned about biology, DNA, etc).
The kind of DNA does not need to change, nor does it in fact. Even the content is mostly the same among closely related species - famously, humans and chimpanzees have more than 98 percent of their DNA in common. Anyway, how does any of this 'disprove' the theory of evolution? The fact that some people profess to find it incredible is not a logical objection to the theory.
Also, I can't quote the source, but I remember reading some time in the past year or so that Darwin returned to his "Christian" roots and rejected his earlier positions on his deathbed.
That, my friend, has the dubious distinction of being both wrong and irrelevant. For one thing, the notion that Darwin retracted on his deathbed has been discredited. Its source is a certain religious lady claiming to have visited him on his deathbed; her story has been taken apart and has no independent support. For another thing, even if true this story would not make an iota of difference today. You see, in science it is evidence that matters, not personal authority. It could turn out that Einstein disbelieved his own Theory of Relativity and that would be make a dent in that theory's status as accepted science because it is borne out by multiple experiments and allows accurate predictions. However, it might in principle be refuted tomorrow, just as the theory of evolution would be by, say, the finding of a fossilized mammuth in a pre-cambrium rock formation. That's how intellectually honest creationists should go about it. But instead they prefer to simply make stuff up, and then whine about how they are 'oppressed' by actual scientists.
In fact, that lying lady with her deathbed retraction story is the perfect symbol of their lazy, dishonest ilk.
It's your turn to get the pat on the back.
Unfortunately for me, you beat me to it and I was loaded for bear. Oh well, maybe next time.