Well, there is probably no more point in debating this. I think you get my point, even if you don't think it's valid. The "confluence of evidence" is amassed to point to the conclusion that the investigators want to make. Sort of what a prosecutor does to try to convict someone that he thinks is guilty.
But that is not the same as fact. It is still based on guesswork and assumptions. But of course the prosecutor must convince himself that he is right before he goes into court, or he will probably not be able to convince the jury. Science provides some of the evidence for the prosecutor's case, but there is always the possibility that there is another explanation that no one has thought of.
Projecting backward into the distant past is guesswork.
If events A and B can be demonstrated in the lab to cause C, it does not follow that every time you observe C, A + B must have happened.
Actually the evidence is the evidence and comes first. There is no picking and choosing of evidence to match a preconceived idea. If the evidence leads away from the theory, the theory, or a part of it, is wrong.
" Science provides some of the evidence for the prosecutor's case, but there is always the possibility that there is another explanation that no one has thought of.
That is equally true of all sciences. Science rules out explanations through probability, not through certainty.
"Well, there is probably no more point in debating this"
This may be true but I'd hate to see you go off with a mistaken idea of how the study of evolution is done.
As an aside, the first person to present the idea that evolution is nothing but a philosophy is himself a lawyer, using the methodology you assign to evolutionary sciences to convince others of his falsehoods.