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He talks about forms evolving from one distinct type to another. As his primary example he offers a fossil of a long animal with lobopods (lumpy feet for people like me)

Despite Morton's patient explanation, you miss the point that a lobopod is not an arthropod leg at all. The animal it appears on predates all that. And what about Anomalocaris, that wormy critter with arthropod parts?

A gene-level evo-devo scenario for arthropods starting from Aysheaia is presented beginning here, although I'd recommend starting at the beginning of the slideshow here.

How does looking up a modern velvet worm and going "Tah-dah" answer all this? Oh, wait! You did say something else:

2.(the other point that was disputable) He claimed the apparent big explosion of life in the Cambrian was misleading in that it just indicated this is when all the disparate forms all evolved shells, and their shell-less precursers did not leave fossils. There are two quick points on this. Firstly a LOT of different forms suddenly appeared. To surmise that they all evolved shells in parallel strains credulity but its certainly not an adequate refutal of the claim. The more convincing refutation, to me, occurs farther back on his own page and is the first image posted on this reply: It is a fossil from an earlier age that is soft.

I touched on this already. Yes, there are some "soft" fossils from before the Cambrian explosion, but they're harder to find. This is not suprising and does not help your case. It's far easier to fossilize chitin or bone than soft cellular tissue. It's unclear how many times hard parts were developed. I doubt if you need more than three: one each for mollusks, arthropods, and (rather later) vertebrates.

You've been given all sorts of evidence for the mechanisms involved and evidence that what obviously happens has happened.

What's your story?

Well my story is I don't have one. As I said in the beginning evolution was stated to be a fact. I said this was the first time I had heard that and had problems with the huge gaps in the fossil record where all the real changes seemed to be happening, and how when we see forms they are complete. I then pondered how very complex, multi-mutationed, components which are essential to the existence of the organism could be explained by this method.

If I have a case, its that the theory seems to be proof of itself, its true and the evidence shows it, because of the truth of the theory. Well it may well be true, but I wish someone would show me where I can find answers to the questions I asked when I first posted to the thread.

Vade, I do not want to upset you, but your standard of proof is different than mine, you're seeing things as conclusive that I am not. I am not saying you are wrong, just that I am missing your point.

Thank you for your time.
v.