All scientific conclusions are tentative, but some are more tentative than others.

DWA: Some visibly simiiar plants are only distantly similar in DNA, and meanwhile, very different plants can be rather closely related by DNA comparisons.

Understanding how DNA codes for form will help understand this, but I think that DNA is more likely to tell the truth while appearance may just be an mask.

DWA: The nectarine, (looks like a peach, leaves and fruits) is more of a rose, f'rinstance, not a peach, according to my local corner "fruiterer" (Australian term).

I think your fruiterer has been waiting for his fruit to ferment a bit too long. Nectarines are peaches without the fuzz. They are the result of a recessive gene in peaches.

DWA: No where in the program did I notice the forthright statement of possibility that genetic drift can go towards greater simplicity. The scientists are really preferring to occupy themselves with "forward" evolution, towards greater complexity, I thought.

What would be a mechanism leading to greater simplicity?

DWA: There are admissions in the program of the extreme complexity of the as yet only tentatively re-revised "progression" scheme. Recognising bidirectionality of genetic drift would only make that more maddening for the sane (grin). Once you are already "crazy", settled on evolution, without allowing ID, you are safe from further maddening influences?

Please try restating this in English.

DWA: Plausible: ?Maybe the water weeds of jurassic western China were once apple trees in the Garden of Eden? Why is this not possible?