Evolution has wide appeal because it offers pat answers to hard questions,
I wouldn't say evolution is a "pat answer", especially considering the vast number of those who reject it don't seem to understand how evolution actually works. I've yet to meet a single creationist - aside from those at the very top of their "field" - who really demonstrate even a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts involved. You can hardly accuse it of being an easy or simplistic answer when those who reject it, by and large, find it so difficult to grasp.
besides being a handy excuse for atheism;
It isn't. Granted, it provides more justification to an atheistic position, because beforehand the seeming suitability of life appeared to have no explanation beyond intentional design, but evolution is not an excuse for atheism. Many people, including religious scientists, institutions and universities, have no problem at all reconciling theistic beliefs and evolution theory. There is nothing intrinsically atheistic about evolution theory.
but truth be told, it is an ill-founded and unlikely theory no matter how loudly academia proclaims it. Search high and low inside or outside the laboratory and it is guaranteed that you will never find the smallest bacterium "evolving" a more efficiently designed organelle (much less a brand new organelle).
We have observed many species evolving. Speciation has been directly observed both inside and outside of the laboratory.
A process whereby inherited random genetic mutations in simple life forms become highly complex organisms by the sweep of a magic wand called Natural Selection is more science fiction than fact.
Natural selection is not a magic wand. In fact, when thought about with a reasonable level of understanding, it is simple common sense: the few mutations which improve survivability and/or the ability of an organism to reproduce successfully will tend to propagate more successfully than those that do not (or those that provide a detriment). It's as simple as "If you're more likely to survive and have children, you are more likely to pass on that trait to children". This is not magic, it's logic and biology.
Random mutations never produce positive changes:
Flat-out lie. Mutations produce positive changes just as often as they produce negative changes (that is, very rarely). The vast majority of mutations provided no detriment or benefit. To assert no mutations produce positive changes is blatantly false.
nor can they write code, design cellular structures, engineer highly integrated biological systems, or otherwise accomplish any of the enormously complex tasks involved in sustaining and propagating life. There is no force in nature capable of creating or designing anything.
You've already overlooked natural selection. You're essentially ignoring the process that shapes living systems and then saying "there are no processes that shape living systems".
What passes for "evolutionary forces" at work in the lab environment are increasingly found to be mechanisms associated with transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. A yeast strain gaining resistance to some toxin, for example, is not evolving anything new at all.
Yes it is. It's
gaining resistance to toxin. I'm not sure you understand what evolution is.
Its DNA is responding to chemical switches already in place.
But the particular
sequence of that DNA thus
changes to
produce a new combination which didn't exist before which can change the organism in a variety of ways.
What you really need to show us is a saccharomyces cerevisiae cell with a budding flagella. That's about as likely as finding a winged horse.
Why on earth would you expect yeast cells to grow flagella? Does evolution predict that they would?
Evolution and Natural Selection are not fact at all. The notion that the immense complexity of plant and animal life we see integrated throughout all the ecosystems of the earth are the product of random genetic mutations is almost comical: but it is the next best thing to believing in a Creator.
Both evolution and natural selection are demonstrable facts. I can only suggest you do more research.
Evolution grants you freedom from conscience, and lets you enjoy the illusion of objective morality.
How on earth can it do either of those things? Evolution has nothing to do with conscience or objective morality and, believe it or not, I am a person who accepts evolution and yet I have a conscience. I've never intentionally harmed anyone. I am a clean-living person, having never done any form of illegal drugs or drunk alcohol in my life. If my acceptance of evolution grants me freedom from conscience, how on earth can I be a reasonably well-adjusted person?
Regressive influence? Not in this century. To begin with, Creationism or Intelligent Design as theories impose no moral constraints and no intellectual constraints.
And yet the theory of evolution gives us freedom from conscience and the illusion of objective morality?
The opposite is true, in fact. The paradigm of Creationism gives hi-tech inventors and engineers a wealth of brilliantly designed 'inventions' which they can imitate, replicate, or emulate (one obvious example is flight).
Except those things would still exist, and we can still base designs off of them regardless of whether they were created by some kind of intelligence or not. Nature can be replicated too. Saying "God did it" makes no difference. I can't think of a single possible application of "Creation science".