It seems to me that (unless you've changed the definition of "weakness" from the one I was clearly using), there's weakness in a theory precisely when, and to whatever extent, that theory's various explanations are incomplete - or "sketchy" or "rickety" (which is almost a synonym of "weak"), as someone put it earlier in this thread. If explanations being sketchy and rickety doesn't connote weakness what does? If you disallow the word weakness to refer to explanations that are by your own admission rickety, I'm happy to oblige but what word shall I use instead?

So, it seems to me that before the discovery of DNA, the theory of evolution was indeed weaker than it is now. To put it another way, the discovery of DNA helped to make the theory of evolution stronger (=less weak). I doubt you would even actually disagree with that outside of the context of the current conversation (i.e. if I had asked you out of the blue, "did discovery of DNA help bolster evolution?" - well, quick, what would you have said?).

So I'm honestly not sure why you're arguing at this point.

And although it was an attempt to refute a complete 180-degree misrepresentation of my position, obviously you are correct to say that discovering more details about one part of the story but not another has not introduced any weakness into our explanation of the latter. What it has done, instead, is *strengthened* the former part of the story while leaving the latter part in its extant - and, now, relatively quite weak by comparison - state.

Which is precisely what I've been saying this whole time, without being understood evidently. Best,