Classical papers in molecular genetics

Creationism and evolution aren't two sides. 'Evolution' and the scientific method aren't belief systems. They're what we have left when we run out of belief. It's not about names either. When we talk about scientists it's not "they made a really good argument that we all subscribe to" or "here is a list of facts that this great person told us". It's "here's an experiment they did which is an example of excellent science", both to show us the scientific method in action, and to show that we can repeat the experiment and view the results for ourselves. A scientific education - at university level - isn't about memorising what other people have said or discovered. It's about knowing how we made those discoveries and how science is done, so that we quickly understand new experiments and evidence and design our own in future.

For that reason, I don't think reading arguments is the best approach to actually understand evolutionary theory (to quote one of my professors, evolution is a fact, evolutionary theory is figuring out how it happened). Instead, I'd suggest this coursera module; https://www.coursera.org/learn/papers-molecular-genetics/lecture/hZcIZ/introduction . It covers classical genetic papers, beginning with Garrod and Cuenot in 1902, two papers which showed that Mendellian genetics applied to animals and not just plants. Since it's about reading papers and it's based on a course designed for scientists, you get a more realistic impression of when and how we'd actually discuss a scientist's work. I think it's also pretty good for layman as it describes a history of discoveries, so it provides a context. That's why I'm doing that course, in my break between 2nd and 3rd year. It's interesting and I think it will be a good underlying context to slot new information into.

If you want to see evolution happening, this shows it; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8

Speciation generally takes longer, with one specific exception, that of fertile hybrids which can breed with each other but neither parent species, creating an instant speciation event under the biological species concept. Raphanobrassica is an example.

Seconding coursera. I'm in my final weeks(!) of a genetics degree, and they were really helpful in supplementing knowledge between first and second year. This one, from the uni of Melbourne, gave me a huge advantage in my epigenetics literature review, for example (I got 87%, which is great in the UK - they give you the highest grade at 70%, and 100% means the professor literally could not mark you down or do better themselves). But this one is my favourite, just for good general info and practice at reading scientific papers. They can be hard to get your head around - honestly, most of the degree is literally learning how to find and read the right papers for each occasion - so it's nice to practice with some hand-holding and story-telling.