Dan, there's no faith involved at all. Evolution is clear-cut if you just follow the chain. You know it's hard to keep perfect records of everything.
Just because a fossil disappears or a species becomes exinct doesn't disprove evolution, it actually supports it. I am sure you can always find the reason for extinction. That is survival of the fittest.
Tautology.
"Survival of the fittest" simply means survival of the survivors. Without being able to point out what condition, feature, or fortuitous chain of events made them survivors, it has no meaning beyound observation of the temporarily obvious.
I believe that scientific studies of all these things should proceed. There has been much learned and much more will be learned.
My problem is when professors become dogmatic and refuse to give proper grades to students who don't "believe" that Darwin's theory explains the Origin of the Species as his book is titled.
If you read his book, it has some interesting observations, but in the book he does not even pretend to explain the origin of the species, so it cannot be taught as dogma the way it is treated by many professors.
It should be taught as a work in progress and to question some of the dogma is in the best scientific tradition.
Even a student who is seriously studying biology should not be penalized for "un-orthidoxy".
I am a Mormon and these studies are persued at Brigham Young University. They should be. Just don't get hung up on the dogmatic approach.
Likewise...
Just because a fossil appears or a species becomes evident doesn't prove evolution, either!