“Those who believe that the geological record is in any degree perfect, will undoubtedly at once reject the theory. For my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.”
~Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species X.443

In light of the selected passage, I see how one could easily brush aside the theory of evolution as absurd and, for lack of a wittier pun, ungrounded. It is true that no geological pattern exhibits irrefutable proof that organisms have gradually morphed into variations of one another, nor that traces of linkage exist among seemingly divergent species. Anyone refuting the evolutional theory has grounds to do so; he need merely examine the ground directly below him. A fossilized and sedimentary timeline, like everything else, encourages interpretation. Although ridiculed, just as any conviction is, it is easy to listen to the positive reinforcement surrounding anti-evolutionist theories, because, after all, it is comforting to embrace the evidence at hand, to accept what is, and forget to question an unforeseeable question. I understand how one finds peace of mind in accepting the accepted “facts” of the here and now by disregarding the possibility that something more lies within a world which is now no more than an eroded memory. I, after all, once found comfort in it, myself. To disregard the theory of evolution, however, is more than accepting an alternate viewpoint; it is surrendering the capacity to imagine that the here and now, that immediate existence, is no more significant than alpha, omega, or the voids therein.

As much as I would prefer to dance around the clichéd issue of faith, I find it difficult to avoid approaching this matter of geological precision without doing so, seeing how it ultimately merges into both the theories of evolution and anti-evolution; specifically, I speak of the geological record which remains a controversial topic as well as the basis, literally and figuratively, of both views. As such, I pose this point to anyone who wishes to contradict the theory of evolution, or to simply branch out from his or her current perspective: Is faith in a perfect history of time so dissimilar from a faith based on gaps and lapses? My point here, regardless of my personal view, is to emphasize the fact that, as Darwin metaphorically acknowledges, “a history of the world imperfectly kept” is no easier to embrace than a world void of inconsistencies. To claim that evolutional theorists take the high road by staking their claims on the unseen, the voids which no geological record can accurately measure in the face of immeasurable time, is undermining a separate version of faith and miscomprehending the basis of evolution altogether. Proof is irrelevant because interpretation fabricates truth; whether something exists or not is not evidence at all, but grounds for interpretation. Neither existence nor inexistence equates with evidence, but merely serves as a means by which one lays the groundwork of his truth. The geological record, although rooted in theoretic controversy, lays the groundwork for a commonality among evolution and its counter-theories: faith, whether perfect or flawed, is not rooted in the substantial, but in the unseen.