Hey Bret!
Ceeboo, my friend: in one sense, it is the nature of the scientific process that everything is an open question. Certainty puts blinders on inquiry. This is why theories (including evolutionary theory) are open to being tweaked or overturned entirely.
That said, the amount of evidence indicating that evolution has occurred (and, indeed, continues to occur) is astonishingly huge.
There is no question that evolution is happening! None!
Natural selection and random mutations are surely visible!
That variations in gene pools produce changes in species over time is also clearly a fact!
My suggestion is not that evolution does not occur (it surely does), my suggestion is that it is not even close to being powerful or intelligent enough to create (form) living nature and all it's incredible species and biological systems!
If we were to take an objective look at the amazing collection of fossils over the last 150 years, we would see species with very little or no change over millions of years.
Two examples of many:
Trilobites lived on earth for 250 million years with very little change!
Coelacanth (large fish) first appeared in the fossil record 410 million years ago. Coelacanth still live today with nearly the exact same form!
Many species have fossil representation over 10's and 100's of millions of years. The species themselves show no sign of this evolution.
Okay so then the suggestion is made about "rapid spurts" with long periods of stagnation in between. (Puncuated Equilibrium)
I recently read that it is proposed that only 1 in 1,000 species that have lived on earth have been found as fossils (I think this is suggested because the record doesn't show Darwinian evolution). My question is - How do they know how many have not been found - if they have not been found? How can a number be established for things that have not been found?
Context: I am a former Creationist. During my senior year of high school I was chosen by fellow Creationists to defend Creationism in a science club debate about evolution. It was while doing research for this debate that I began to realize just how flimsy and (it must be said) dishonest the arguments against evolution truly are, and how impressive the quality and quantity of evidence on the other side. I didn't immediately change my mind about evolution (I really didn't want it to be true!), but over the course of the following few years I came to realize that the evidence for evolution from various branches of science was simply undeniable.
Thanks, I appreciate you sharing that, friend!
Peace,
Ceeboo