Quote Originally Posted by bu villain View Post
When multiple methods of dating produce consistent results formillions of fossils, I find that pretty convincing. If you don't believe we can date fossils to any meaningful degree than this whole evolution discussion is pointless because the fossil record is the primary evidence for evolution.



First of all the term "missing link" is a misleading term. It's like saying what is the missing color between red and orange. Is it orangish red or reddish orange? In reality there are an infinite number of colors between red and orange. Every animal that ever lived is a "missing link" between what came before it and what came/will come after it. It's not like one day a dinosaur gave birth to a bird and a new species was born. There are countless transitional fossils but since you don't believe in the accuracy of fossils I guess this is meaningless as well.

Also, why do you think evolution stopped? I wasn't aware it had.
Find me a case of a new species evolving currently. To show that it is creating a new species, you should have multiple instances of species one, multiple instances of species two, species two must be able to reproduce to sustain the new species, and you should be able to show the specific genetic changes between the two species - presumably it should have multiple genetically mutated versions of species one.
I'll save you the trouble - there aren't any. Hence, evolution is not progressing in an observable way. of course, stopped is a poor term, considering that would mean that it had to be moving along previously - which is far from proveable.

Fossils exist, but our current methods for dating rely on many assumptions that do not take into account historical events. Do you realize that volcanic eruptions affect the amount of carbon and affect the results of dating via that process? Do you realize that the Industrial Revolution did this as well? Do you realize that the half life is 5730 years, so do you think that it can be used accurately back past 11,460 years? Do you realize that not all plants process C14 the same? And that they usually test older than they are?

For any radiometric measurements of isotopes, you have to make these assumptions:
1. The starting conditions are known (no daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much was there).
2. Rate of decay is constant.
3. Systems were closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes were lost or added.

Those are some pretty big assumptions. You may chose to accept them, but if you do, then you are doing it on faith, and are making science into a religion.