Which is why we should educate ourselves and keep in mind that there are good guesses and bad guesses.
“When anyone, even the late Dr. Carl Sagan, starts talking about “billions and billions,™” to me that’s just hand-waving. It might be the best educated-guess that we have at the moment, but it’s only a guess.”
That’s one of our flaws as humans. We can’t possibly fathom a duration of time that long when to us, 100 years is too long 
Billions of years are confirmed by radiometric dating. A far cry from an “an educated guess” or “hand-waving”.
Right. People used to think the idea of the earth revolving was silly. I mean, then why don´t we fly off into space? “Common sense” is not reliable as a means of understanding the world, that´s why we formed the scientific principle. Unfortunately, some people would prefer to return to the dark ages, it seems…
The problem with radioactive dating is that it assumes perfectly static conditions, there are various environmental variables that can affect the rate of decay and as such skew the numbers a bit.
This is an issue with virtually all of the dating methods used, I wouldn’t really put much stock in the assumption that they’re perfectly accurate.
I’m not saying that radioactive dating is 100% accurate, but since you mention environmental variables could you tell me one such variable that would affect this method?
Radiometric dating is not just one technique. There´s impressive consistency between varying techniques, and other methods of measuring age(check on thermoluminescence dating, or Milankovitch cycles) supporting the conclusions made. Don´t fall into the trap of thinking “if it´s not 100%” accurate it´s not true, science doesn´t work like that. It´s about getting as close to the truth as humanly possible. That´s why science changes with new data. It doesn´t mean science is unreliable, it means it gets more accurate.
I could post the links to the organization that does the findings on radioactive dating being unreliable (since it is a bit technical), but then you would be crying about a breach in the forum rules due to it not being an organization having the same worldview as the major science journals.
For one thing, you would have to expect that the rate of decay would remain perfectly constant despite changing temperatures and pressure (which I believe would be the main forces exposed to the average rock that’s not at the surface).
Don’t worry, I don’t think posting an AnswersInGenesis or creation museum link would necessarily be against forum rules 
It’s actually an organization known as the Institute for Creation Research, not the one you mentioned.
Their website has new articles daily on the curveballs that are always being thrown at supporters of evolution (that is, new discoveries that forces them to rewrite part of their theories or even sends them back to the drawing board).
Don’t go looking for them in journals like Nature though, for they would be disqualified simply because they didn’t do their study from the approved perspective (regardless of accuracy).
I don’t see why that would be an issue with the moderators. It’s not really discussing religion. It’s merely data to be scrutinized, regardless of who did the study.
Post your links
If they actually discovered anything that caused Scientists to need to go back to the drawing board regarding Evolution, they’d be rewarded heavily for it. The entire point of Science is to try to poke holes in tested Scientific Theories to see if it holds up or not. Discovering Evolution to be false, would be a big deal. We’re talking most of Modern Medicine would have to be rethought, because currently it is spending a great deal of time trying to combat constantly evolving pathogens.
TalkOrigins goes over most of the assertions Creationists tend to make, and explains why they’re flimsy at best.
Before you point at pathogens being proof, note that creationists do not have problems with what is termed as ‘micro’ evolution (with noted limitations such as not being able to turn a dinosaur into a bird or anything of that sort). One good example being the development of dog breeds.
But if evolution was to be true, why have none of the pathogens evolved in a way that produced entirely new body parts or even multiple cells? Clearly you would think scientists would’ve found at least something after observing thousands of generations of a virus. Now don’t say that is because natural selection has already tried it millions of years ago and decided not to do it again, as that would suggest it somehow has some cosmic intelligence to it which is incompatible with the idea of random chance.
Back to the dogs, I don’t think, after hundreds of generations of puppies, have there been any indication of animals becoming a sort of hybrid with some dog traits and then some entirely new ones of a species in development (or at least any changes that wouldn’t be more indicative of genetic damage than true evolution).
Look at the black plague and HIV.
A virus looked at after thousands of mutations still looks and acts like a virus, otherwise we should be seeing entirely new groups of single-celled organisms popping up before our eyes (organisms which should theoretically evolve into completely different types more easily than anything else).
You may not believe this but here are some naturally occuring hybrids.Here on this websight.Pleas look at all of them.
Evolution uses different methods including hybrids to evolve things.
http://greenanswers.com/question/what-are-some-natural-hybrids/
And there is a giant virus that they found in sibera that is 30,000 years old.
Have you heard of the pandoravirus and both of these were talked about on the cnn websight.There is another one called the mimivirus.
Radioactive decay happens in the nucleus of an atom and is thus not as susceptible to environmental factors as for example the electron cloud surrounding the nucleus. The decay is not affected by pressure (unless you go to pressures similar to those required for nuclear fusion, and if that would be happening inside the earth we would know) or temperature (at least not temperatures found on the earth)
I’m not an expert on evolutionary biology (and I doubt anyone here is) but what if pathogens did evolve into multicellular organisms. Maybe instead of calling them pathogens we shift towards calling them parasites instead? Maybe that’s how malaria came to be?
And about the dogs. Are you seriously using 100 generations to “prove” that evolution does not exist? 100 Generations of dogs could be about 200 years (i.e. not millions of years). Besides, I personally see a quite big difference between let’s say a chihuahua and a wolf. Yes they both fit the description of having a body, four legs and a head, but that’s a about it. The reason why we don’t see any species of dogs that would have for example six legs is probably that it would require quite a severe and lucky genetic mutation to produce such a creature (especially if you would want it to be able to breed and use the legs properly).
A hundred years ago the Danish bred a pig which is red and has a white vertical band over its shoulder to symbolize the danish flag.
You need to remember that in general evolution takes a very long time and is completely random. Once you get a mutation that is both dominant and better capable of surviving than the original “species” it will probably prevail, but if the mutation does not bring a benefit it will probably not exist for a long time.
But I suggest we leave the topic of evolution, as it is much like a discussion about religion. Neither part will change their mind regardless of what the other part says. Furthermore I don’t know if any of us have any actual experience with genetics, evolutionary biology or something else that would give us at least something resembling an objective opinion on this.
The behavior is more important at that level. Randomized is a poor description of evolution. Everything that evolves does so in a manner that allows it to interact with its environment. Rather than random emergence, advantage is taken of environmental factors. Sure there is some randomization occurring, however it doesn’t persist due to extinction.
At the micro and nano level, there are constraints to the shape and charges of forms. This is necessary in order for microbiology to interact with the environmental factors that it is taking advantage of.
The shape and charge of viruses is dictated by this… not some misunderstanding of Natural Selection.
Thousands of years of dog breeding, even guided by humans would show that evolution cannot create an entirely new species. As to your example, a wolf and a chihuahua still has the same basic skeletal structure, the same jaw structure, the same basic vocalization (though the latter being a bit higher pitched due to size), the same pawprint and foot structure, and many of the same basic instincts. To prove macro evolution would mean that someone made a breed that’s as dissimilar to a wolf as a wolf is to a bear or a tiger. I mainly mention the base concepts of what constitutes a canine as being the same due to dogs having a wide variety of traits that allow a large amount of diversity.
I didn’t exactly say a hundred generations, I was trying to figure out how many generations would fit into several thousand years and supposedly I overestimated the length a bit.
Also, leaving the topic may be a smart idea as one may not be able to convince the other, but the overall theme of the thread seems to be discussion related to timescales of millions of years, which creationism doesn’t support.
Male mosquitoes only soon