The "Punctuated Equilibrium" hypothesis is fundamentally inconsistent with the theory of evolution which requires movement of specie development in minute increments.
The principal problem with the theory of evolution is the absence of any single fossel supported record which is consistent with the theory under circumstances where many such fossel records should be found. Hence Punctuated Equilibrium--it happened in sudden giant steps. That sounds a lot more like God than it sounds like Darwin.
As far as the time argument is concerned, the dating mechanism depends on a clock calculated by the decay rate of Carbon 14--there is not only no evidence that the decay rate of Carbon 14 has been constant throughout the ages; there is a fair body of evidence that it has not. If not, the clock is wrong and we have no idea how long the ages are.
[...there is not only no evidence that the decay rate of Carbon 14 has been constant throughout the ages; there is a fair body of evidence that it has not.]
Wrong.
Your comments are as fact-filled as your tagline...
Wrong. There is nothing about Evolution which requires "species development in minute increments." Evolution only requires that natural selection favors (selects) certain indviduals for reproduction over others based on the suitability of those individuals to the environment in which they live. To the extent that such selection favors certain genetic mutations/characteristics and leads to the perpetuation of such genetic characteristics to the exclusion of others, speciation occurs.
Gould's hypothesis on punctuated equilibrium was that rather than this process occurring gradually over millions of generations, in the case of sufficient selective pressure, it would occur in a matter of thousands of generations. Such selective pressure could be provided by catastrophe or geographic isolation.
Radiocarbon, or Carbon-14, dating is probably one of the most widely used and best known absolute dating methods. It was developed by J. R. Arnold and W. F. Libby in 1949, and has become an indispensable part of the archaeologist's tool kit since. It's development revolutionized archaeology by providing a means of dating deposits independent of artifacts and local stratigraphic sequences. This allowed for the establishment of world-wide chronologies.
Third, because the decay rate is logarithmic, radiocarbon dating has significant upper and lower limits. It is not very accurate for fairly recent deposits. In recent deposits so little decay has occurred that the error factor (the standard deviation) may be larger than the date obtained. The practical upper limit is about 50,000 years, because so little C-14 remains after almost 9 half-lives that it may be hard to detect and obtain an accurate reading, regardless of the size of the sample.
Fourth, the ratio of C-14 to C-12 in the atmosphere is not constant. Although it was originally thought that there has always been about the same ratio, radiocarbon samples taken and cross dated using other techniques like dendrochronology have shown that the ratio of C-14 to C-12 has varied significantly during the history of the Earth. This variation is due to changes in the intensity of the cosmic radiation bombardment of the Earth, and changes in the effectiveness of the Van Allen belts and the upper atmosphere to deflect that bombardment. For example, because of the recent depletion of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, we can expect there to be more C-14 in the atmosphere today than there was 20-30 years ago. To compensate for this variation, dates obtained from radiocarbon laboratories are now corrected using standard calibration tables developed in the past 15-20 years. When reading archaeological reports, be sure to check if the carbon-14 dates reported have been calibrated or not. ref.