Fossils:

ONE explanation:

"Just how real is fossil succession?
The irony of the position taken by Cuvierists, neo-Cuvierists, and standard evolutionary-uniformitarians is the fact that fossil succession is a reality only to a limited extent. As we shall see, the Flood-related mechanisms discussed above need not have been overly efficient to account for only the limited degree of fossil succession that does exist. Successive episodes of time, however conceived, also are completely unnecessary to explain the limited degree of fossil succession."

"When we consider the fact that fossil succession is limited in overall extent, it is another way of stating that there are many fossils which are found at many stratigraphic intervals. In fact, only a minority are confined to rocks attributed to only one geologic period."

"Creationists, including myself[author of the article], have provided a variety of alternative explanations for fossil succession. These include such mechanisms as the sorting of organisms during the Flood, differential escape of organisms during the same, ecological zonation of life-forms in the antediluvian world (such that different life-forms in different strata reflect the serial burial of ecological life-zones during the Flood), and TABs (Tectonically-Associated Biological Provinces—wherein different life forms occur in successive horizons of rock as a reflection of successive crustal downwarp of different life-bearing biogeographic communities)."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i1/fossil.asp

Re: dating
"One might imagine that direct methods [radiometric dating] of measuring time would make obsolete all of the previous means of estimating age, but these new "absolute" measurements are used more as a supplement to traditional methods [index fossils] than as a substitute. Geologists put more faith in the principles of superposition [strata are younger upwards] and faunal succession [evolution] than they do in numbers that come out of a machine. If the laboratory results contradict the field evidence, the geologist assumes that there is something wrong with the machine date. To put it another way, "good" dates are those that agree with the field data [fossils in the strata]’5 [brackets mine and quotes his]."
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2001/0816gc.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/default.aspx?qt=fossils+dating&loadpage=query.html&charset=iso-8859-1

P.S. re: Lucy

Very basic summary: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v12/i3/lucy.asp
More specialised, in-depth view:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/apewoman.asp

N.B. I'm sort of getting over quoting from aig but they have a good search engine and have heard about pretty much everything most people bring up here anyway. I just wanted to reiterate: I'm pushing against the absolute acceptance of evolution as a science, not necessarily for creationism, or any other alternate theory. I do however respect aig's work and find many of their articles sufficient to keep my mind open.

"Creationists, including myself[author of the article], have provided a variety of alternative explanations for fossil succession"
Yes, but none are satisfactory, when tested. Of course creationists have provided other explanations! That's what they do. It doesn't make them right.

"the geologist assumes that there is something wrong with the machine date..."
This is little more than fabrication. No professional geologist would be this dismissive (well, maybe one or two, but you wouldn't put them in charge) about results. You're talking of the kind of rigorous testing that takes incredible work and delicacy. Only a creationist would suggest they 'assume' anything from the results, and it reveals how thinly disguised their attack on science is.

Nice try.

Bosk,
Are you saying individual species do not adapt to the changes in their environment? But surviving species were best adapted for any changed environment and remaind after the change. Then this is the chicken or the egg sanario. The species remaining must have been in existence before the change occurred otherwise they would not have survived. Concluding it was not adaptation to changes in the environment that evolved the species it was their pre-determined design that is the reason they survived the environment changes. Then the power that drives survival is what remains after environmental changes. Evolution then is the study of history that reports on the survivors and is not itself the powerhouse of change. The design of the survivor was found in the pre-existing DNA of the species, not in the unstable environment. The environment itself did not cause the changes in DNA to form their pre-existing design. Therefore they were created with design.

Since evolution without stable species is a moving picture of survival there is no moral reason to fight for the survival of species that are becoming extinct. Only people believing in Creations original design have a moral case to protect species that are under threat of extinction.

Quote Bosk, “Individual animals do NOT adapt to their environment. The animals themselves do not change just because their environment changes. It is merely that with an environmental change certain animals are better suited to survive than others & this alters the species.”

How has change in DNA occurred?

Quote Bosk, “ Let's suppose that originally there were short-necked, short-legged giraffes. Food is plentiful so any baby giraffe born with a long neck has no evolutionary advantage. But the environment changes. Food becomes scarce. No it's an advantage to be able to reach up to the leaves on the trees. Long-legged, long- necked giraffes have an advantage in this world. PLEASE NOTE: they have NOT changed to suite their environment. Remember, there were long-legged, long-necked giraffes being born before the environmental change but they possessed no advantage over the other giraffes. Now they do. They prosper because of that advantage. They survive to propagate & now the species changes. The species has changed to better suit the environment.”

So we “theorise” to support fact, there were already short-necked giraffes in existence along with hippopotamus in the adjacent mud holes and zebras grazing the nearby savannah. But the giraffes were starving because they couldn’t reach their food so they all died off because of a million year drought except those with long necks who could reach high up the trees. But the zebras and hippopotamus grazed happily nearby undaunted by the million year drought that caused only giraffes with long necks to survive, and the lions hyenas etc fed on the carcases of the short necked giraffes during that long dry. All this speculative imagination developed a fact of history? When was the long drought that killed off the short-necked giraffes while they were isolated from their zebra and hippo contemporaries? It assumes trees survived those millions of years while savannah grasses were extinct. So the long necked giraffes were a stable species before the need to reach to the treetops for food. Therefore they were best designed to survive!

WHERE ARE THE SHORT NECKED GIRRAFES TODAY? They should be grazing among the zebras on the savannah while the ones isolated that were created with a long neck survived nearby by eating trees in the local million-year drought? Taken from “Stories in the desert”; Sounds like too much sun and isolation in my opinion.

Philo
Here's a quote of mine directly before the one you posted. "Allow me to illustrate." You do know the difference between an illustration & theorizing don't you? I was merely trying to illustrate evolution in action. NOT trying to say this say this is what happened with short necked giraffes. Really philo! Read my posts with more care. Tsk.
Best of luck everyone but, I suspect, fundamentalist creationists will never admit the necessity of change to their views in this area. In part I agree with a neuroscientist who argued that stubborn adherence to a belief is part of a survival mechanism. It protects a world view & thereby helps avoid danger. The only problem is if that world view [in this case creationism or ID] needs abandoning there will be a complete reluctance to do so. Why? Because it would require far too many changes to their faith & world view in general. I find that completely understandable that creationists & ID proponents should feel this way but it is sad.
However, to those of you wishing to continue the good fight keep this in mind. I was just as stubborn a christian fundamentalist as any of the creationist supporters here. But I changed my beliefs, so it is possibl, but not easy.