Talk:Younger Dryas impact hypothesis/Archive 1

New publication
. I'm not sure what it says (I've read a bunch of news articles, but I don't trust those) because I can't access the actual article. Maybe someone can get it and write a summary. Orange Marlin Talk• Contributions 16:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Results section
Though the results section reports multiple issues with irregular extinction patterns, none of the cited articles discuss the YD event directly. Perhaps these should be removed or "softened" until a peer-reviewed publication is available. zaiken 06:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaiken(talk • contribs)
 * Good point. The first paragraph is ok, the second is original research and as the references don't discuss the YD event, until we can get good sources making the connection, I'm deleting it as OR. Dougweller (talk) 06:37, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement. I've reviewed the articles being cited and they pose an interesting potential theoretical position that counters the Younger Dryas impact thesis, but in the disputed material the reader is asked to draw negative conclusions regarding the theory that are not "directly supported" in the supporting citations, this of course makes it "original research" as defined by Wiki policy, see WP:OR. It's not the validity of the references that are being offered that's being challenged here, or the fact that they are challenging the impact hypotheses, it's the fact that as editors we are bound by policy to only use referenced positions that already exist in the literature, we can not draw "conclusions", no matter how seemingly obvious. Policy regarding "original research" is not as intuitive as you may think, check it out. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 04:26, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I just finished reading the comments regarding the disputed material on Dougweller's talk page and I thought I'd post these additional comments for what they're worth. In my opinion the real source of contention more than anything else here, is a misunderstanding based on what does or does not constitute "original research" here in the encyclopedia. Put quite simply, policy requires that all claims must be *directly* supported by the references provided in the literature, whether or not we call on the reader to draw a specific conclusion or not, unless the supportive reference material we're providing *specifically* and *exactly* makes the same claim as what's being contended in the article, it cannot be used. In my opinion, the refutation being offered here should be in the article, but until a reliable source is cited that *literally* states what's being claimed is found, in my opinion it violates policy. Surely someone has already pointed out these problems somewhere in the literature. cheers Deconstructhis (talk) 04:56, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The argument that the phenomenon of island megafaunal extinctions lagging nearby continental extinctions by thousands of years is evidence against the bolide hypothesis has indeed been made already (see Stuart Fiedel's comments in Study links mammoth extinction, comets). He only mentions ONE example of late island megafaunal extinctions in this article (the Antilles ground sloths). However, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to cite a few additional examples (i.e., mammoths on Wrangel Island and Saint Paul Island, Stellers sea cows on the Commander Islands). The point that these latter late island extinctions are evidence against a hypothesis predicting synchronous extinctions has already been made in another context (that of the climate hypothesis). Comments? WolfmanSF (talk) 06:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems pretty classical synthesis to me. You can only use sources that discuss the Younger Dryas event. Dougweller (talk) 07:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Dating of the event
Of possible relevance: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/805/3 The Younger Dryas initiation apparently occurred over a time span of a single year, about 12,00 years ago.

RE: The crater - The Tunguska event left no crater.

131.81.200.92 (talk) 17:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The Tunguska event was also smaller by several orders of magnitude than the proposed Younger Dryas event. All other things being equal (i.e. for objects of the same composition and strength), larger bolides will penetrate farther into the atmosphere than smaller bolides. WolfmanSF (talk) 09:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent PNAS Papers
A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found a lack of any evidence for an Younger Dryas Impact at 12,900 BP. A reexamination of a number of sediment sections containing the basal Younger Dryas boundary found a complete absence of any debris from an extraterrestrial impact at that time. A popular article is:

Dalton, R., 2009, [http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091012/full/news.2009.997.html ''North America comet theory questioned. No evidence of an extraterrestrial impact 13,000 years ago, studies.''] Published online October 12, 2009, doi:10.1038/news.2009.997

The paper is:

Surovell, T. A., V. T. Holliday, J. A. M. Gingerich, C. Ketron, C. Vance Haynes, Jr., I. Hilman, D. P. Wagner, E. Johnson, and P. Claeyse, 2009, An independent evaluation of the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis. Published online before print October 12, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0907857106.

Another recent paper about the so-called “Clovis Comet” is:

Marlon, J. R., P. J. Bartlein, M. K. Walsh, S. P. Harrison, K. J. Brown, M. E. Edwards, P. E. Higuera, M. J. Power, R. S. Anderson, C. Briles, A. Brunelle, C. Carcaillet, M. Daniels, F. S. Hu, M. Lavoiem, C. Longn, T. Minckley, P. J. H. Richard, A. C. Scott, D. S. Shafer, W. Tinners, C. E. Umbanhowar, Jr., and C. Whitlock, 2009, [http://www.pnas.org/content/106/8/2519 ''Wildfire responses to abrupt climate change in North America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.''] vol. 106, no. 8, pp. 2519-2524. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0808212106

The abstract in part states:

"We also test the hypothesis that a comet impact initiated continental-scale wildfires at 12.9 ka; the data do not support this idea, nor are continent-wide fires indicated at any time during deglaciation."

and

"Biomass burning gradually increased from the glacial period to the beginning of the Younger Dryas. Although there are changes in biomass burning during the Younger Dryas, there is no systematic trend. There is a further increase in biomass burning after the Younger Dryas. Intervals of rapid climate change at 13.9, 13.2, and 11.7 ka are marked by large increases in fire activity."

This paper concluded:

"No continent-wide fire response is observed at the beginning of the Younger Dryas chronozone, the time of the hypothesized comet impact. The results provide no evidence of synchronous continent-wide biomass burning at any time during the LGIT."

Note "LGIT" = last glacial–interglacial transition.

Given that more papers, both pro and con, in the discussion about whether a Younger Dryas Event exists are still in review and in press, the discussion about it will continue for a time yet.Paul H. (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticisms
Statement «all extinctions caused by the impact should have occurred simultaneously» is debatable. In fact, we know that dinosaurs disappeared because of an impact, but also that the extinction was not necessarily immediate. An impact may bias several climate mechanisms that may require centuries and even thousand years to find a new equilibrium. For example, there is evidence that there was an interval of about 300 ka from the impact to the mass extinction of dinosaurs. . So, a difference in time among extinctions of species on different continents is not a demonstration that no impact occurred.--Dejudicibus (talk) 14:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Where crater
where's the crater? On a glacier? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.216.155.121 (talk) 13:01, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The article doesn't suggest there is a crater and does mention the object may have disintegrated. -- SEWilco (talk) 15:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Paleoindians practiced burning. How do you separate burning from fire due to impact? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.251.36.126 (talk) 17:59, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The latest hypothesis is based on the discovery of nanodiamonds. These are only produced by an earth impact, not an air burst.  Thus, the intro needs to be edited.  The question remains open as to where the impact was.  I'm certain they're looking now. Tmangray (talk) 18:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Right now that hypothesis is subject to considerable debate right now. However, the reason why there is not a crater is that it could be multiple small impacts, that were either erased by subsequent glaciation (or glacial lake bursts) or hit the Laurentide ice sheet, which would have left behind little evidence.   Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 19:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know of any mechanism that could produce nanodiamonds without a considerable collision with the surface of the earth itself. If it did hit an ice sheet, it must have blasted right through it, and thus ought to have left a trace somewhere.  It may be that the crater was quickly filled with glacial sediments and remains hidden for the time being. Tmangray (talk) 03:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The Tunguska impact was an airburst event in which the shock of hitting the atmosphere at an oblique angle generated substantial diamond, lonsdaleite and garphite. But it did not generate an impact crater. This appears to be very similar to the supposed YD impact.Satredfern see

Why is no one considering the carolina bays, thousands of large elliptical depressions in the earth located between Florida and New Jersey, as a clue to the possible cellestial impact location? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.75.43.62 (talk) 06:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The Carolina Bays are not considered to a clue to a possible impact location, except by fringe groups, because they predate the Younger Dryas event by at least several tens of thousands of years to over a hundred thousand years. Go read An Evaluation of the Geological Evidence Presented By Gateway to Atlantis for Terminal Pleistocene Catastrophe. Hall of Maat web page and


 * 1. Brooks, M. J., Taylor, B. E., Stone, P. A., and Gardner, L. R., 2001, Pleistocene
 * encroachment of the Wateree River sand sheet into Big Bay on the Middle Coastal
 * Plain of South Carolina. Southeastern Geology. vol. 40, pp. 241-257.


 * Extraterrestrial impacts cannot create craters tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand years before they occur.Paul H. (talk) 19:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Confusing
What is this article talking about? (If I found it confusing, does it need a tag?) DarkArcher25 (talk) 01:42, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Nanodiamonds Discovered in Greenland Ice Sheet
Nanodiamonds Discovered in Greenland Ice Sheet, Contribute to Evidence for Cosmic Impact Here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100914143626.htm Gandydancer (talk) 21:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Requiem
Pinter et al The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis: A requiem, ESR, 2011

This appears quite definitive.

Shouldn't the title of this page be changed to include the words 'impact' and 'hypothesis' - otherwise it is very confusing since the 'YD event' is more widely understood as the YD itself, not a cause of it.74.68.104.38 (talk) 13:07, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * yes. This entire thesis is falling apart with widely asserted claims a lot of the data was faked. http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/climate/clovis-comet-fraud-2011.html 72.61.39.79 (talk) 20:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Article moved. When I read this a couple of years ago, I thought it was unsupportable.  Now I guess I was right.   Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 21:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Resurrection
Well, you can't deny that Kennett's a trier. He's come up with some more supporting evidence (See http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120305160814.htm). Whether it is any more convincing than his previous attempts, we shall see... -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 22:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Potential Misidentification of Markers:
In Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis, by Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al. we can read that, "Surovell et al. reported finding no Younger Dryas Boundary Microspherule peaks, although claiming to follow the protocol of Firestone et al. for quantification of Microspherule, and concluded that Firestone et al. misidentified and/or miscounted the Microspherules. Later, Lecompte et al. independently examined two YDB sites common to Firestone et al. and Surovell et al. They reported that “spherule abundances are consistent with those of Firestone et al.” and “inconsistent with the results of Surovell et al.” They also concluded that Surovell et al. altered the prescribed Microspherule protocol in fatal ways, particularly by not observing requirements for sample thickness, sample weight, and size sorting. We consider these discrepancies significant enough to negate the conclusions of Surovell et al. Daulton et al. found no YDB nanodiamonds at Arlington Canyon, California, or at Murray Springs, Arizona, as earlier reported in Kennett et al. They searched for nanodiamonds in “microcharcoal aggregates” from the Murray Springs YDB site and, finding none, claimed to refute the previous results. However, Kennett et al. never claimed to find nanodiamonds in charcoal, and instead, observed nanodiamonds at Murray Springs in acid-resistant residues from bulk sediment which Daulton et al. did not investigate. Daulton et al. further speculated that Kennett et al. misidentified YDB nanodiamonds, observing copper instead, which displays d-spacings nearly identical to n-diamond and i-carbon. In addition, Daulton et al. pointed out that graphene and/or graphane have d-spacings similar to lonsdaleite and that the lonsdaleite diffraction pattern reported from Arlington Canyon by the Kennett et al. was missing the lonsdaleite diffraction line at 1.93 Å. However, in YD-aged ice in Greenland, Kurbatov et al. identified lonsdaleite with the 1.93- Å line, which definitively demonstrates that those Greenland nanoparticles cannot be graphene or graphane. At Lake Cuitzeo, numerous nanodiamonds have been identified with the 1.93 Å line, eliminating the possibility that these crystals are graphene or graphane. SAD and all other analyses conclusively show that the Cuitzeo nanoparticles analyzed have d-spacings consistent with lonsdaleite and other nanodiamonds. In independent support of nanodiamonds in the YDB, Tian et al. and Van Hoesel‡ identified cubic nanodiamonds in the YDB layer in Europe." --CometHunter (talk) 00:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter


 * WP:SPA. WP:NPA.  WP:RS.  WP:FRINGE.  WP:STALK.  WP:NOR.  Also primary research rarely qualifies as a reliable source, because, as real scientists know, lots of primary research gets thrown out because of any number of issues from fraud to incompetence to outright mistakes.  That's why we usually wait until real science is completed, which often takes years.  Further, you have been warned by an admin for wikistalking.  Please stop.  It's really getting frightening what you are writing to me in emails and posts and here.  I have never been so creeped out by a stalker before.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 00:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, WP:NOTAFORUM. You are doing a lot of original research here.  But that's not as bad as your continued harassment and stalking of me on and off-wiki. you see, a real scientist doesn't invoke emotion, ad hominems, and strawman arguments.  A real scientist tries to develop a consensus.  A real scientist doesn't send emails, write blogs and other stuff that insults me.  It's really pathetic that someone has to do this.  Very sad.   SkepticalRaptor (talk) 00:49, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? As a new Wikipedian, that quote was my very first edit. WP:FRINGE. It is not clear what you define as "fringe science". But the source of that quote is Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al. PNAS 2012, and is directly from a recently published, peer reviewed paper in a well recognized, and respected scientific journal. And while in the future someone may provide evidence in the literature to refute it, until that time comes, it stands as a valid reference to the latest science in refereed literature related to this subject. And directly quoting a recently published peer reviewed reference most certainly does not come under the heading of invoking emotion, ad hominems, or strawman arguments. WP:STALK. Regarding your ridiculous accusation of stalking, that's just about as offensive as it can get. I have never sent you even 1 email, or commented on your talk page. Nor have I ever blogged about you. In fact, since outing an editor is forbidden here, and our identities are immaterial to this discussion anyway, I have no concern whatsoever for who you are. --CometHunter (talk) 01:39, 17 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter
 * Please see WP:STALK. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 01:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know who you think I am. But you clearly have me confused with someone else. I am new here, I have never "stalked" anyone at any time. Nor have I ever been warned by admin for such behavior. I have no idea who you think I am. But I have never corresponded with you by email, or stalked you an any way. You are making a very serious accusation for which there is no evidence whatsoever. And I demand an apology.--CometHunter (talk) 02:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter
 * Actually, you've been warned about outing . Regardless, please take any personal dispute, including any demands for apologies, off this article talk page and talk to SR directly,if you wish to.
 * The discussion here should be about the edit war that has lead to this page being protected William M. Connolley (talk) 06:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I would be delighted to remove my response to that unwarranted attack; just as soon as the attack itself is removed. But you are correct. The discussion here should be about the edit war that is under way. Personalities should have nothing to do with it.

Note that the very first line of the page states that: The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis or Clovis comet hypothesis was the discredited hypothesized large air burst or earth impact of an object or objects from outer space that initiated the Younger Dryas cold period about 12,900 BP calibrated (10,900 BP uncalibrated) years ago.

So in the very first sentence the article violates the principle of writing from a neutral point of view. WP:NPOV

The problem here is the use of past tense, and the suppression of supportive evidence that does not support the consensus. The science is most certainly not settled, or we would not be having this discussion. And while some scientists have published papers criticizing Firestone et al., we read no mention of follow-up work that was also published in refereed literature to rebut those criticisms. The article also suppresses mention of other independent works in refereed literature that are supportive of the observation that, whatever the exact nature of the event was, the Younger Dryas Boundary Layer does indeed contain the markers of an extreme extra terrestrial impact event that was different from anything ever studied before.

In fact the debate is on-going. And while the work of Firestone et al. was difficult to replicate, because the thickness of the impact layer at sites they tested is measured in millimeters, the anomalous layer containing impact markers, and dating to 12,900 years ago that was found in sediments at Lake Cuitzeo by Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al, and reported in the March 2012 paper in PNAS titled, ‘Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis’ is a full 10 centimeters thick.

The thing that makes any given piece of scientific research a part of mainstream science is not about whether or not that work is supportive of the assumptions held by the “consensus”. If that were the case then flat-world theory, and geo-centrism would still be taught in all of the world’s schools, and universities. But rather, it becomes a part of the literature of mainstream science when the scientists involved make their case to other scientists, and academics of the world by publishing their case in peer reviewed literature instead of publishing in the blogosphere, or the popular press.

Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al have met that test. Every one of the anonymous reviewers who passed their paper on to publication in PNAS was a PhD level scientist. And it is not appropriate for any editor at Wikipedia to overrule their decision to publish the paper. Their work in Mexico represents a complete revision, and update of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. And in fact it supersedes Firestone 2007 as the ‘flagship’ paper of the hypothesis.

Simply put: implying that the YDIH is dead, and has been thoroughly discredited, while denying discussion or suppressing mention of recent peer reviewed work to the contrary, is wrong.--CometHunter (talk) 16:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter
 * Hard to respond when NPOV is misinterpreted. NPOV does not require us to represent all points of view, we do not give undue weight to fringe points of view.  The impact hypothesis is solidly discredited.  You use one or two pieces of support from, let's admit it, authors who are under investigations by UCSB and the University of California for fraudulent data, specifically for this so-called theory.  And of course, one of the co-authors is a criminal who has defrauded science before.  One of the citations in the article has all the details, and anyone can read about it.  But let's assume that these guys haven't committed a fraud, it still is research that has not been verified by other research.


 * In medical articles, editors would revert with strongly worded comments that primary research has no validity, not even worth a mention. So here.  Since the impact event is an extraordinary claim, then extraordinary evidence is required to make the NPOV shift from considering it a Fringe (but scientifically plausible if you suspend all the other evidence) idea.  It does not rise to the level of theory, which is essentially a fact, that is developed by scientific consensus.  Right now, save for a very small number of marginal geologists, with a lot of whining on the internet, the consensus remains that there is some other cause for the megafaunal extinction.  Just because we don't know what the cause is, we do not do "science of the gaps" to fill in with just a unsupported, or highly controversial claim.


 * When premiere biologists, paleontologists, and astrophysicists think the hypothesis has failed, then it's kind of hard to understand the biased emotion that's been shown. There is no One Truth™ in science.  There is just what is supported by the vast majority of publications.  However, if you want to put it to a vote, the vast majority of scientists would vote you down.  But that's not how science works.  The devout following of just one article (versus the majority of research that finds this stuff kind of silly), still gives it undue weight.  Only to shut up everyone did I edit in the article, but it really doesn't qualify as a WP:RS, by any definition of the word.  By the way, the work in Mexico has been debunked by a lot of people smarter than me.  Give it some time, since it was just published and it will take months and years for the disputing information to come out.  That's why we don't put much weight into primary research.  Since I personally have no emotional concern about the POV here, if many more intelligent, not emotional, researchers publish confirming evidence, then we change.  It's not personal.  But some are using nearly religious devotion to the cause here.  Kind of alarming.


 * You keep mentioning NPOV. I don't think it means what you think it means.SkepticalRaptor (talk) 17:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

While you remain fixated on it the work of Firestone et al 2007, it is not at the heart of this dispute, but your deletion of references to the more recent work in Mexico at Lake Cuitzeo.

There may other non impact related explanations for the Megafaunal extinctions 12,900 years ago. But at the present time there are no non impact related explanations for a 10 centimeter thick impact layer in the sediments of Lake Cuitzeo that dates to that time.

Specifically though, which scientists are discredited? And in what publication will we find those damning investigations you cite? Where will we find where any scientist was in fact censured at the conclusion of said investigation? Failure to do so is a violation of WP:RS. And empty ad hominem.

Be that as it may, as I said we are not talking about Firestone 2007. But your unsupported deletion of references to a completely different, and independent work that just so happens to be supportive of Firestone 2007. You state the work in Mexico has been “debunked” by “people smarter than you”. That's pretty darn quick, considering that the paper was only published on March 6, 2012. I wonder though, do those nameless people who are so much smarter than you also posses academic credentials which exceed those of the scientists who did the work? Or the credentials of those who reviewed the paper, and approved it for publication? Did they go to Mexico personally to take samples of their own from the sediments of Lake Cuitzeo? Or did they follow your unsupported example, and dismiss relevant peer reviewed science out of hand without providing a single valid reference?

I have made no statement here that is not supported by peer reviewed literature. Nor have I made any "emotional" comments. You on the other hand, are citing non existent, or yet to be performed or published science to support your skeptically biased POV. And which you are sure will come out sooner or later if we wait long enough. In doing so you are clearly violating WP:RS. And you are also using those non existent references as your stated reasons for deleting current references to legitimate, and relevant peer reviewed literature. Since your stated reasons are unsupported by any valid science, or peer reviewed reference that exists in present time, they are clearly personal.

In the interest of providing reliable sources though, do tell us who those "a lot of people are", who have so quickly "debunked" and invalidated the peer reviewed work of Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al and where they have published. Or barring that, at least tell us what their academic credentials, or qualifications are, and where they have blogged about it.--CometHunter (talk) 20:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter
 * Please read WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT, WP:RS, WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:HARASS, WP:NPOV, and WP:PRIMARY. If you need some help with these issues, I'm sure myself or others here will help you familiarize yourself with these key guidelines to built a neutral encyclopedia.  The article has all the citations you need.  Your rants, however, added to your stalking me off-wiki is getting a little scary.SkepticalRaptor (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Your accusation of stalking by me has no basis in fact whatsoever. I have never stalked you off Wiki, or sent you even one email, or message. And outside of this discussion I have never sent even one communication on Wikipedia either. If you believe you have evidence to support that silly and groundless accusation, you should waste no time in providing it to a senior admin person, who I am sure, will take immediate and appropriate action. This is not the place to bring it up.

I agree that this page should not be used as a forum. Unfortunately the matter at hand is the resolution of disagreements that have lead to the closing of the YDIH page to further edits by anyone. And I have been informed by admin that this is the proper place for that discussion to take place until the matter can be resolved.

You state that the article has all the citations needed. But that’s not true at all. In the real world of real science, and providing valid reliable references, the only thing that trumps peer reviewed literature is more peer reviewed literature at a later date that either refutes, or supports the previous work. And no unpublished personal opinion is ever the exception to that rule, no matter what the curriculum vitae, or academic standing of the person expressing that opinion might be.

I am not stalking you in any way. What I have done here is accuse you of making false reference to non-existent science to support your own personal agenda, opinions, and reasons for deleting a valid reference to peer reviewed literature. Since the science you say debunks the recently published work in central Mexico of Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al does not exist, the article most certainly does not contain any citation to it.

Your stated reason for deleting a valid reference to recent peer reviewed, and relevant literature is “Only to shut everyone up” and the only reference you can provide to justify that destructive edit is the unpublished personal opinions of some people you describe as being smarter than you. And while I have no doubt that those people you say are smarter than you do indeed exist, their unsupported, and unpublished personal opinions do not trump, debunk, or invalidate science which is published in peer reviewed literature in any way, and neither do yours.

And nothing you can say can be used as a justification for personally taking it upon yourself to “Shut everyone up”. --CometHunter (talk) 00:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter

My own pet section
It isn't clear to me why a PNAS paper from 2012 can be disregarded. FWIW, at the moment, I'm with this. That suggests revision of this article to be much less insistent on "discredited" William M. Connolley (talk) 09:16, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The PNAS paper should be disregarded because it's primary research. And so far with Younger Dryas impact true believers, a lot of their research has been discredited.  I cannot predict whether the data will be confirmed or rejected, but as you know Dr. Connolley, it takes time.  The True Believers™, mostly through the internet, want to give excess weight to this one study, because they really have nothing else.  And as many websites that you can find supporting the hypothesis, I can find just as many that don't.  But then again, I can find thousands of websites that deny evolution and global warming.  How these True Believers™ argue their point reminds me of how Creationism and Homeopathy work–argue with ad hominems and strawman fallacies, and quote mine for the tiny little evidence that support this.  In fact, amongst the true research Ph.D.'s, there are a lot of issues.  One of the top climate scientists, who studies climate change in the Younger Dryas, is filing an action against the researchers at UCSB who appear to have "fudged" the data.  The university itself and the UC system is also investigating it.  This is what happened to Cold Fusion, if you recall.  And, since I know what kind of research you do Dr. Connolley (this is public knowledge, you're not trying to hide behind an anonymity and cause trouble), I know that if the "internet" was your source of what makes up a "scientific controversy", you'd probably fire yourself from your position.  Would you not?  I don't actually care what caused the Younger Dryas.  But I will insist on good science, and right now, it's remarkably absent, except for one study, finding one marginal piece of data, in one obscure lake, next to volcanic activity in Mexico.  When the researchers find the same data in other similar lakes (let's say Lake Tahoe, where there is little mixing of thermal layers, so disruption of lake sediments will be minor).  Or Lake Bonneville, which at that time was deep enough to have undisrupted sediments, and it's easy to search throughout Utah.  Are you not at all suspicious when there is so little confirmatory evidence from a broad range of locations?  Or from more researchers? SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * should be disregarded because it's primary research. I disagree. And if we did use that policy, we wouldn't be quoting Firestone's PNAS paper either. since I know what kind of research you do - I doubt it; you're probably out of date William M. Connolley (talk) 18:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Possibly out of date. Your field of research isn't my field, but I recognized (not past tense) your name from what you used to do.  :)  Nevertheless, I'm all for removing papers that are Primary research.  I watch a lot of medical RSS feeds, and I'll see some article published that shows, for example, some chemical will cure Alzheimer's disease in rats (if that were a reasonable model).  I don't have the exact stats at the tip of my fingers, but only 10% of those studies will be confirmed.  And only a tiny percentage will make it to market.  With this "hypothesis", you'd think there would be more researchers in more field of studies confirming it.  Though I doubt this is a valid comparison, but it's remarkable that an impact event 65.5 million years ago (the K-T event) has more evidence than the YD event.  Yes, I am old enough to have attended various scientific meetings when one group thought that Alvarez was full of crap vs. the group that thought Alvarez was the Truth™.  BUT, the difference was that the discussions were scientific, not blah blah blah, we have THE study.  Yes, I know the KT event was larger.  Yes, I know there was more circumstantial evidence.  But, still, it's been 65.5 million years.  I mean, I can walk out my back door and find evidence of human life from 13000 years ago (I seriously can).  I can find evidence of a lower ocean level from 13000 years ago, just down the street from me.  From a geological standpoint, that's like yesterday.  Hell more like a few minutes ago.  Just my review, and seriously, I'm agnostic about this event, but very much a true believer in real science.  You observe the data and make a hypothesis, then test it.  These guys are finding evidence to support their "belief" rather than standing back and stating "what does this evidence tell me", and are there better explanations for what we observe?  So, I'd rather disagree with you, because that's an honorable disagreement!  So what are you doing these days?  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, well first off I'd misread the citation [1] to Firestone in the lede first para - it looks likes its a cite for "discredit" but actually its a cite for the hypothesis. That should be fixed at some point. Second, I disagree about not using primary research. I do appreciate the idea that not every paper is valid - we see enough junk in the GW arena - but PNAS is a reputable journal (no?). And the paper is at least a few months old. If the idea was, really, utterly discredited I don't think that PNAS would have published it. FWIW doesn't thik much of the idea either William M. Connolley (talk) 19:40, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The assertion that yakutite containing lonsdaleite is a non-bolide related mineral is demonstrably false. The referenced paper states this explicitly, as do more modern references. CosmicLifeform (talk) 20:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)


 * No no no, I completely agree that the PNAS is a credible journal, probably in the top 20 of journals in science. BUT, as with a lot of science, even great journals publish fraudulent research.  Shall I point you to Andy's fraud perpetrated on the children of the world that was published in The Lancet?  Anyways, the vast majority of articles published in these journals are wonderful.  And I'm not saying that the research on the small lake in the middle of Mexico is fraudulent, just that it's not important when you take the vast body of work.  By even mentioning it (which we are), it's giving undue weight to a minor article in a big journal that has not been confirmed or repeated by one single researcher.  Since I'm sure the researchers presented their data in big meetings across the world, I am certain that some researchers thought, "I'll check this in the lake down the street, or in the mountains, or in some location that wasn't under ice at the time."  The sediments under the desiccated Lake Mojave, not literally down the street, but within a day's drive, has wonderfully preserved sediments that go back a hundred thousand years?  Could I not confirm or dispute this by looking there?  Or anywhere?  Where is that evidence?  By giving undue weight to a minor piece of data in an obscure lake in Mexico (probably a beautiful location), we are implying that this one lake is a model for everything.  Even if there is some evidence of a bolide impact, could it be explained by anything else?  Like a mistake in the research?  Or a bolide impact 10,000 years sooner?  What if there was a bolide impact right near the boundary, but wasn't causal (which would easily convince me) to extinction events.  Of course, if this impact was so large, why are YD boundary layers in Europe dated differently and have no evidence of a bolide impact?  The thing is, sometimes the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.  Furthermore, a part of science is weighing what supports and what doesn't support a hypothesis.  And it's not even close on the "doesn't support" side.SkepticalRaptor (talk) 20:12, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Confirmatory Evidence
It is untrue to assert that there is no supportive evidence. It is also untrue to state that no evidence has been found in Europe, or on other continents. In fact, studies have revealed similar blast materials in YDB aged sediments on three continents. Replication has been achieved, interpretation is still subjective.

In Europe:

Tian et al, 2010 went searching for diamonds in the YDB (In Europe it is also referred to as the Usselo Horizon) in Belgium. They wrote that “our findings confirm, and in fact reveal more direct proof than the earlier studies, the existence of diamond nanoparticles also in this European YDB layer No such particles are found in the overlying silt and clay or in the underlying fine sands.” Van Hoesel A, Hoek W, Braadbaart F, van der Plicht H, Drury MR. (2011) Nanodiamonds and the Usselo layer. Paper #1556, XVIII INQUA-Congress, 21-27 July 2011 in Bern, Switzerland, reported finding “carbon aggregates [consistent with] nanodiamond” in YD-aged sediments In the Netherlands.

Abstract from Marshall W, Head K, Clough R, Fisher A. (2011) Exceptional iridium concentrations found at the Allerød-Younger Dryas transition in sediments from Bodmin Moor in southwest England. Paper #2641, XVIII INQUA-Congress, 21-27 July 2011 in Bern, Switzerland. ''Elevated iridium values, dated to start of the Younger Dryas cooling event, have been found in sediments deposited at a number of Late Glacial sites in North America and one in Europe. It has been proposed (e.g., Firestone et al., 2007, PNAS 104: 16016-16021) that this widespread iridium enrichment signal is the result of an explosive disintegration of a large extraterrestrial object over North America around 12,900 cal. yr BP, and it is contended that it was this event which instigated the Younger Dryas cooling. This scenario is controversial, and the ‘ET’ explanation of these geochemical signals is not universally accepted. This notwithstanding, we report here the finding of an iridium anomaly in the Allerød-Younger Dryas boundary sediments at Hawks Tor in the southwest of England. The concentration of iridium and other elements is determined in peat monoliths using ICP-MS, operated in collision-cell mode, and ICP-OES instruments. We find an increase of over 300 % in the iridium concentration measured in the bulk sediment immediately above the Younger Dryas boundary compared with the values found below the transition. The iridium-titanium ratio is used to confirm a lag between the start of the iridium enrichment and the timing of abrupt environmental disruption at the site signalled by decreases in the organic carbon content, and changes the concentrations of potassium, iron and manganese. These geochemical changes coincide with a shift from a humified peat to a minerogenic lithology. By using a new calibration of existing 14C ages, integrated with new AMS dates and optically stimulated luminescence ages, we show that the timing of this iridium enrichment found in southwest England is in agreement with the dates proposed for the iridium enrichment signals previously found in North America and Belgium.''

In Germany: Wolfgang Roesler et al., Carbon Spherules With Diamonds In Soils

In South America:

Mahaney WC, et al. (2010a) Evidence from the northwestern Venezuelan Andes for extraterrestrial impact: The black mat enigma. Geomorphology, v. 116, iss. 1-2, p. 48-57.

Mahaney WC, Krinsley D, Kalm V (2010b) Evidence for a cosmogenic origin of fired glaciofluvial beds in the northwestern Andes: Correlation with experimentally heated quartz and feldspar. Sedimentary Geology, v. 231, iss. 1-2, p. 31-40.

Mahaney WC, David Krinsley, Kurt Langworthy, Kris Hart, Volli Kalm, Pierre Tricart and Stephane Schwartz. (2011a) Fired glaciofluvial sediment in the northwestern Andes: Biotic aspects of the Black Mat. Sedimentary Geology. 237, (1-2), pp73-83

Mahaney, WC, Dave Krinsley, James Dohm, Volli Kalm, Kurt Langworthy and J. Ditto. (2011b) Notes on the black mat sediment, Mucunuque Catchment, northern Mérida Andes, Venezuela.. Journal of Advanced Microscopic Research, vol. 6, no. 3.

And on the North American Continent

Firestone RB, et al. (2007) Evidence for an extraterrestrial impact 12,900 years ago that contributed to the megafaunal extinctions and the Younger Dryas cooling. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:16016–16021.

Baker DW, Miranda PJ, Gibbs KE. (2008) Montana Evidence for Extra-Terrestrial Impact Event That Caused Ice-Age Mammal Die-Off. American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #P41A-05.

Fayek, M.; Hull, S.; Anovitz, L.; Haynes, V.; Bergen, L. (2008) Evidence of impact material and the extinction of the mega-fauna 12,900 years ago. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #PP13C-1469.

Tankersley K. (2009) “Evidence of the Clovis Age Comet at Sheriden Cave, Ohio.” Midwest Chapter of the Friends of Mineralogy Symposium and Field Conference (Geology Department of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA), 5 September 2009.

Firestone RB. (2009) The Case for the Younger Dryas Extraterrestrial Impact Event: Mammoth, Megafauna, and Clovis Extinction, 12,900 years Ago. Journal of Cosmology (journalofcosmology.com)

Kennett DJ, et al. (2009a) Shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds in Younger Dryas boundary Sediments, Proc Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 106 (31): 12623-12628.

Kennett DJ, et al. (2009b) Nanodiamonds in the Younger Dryas boundary sediment layer. Science 323:94.

Sharma M, Chen C, Jackson BP, Abouchami W. (2009) High resolution Osmium isotopes in deep-sea ferromanganese crusts reveal a large meteorite impact in the Central Pacific at 12 ± 4 ka. American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #PP33B-06.

LeCompte MA, Goodyear AC, Demitroff M, Batchelor D, Mooney C. (2010) An Independent Review of the Younger Dryas Extraterrestrial Impact Hypothesis and its Recent Re-Evaluation by Surovell et al. 21st Biennial Meeting of the American Quaternary Association (AMQUA). Laramie, Wyoming. (this was the rebuttal of Surovell et al that is cited in the Lake Cuitzeo paper)

Andrei V. Kurbatov et al. (Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 56, No. 199, 2010) reported the ‘Discovery of a nanodiamond-rich layer in the Greenland ice sheet’

Scruggs, MA, Raab LM, Murowchick JS, Stone MW, Niemi TM. (2010) Investigation of Sediment Containing Evidence of the Younger Dryas Boundary (YPB) Impact Event, El Carrizal, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 2, p. 101.

Wu Y. (2011) Origin and Provenance of Magnetic Spherules at the Younger Dryas Boundary. Thesis, Dartmouth College.

Isabel Israde-Alcántara et al. (2012) Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis

T.E. Bunch et al. (2012)Very high-temperature impact melt products as evidence for cosmic airbursts and impacts 12,900 years ago  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.44.182.147 (talk) 19:43, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

And it's not just the Earth sciences that are reporting evidence of cosmic catastrophe at the time of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. But the astronomers as well.

W.M. Napier (2010), Palaeolithic extinctions and the Taurid Complex --CometHunter (talk) 15:18, 19 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter


 * Quite a few of your refs are preprints / conferences (e.g. XVIII INQUA-Congress). Those don't really count - anyone can say anything at a conference. You need to strip those (and any other grey lit) out of your list William M. Connolley (talk) 16:27, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I will be editing the list over the next couple of days. But on the subject of anyone being able to say anything, it should be noted that every one of those people on that list are multiple PhD scientists who are doing real science, working and speaking from their own actual experience, and knowledge. And since SkepticalRaptor set the bar for providing reliable reference in this particular debate in his appeal to authority of some anonymous people he only describes as “some people smarter than me” I’m thinking that list is looking pretty darn good for the time being.--CometHunter (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter


 * See WP:NPA.  If you need some assistance in understanding it, I'm sure that a reasonable admin will help you out.  By the way, I love how you use logical fallacies.  Oh, that's right, you saw that I wrote about it, right before dropping some remarks about my science background while harassing me.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 02:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * In point of fact the only personal attacks in this discussion so far have been the continuous stream of abusive and humiliating personal ad hominem insults, and repeated false accusations of off-Wiki harassment you have been directing at me. I don’t have even the remotest clue where your delusional claim of me dropping some remarks about your background is coming from. The simple and easily provable reality is that I have never attempted to correspond with you, or harassed you, on or off Wiki. And I have never made even one single harassing remark anywhere, at anytime, about you or your background. Since your claims of off wiki harrasment by me are completely unfounded, and without any merit whatsoever you need to stop.--CometHunter (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter


 * The problem with being a True Believer™ is that the True Believer™ is unwilling to falsify their hypothesis and exist in a world of false dichotomies. They are right, and everyone else is wrong.  There are just as many peer-reviewed papers that debunk this particular "hypothesis" (and I use scare quotes intentionally, because it barely meets the minimum standards of a hypothesis).  But the True Believer™, like creationists, homeopaths, and sasquatch hunters, refuses to admit that the discussion of the Younger Dryas boundary may include an infinite number of causes or combination of causes.  But of course, the True Believer™ thinks that this is a competition that only one idea is the Truth.  I find this most amusing that these True Believers™ in the impact event, no different than creationists and other pseudoscientists, are very emotional.  Why else would these people use ad hominem arguments as their standard (though false dichotomies work well for them too).  I know that the True Believers™ are trying special pleading here.  I'm open-minded to what may have happened here.  Volcanic activity (of which there is actual proof).  Human activities.  A change in oceanic circulation.  A bolide impact.  But the True Believer™ think they have the only truth worth discussing.  That is amusing.  One last thing, science doesn't proceed by who has the largest number of publications supporting their point of view.  Oh wait it does.  By the way, we should delete any articles where an author is under investigation for fraudulent research by the University of California.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, don't we usually discount the rantings of single purpose accounts. Have these editors spent a nanosecond writing other articles?  If these SPA's actually edited other articles that show they care about the project (aka Wikipedia) and not about a minor issue in a minor article, I'd personally be more impressed.  But since I've been attacked on and off wiki by these editors, I know that it's all about their version of the truth and not about science.  On the other hand, I actually understand the policies of Wikipedia.  I know what it is to be neutral.  I understand the reasoning behind undue weight.  I'm wondering about the True Believers™ however.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * One last thing, because I actually care about Wikipedia, and not beliefs. A real scientist, and not a lame engineer, would provide a list of evidence that falsifies their True Belief®.  That's science.  Emotional harassment and angry missives hardly qualify as science.  It's kind of like a duck.  I know science when it walks like science, talks like science, and is openminded like science.  Closemindedness is the harbinger of pseudoscience.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:59, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't help myself. Why can I imagine that the real researchers in this field, and not internet stalkers and bloggers, discussed this with us that they would be much more rational and calm.  They would present the evidence, discuss other evidence, and conclude with real science:  "we think that the Younger Dryas boundary is best explained by an impact, it might also have resulted from multiple causes with one or more of those causes pushing the earth over the boundary.  We await further evidence to support or reject our hypothesis and look forward to a mature and stimulating debate to develop a scientific consensus that withstands scientific scrutiny."  Engineers don't understand this, so why do I bother.  SkepticalRaptor (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Since we are talking about the validity of real science, and not the irrational and continued belief in a staged paranormal event, let's don't side track the discussion with continued non sequitur and insulting references to true believer syndrome. You need to stop with the personal ad hominem attacks. This is not about me or your personal opinion of me. It’s also not about single use accounts. I am new here. I fully intend to make many contributions to the Wikipedia project in the future, but one thing at a time.

The specific topic at hand is the reason for the edit war that has resulted in the YDIH page being closed to further edits by anyone, and your continued and insistent assertion that the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis is now past tense, discredited, and no longer a matter for debate in the academic community. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the new paper from Mexico shows very clearly, the debate in academia is on going and far from settled. As a matter of fact there are currently at least five more papers in the peer review pipeline, (not all of them supportive by the way) and teams of scientists in the field still working who haven’t submitted anything for publication yet. The simple fact is that journals like PNAS do not even accept papers for publication if a debate is closed, and the science settled. And major research institutions don’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on field trips investigating a “discredited” hypothesis that is past tense.

Your claim to be unbiased in this is demonstrably false. A truly unbiased and well informed article on the subject would not begin the very first sentence by referring to the YDIH in the negative past tense with the words “was the discredited hypothesis”. Instead it would reflect the full ongoing debate. With a new edit each time a relevant paper is published in peer reviewed literature. And no matter which side of the debate that particular paper might happen to fall on. The relevant work should be listed in the order it was published in order to accurately reflect it’s place, and importance in the ongoing debate. And since anyone can say anything in non peer reviewed literature, references to non refereed articles in the popular science press should be removed.

This only became a contentious issue when someone attempted to edit the article to reflect the truth, and the real state of the science, and added a new reference to a recent peer reviewed paper. And then you took it upon yourself to reverse that edit proclaiming the new paper in PNAS to be invalid because it had been read, and debunked by some anonymous people you describe only as being smarter than you. (This is clearly an appeal to inappropriate authority) And as has already been noted, your stated and unconscionable reason for performing that biased and destructive edit is “only to shut everyone up”.--CometHunter (talk) 20:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)CometHunter

NPOV
I have added a NPOV template, because new evidence clearly shows that there is by no means scientific consensus on this matter. The wiki article needs to reflect that fact NOT the strongly held beliefs of either party. Jcwf (talk) 22:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:RS. If a blog is your basis for an NPOV tag, I'm removing the tag. If you have something that meets WP:RS, then by all means restore the NPOV tag. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 01:43, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please read the blog: it says ..The researchers’ findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences... I suppose the National Acedemy of Sciences is not enough to convince you that this "was" not a "largely discredited" theory?

Jcwf (talk) 04:22, 20 June 2012 (UTC)


 * PNAS Plus - Physical Sciences - Geology

Isabel Israde-Alcántara, James L. Bischoff, Gabriela Domínguez-Vázquez, Hong-Chun Li, Paul S. DeCarli, Ted E. Bunch, James H. Wittke, James C. Weaver, Richard B. Firestone, Allen West, James P. Kennett, Chris Mercer, Sujing Xie, Eric K. Richman, Charles R. Kinzie, and Wendy S. Wolbach

PNAS Plus: Evidence from central Mexico supporting the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis PNAS 2012 109 (13) E738-E747; published ahead of print March 5, 2012, doi:10.1073/pnas.1110614109
 * Already discussed. Please see WP:RS. Edit warring isn't acceptable either. 05:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The new PNAS paper (Very high-temperature impact melt products as evidence for cosmic airbursts and impacts 12,900 years ago), Bunch et al. is now posted with free access: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/06/14/1204453109.full.pdf+html For the reading challenged--This is not the paper discussed earlier. Bkobres (talk) 17:05, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree, this new paper has elevated this highly controversial and contentious subject to yet another higher scientific level, and after a period of feedback from the interested scientific community, this page should be edited by a neutral moderator free from obvious preconceptions. Certainly the recent PNAS paper should be added to the reference list, as well as the other recent refutations or alternative explanations such as the natural impact proxy and marker migration and concentration into the underlying sediments. CosmicLifeform (talk) 23:41, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Please see confirmation bias. If you want to battle by citations, there are a LOT more published that laugh at this silly hypothesis that is far from proven. There are just so many more articles for you guys to work on, but engineers aren't known for their scientific aptitude. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:36, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

What an ego--This is hopeless when a person who does not even understand C-14 calibration can machine gun edit an article such as this. 18:51, 22 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkobres (talk • contribs)

The page contains several demonstrably false statements by the editor in question. If you look at the edit comments, the editor states that 'everyone is laughing at the hypothesis' when in fact the editor speak only for himself. And indeed, the referenced paper is an experimental paper that only presents very detailed and meticulous impact proxy and marker evidence to the scientific community in support of their hypothesis, and directly addresses the published complaints of the papers which present alternative explanations but which present very sketchy experimental evidence in support of their alternative hypothesis. I agree the editor wishes to dominate the discussion with his preconceptions, and is unable to view any confirmatory evidence in an unbiased manner. Any further edits of this page would be unproductive and hopeless until this is sorted out. CosmicLifeform (talk) 15:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The subterfuge and misleading statements that the aberrant editor makes on this subject are nothing less than astonishing to anyone familiar with the science behind this hypothesis. He makes the misleading claim that Lonsdaleite is present in Yakutite, but makes no mention of the fact that this mineral is universally believed to be impact related. He mentions that Lonsdaleite can be made in the laboratory, but fails to mention that it is only possible under precise conditions that only occur under extreme shock and in environmental impacts that do not occur naturally on earth under any conditions other than cosmic impacts. Then he drags Laacher See volcanism into this discussion without mentioning this event is definitively dated by ultra precise tephrachronology to several hundred years before the Younger Dryas, and is orders of magnitude less catastrophic or of less thermal forcing than required to explain Younger Dryas cooling. These are deliberately false and misleading statements that are made with no shame whatsoever. CosmicLifeform (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

The addition of a reference (by a BBC article no less) that nanodiamands can be made from tequila is particularly amusing, especially since the editor of course makes no mention that these particular forms of diamond in this experiment are not Lonsdaleite. The relevance of this edit to the subject of the Younger Dryas or the hypothesized impact is completely absent from any credible scientific discussion of the phenomenon. Editor bias in this case is particularly obvious to anyone interested in this subject. I call 'vendetta'. CosmicLifeform (talk) 20:34, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Original synthesis inline citations
Hi, re this edit: under "Evidence", I just tagged as "" ( improper synthesis? ) several referenced statements that don't discuss the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH). These statements, although referenced, appear to be OR, specifically WP:SYN (original synthesis). In order to include them, we have to use sources making their points in the context of YDIH discussion. An example that especially stands out is the statement about making nanodiamonds from tequila, "which implies that they can develop in the absence of bolide impacts." That's a classic example of WP:SYN (unless I'm wrong, and the source does mention Younger Dryas). --Middle 8 (talk) 04:31, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Coincidental demise of Clovis culture = POV/NPOV?
The sentence below states what the theory claims, it is not the place to interject criticism against the theory, it has to be possible to state the theory without having to weight your language against the theory with loaded language. If the demise of the Clovis culture is coincidental that means the theory is incorrect, but this should be written separately so that the theory can at least be stated and measured on it's own merits and not dismissed out of hand.

"The hypothesized impact event scenario stated that the air burst(s) or impact(s) of a swarm of carbonaceous chondrites or comet fragments set areas of the North American continent on fire, causing the extinction of most of the megafauna in North America and the coincidental demise of the North American Clovis culture after the last glacial period."

79.136.23.59 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:15, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Small corrections
Nobody has every claimed that the nanodiamonds were misidentified insect fecal matter. Further, there is no point in ending the "history of the hypothesis" section with two seemingly arbitrary rebuttals when the criticism section is directly underneath. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.97.240.170 (talk) 21:44, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

This SkepticalRaptor character introduced several errors into this 'article' in April of this year. I initially thought it was malicious (see -misquote and misinterpretation- above) but apparently there is rather a reading comprehension problem involved plus this person has very little knowledge of the article's subject. This editor's edit-comments also reveal a non neutral attitude toward this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis&diff=prev&oldid=487369633

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis&diff=next&oldid=487370399

Bkobres (talk) 15:34, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

New Papers About Younger Dryas impact hypothesis
Comments on a previous paper and a reply about the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis have been just published ahead of print on July 24, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. They are:

1. Blaauw, M., V. T. Holliday, J. L. Gill, and K. Nicoll, 2012, Age models and the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

2. Boslough, M., 2012, Inconsistent impact hypotheses for the Younger Dryas. PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

3. Daulton, T. L., 2012, Suspect cubic diamond “impact” proxy and a suspect lonsdaleite identification. PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

4. Gill, J. L. J. L. Blois, S. Goring, J. R. Marlon, P. J. Bartlein, K. Nicoll, A. C. Scott, and C. Whitlock, 2012, Paleoecological changes at Lake Cuitzeo were not consistent with an extraterrestrial impact. PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

5. Hardiman, M., A. C. Scott, M. E. Collinson, and R. S. Anderson, 2012, Inconsistent redefining of the carbon spherule “impact” proxy. PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

and 6. Domínguez-Vázquez, T. E. Bunch, R. B. Firestone, J. P. Kennett, and A. West, 2012, Reply to Blaauw et al., Boslough, Daulton, Gill et al., and Hardiman et al.: Younger Dryas impact proxies in Lake Cuitzeo, Mexico. PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print July 24, 2012.

a related paper is:

van Hoesel, A., W. Z. Hoek, F. Braadbaart, J. van der Plicht, G. M. Pennocka, andM. R. Drurya, 2012, Nanodiamonds and wildfire evidence in the Usselo horizon postdate the Allerød-Younger Dryas boundary. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. vol. 109, no. 20, pp. 7648-7653.Paul H. (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * This is why we don't give undue weight to one paper. We wait until there is either confirmatory evidence, or, in this case, massive amounts of debunking of the so called hypothesis. As these get published, they need to get added to the article. Thanks Paul for digging these up. I'll dig up the actual citations from these solid reliable sources and use them. Really good job. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 21:09, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Just because something supports your view of the hypothesis does not mean that it "needs to be added." It's not fair to divine something's veracity based on whether or not it agrees with your intepretation of the data. This is the problem people have with the article; it presumes to know the ultimate answer and bases a source's merit on which interpretation it supports. Of course, the very fact that these letters have something to refute at all is fairly strong evidence that the hypothesis should be discussed with "is" instead of "was," don't you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.128.169.2 (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Reversion of amendment to lede
The lede stated that the hypothesis has been discredited, and I amended to adopt a neutral tone in view of a recent paper published by the USA Proc Natl Acad Sci supporting it, but an editor has reverted as original research and POV. The amendment was clearly not original research or POV in view of the source cited, and I think a neutral tone is clearly appropriate. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:23, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem is not with your edit, Dudley; the difficulty of maintaining a neutral point of view within this article is due to the ignorance and attitude of SkepticalRaptor who began asserting bias in April of this year. S/he has introduced several errors as well as misquoting given references. You can gain an understanding of this problem 'editor' by looking at the history of this article as well as prior comments on this talk page. Bkobres (talk) 16:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

What in the world does the May 8, 2012 paper of Pigati et al. have to do with the July 10, 2012 paper of Bunch et al., Connolley? And how can the recent Bunch et al. paper, published in PNAS be construed as original research or subjective point of view? Shouldn't you be more concerned about SkepticalRaptor's assertion that Haynes' May 6, 2008 paper states that something major happened 2000 years after the onset of the Younger Dryas when that paper says nothing of the kind? That misrepresentation has been in this 'article' since April of this year and has been pointed out several times. A person of average reading skill should be able to discern that Haynes is referring to the YD onset from reading the abstract, which is freely available: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/18/6520 Bkobres (talk) 18:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See WP:WEIGHT. Most research blows this theory right out of the water. Give me a break. One group of researchers is pushing this, but the vast majority of researchers in this area is publishing articles that debunks it. Wikipedia must not give undue weight to fringe theories, and right now until their is a consensus of opinion, the current consensus stands. There wasn't a bolide impact. You are searching for tiny pieces of data that get ripped to shreds by researchers all over the world. This is amusing. The hypothesis is "largely" discredited, only to give a little hope to those of you pushing the POV for those people out there that think there was bolide impact despite the amazing lack of evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You haven't even met the standards of ordinary evidence, given the high level of contrary evidence to your claims. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 20:23, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My edit was not making any claims or pushing either side, just saying that there are papers for and against. There are two 2012 papers by groups of researchers (refs 2 and 9) supporting it. If you say that nevertheless the edit does not reflect the balance of opinion against it, that is fair criticism and "most researchers reject it" would be fair enough. But it is not for Wikipedia to judge who is right and say that it is "discredited". That is pejorative language and POV. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:12, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

SkepticalRaptor are you standing by your April 14 claim that Haynes' 2008 paper referenced indicates that something major occurred 2000 years after the onset of the Younger Dryas? Also, are you aware that one of the recent critics of this hypothesis, who has a vested interest like several other researchers with competing ideas about the cause of this rapid climate change, has at least admitted a biased attitude against an impact hypothesis? He states: "As a co-author on one of the letters I have a vested interest in a non-impact cause for the Younger Dryas, and won’t pretend otherwise." So critical papers from this anti-impact-camp should not be suspect? Bkobres (talk) 22:34, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Bkobres, as author of the quote you are mentioning, I want to say that the intent of the "As a co-author" statement was to indicate that bias in the blog post was motivated by my contribution to the letter in PNAS, not that I had an inherent bias against the YDIH itself. My only vested interest is ensuring that the peer reviewed literature is robust, and I think that the Lake Cuitzeo paper fails on a number of fronts.  144.92.235.138 (talk) 17:29, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps that was not your intent but that was the unequivocal result of that statement. You can't just hand wave away meticulous proxy analysis and claim you have falsified a hypothesis. Regardless of whether the hypothesis is right or wrong it has already greatly advanced the state of the art of microscopic impact proxy analysis. In regards to the impact hypothesis, there is a large geomorphism in the Black Sturgeon River area of cryptic structural controls that satisfies all the the requirements of a hypothesized eastward drainage of Lake Agassiz at the beginning of the YD Chronozone, including freshening of the Champlain Sea and isotope excursions in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that some workers also attribute as the origin of the anomalous 'Wilmette bed' of massive dark gray clay in lower and middle Lake Michigan. It also satisfies a hypothesis of an oblique sub kilometer volatile bolide impact into the ice sheet in an area which would have opened up an isostatically depressed lower elevation channel to the Bolling-Allerod cleared Great Lakes basin, where subsequent Marquette advances, retreats and Nipigon phase catastrophic flooding events would have effectively erased most if not all of the evidence of such an event. The situation here is far more nuanced that you are willing to accept and requires far more field work and analysis that you are willing to perform. CosmicLifeform (talk) 16:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, all of the above comments about the Black Sturgeon River, 'Wilmette bed,' and so forth are off the cuff, arm-waving, speculation (original research ??) that as far as I have found lacks the peer-reviewed, reliable scientific sources needed for consideration for Wikipedia. Also, the term "geomorphism," is meaningless technobabble that is used by the scientifically illiterate fringe theories associated with the Darwin's Valentine paper and "Perigee: Zero" web page. This makes me wonder about how much of your arguments, i.e. the extremely dubious claim that the 'Wilmette bed' is either "anomalous" or unexplained in any manner, is based upon scientifically unreliable fringe sources. You need to base your arguments on reliable scientific sources if you expect them to incorporated into Wikipedia. Paul H. (talk) 03:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think this abstract sums up the Glacial Lake Agassiz rerouting controversy well enough, Paul. cgrg.geog.uvic.ca/abstracts/LewisContinentalThe.html. I don't expect my comments to be incorporated into any wiki pages, what I expect is an acknowledgement of the many problems with the Younger Dryas chronozone, not some statement that a hypothesis is 'mostly' or 'largely' discredited. How does one mostly discredit an impact that either occurred or didn't occur? Which aspects of the hypothesis have been discredited? Certainly SkepticalRaptor isn't capable of addressing these questions. I would have thought at the very least you would be. In my mind certainly an impact and its associated atmospheric effects have been discredited as the mechanism behind the Younger Dryas reversal. That leaves only one credible method whereby an impact could have caused the Younger Dryas - impact induced flooding or rerouting of Lake Agassiz discharge. And there is only one location where such an impact induced flooding or discharge could have occurred - south of Lake Nipigon. And when you look south of Lake Nipigon what do you observe? Geomorphology even has its own wiki page, Paul. Eastward flow of Lake Agassiz well before the Nipigon phase flooding is supported by the existence of the Wilmette bed, Lake Huron isotope excursions, Champlain Sea freshening events and Gulf of St. Lawrence isotope excursions. If you have any problems with that particular hypothesis, there is a Younger Dryas talk page where you are free to discuss them, or you can take up these matters with the individual workers and authors as I have, which requires that you read the literature, which clearly you haven't. This is the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis talk page. So, the question remains, did this impact occur or did it not? The hypothesis is far from falsified. My own personal modified hypothesis is that IF the impact occurred (which personally I doubt), it must have induced flooding, and that flooding would have occurred south of Lake Nipigon (since if you read the literature clearly it didn't occur at Thunder Bay) where I do observe massive evidence of flooding and unusual geomorphology of "cryptic structural controls', where at 13 ka there was the termination of a large and very thick ice sheet easily capable of absorbing any impact bolide of less than a kilometer in diameter. Take it or leave it, Paul, I care not. I only bring this up because SkepticalRaptor's and Ms. Gill's biases are so blatantly obvious, as is yours, and clearly you, Ms. Gill and SkepticalRaptor, nor any of the other authors who claim the hypothesis is failed, are not willing to do the work necessary to definitively falsify this hypothesis, nor are they willing to modify it enough to explain the available evidence, and then proceed with the job (as in work) of falsifying that. Handwave that away if you will. CosmicLifeform (talk) 09:43, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you might have the author of the blog post you mentioned confused with someone else. Presuming you are bringing up Ms. Gill's name in reference to that post you need to go back and look at who wrote that post, it wasn't Gill, she has her own blog.  In addition, it is in poor form to identify editors and I wonder if we aren't getting into the domain of WP:OUTING.  2602:304:CFA2:6CB0:6548:DEAF:8E96:5EBA (talk) 21:14, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I apologize with confusing you with your lead co-author, who also has documented confessed biases, but we are not editing the page because SkepticalRaptor and his confessed biases and edit warring has made that impossible. We are discussing 'authors' in this field with confessed biases on the talk page. If I were to edit the page again I would merely change 'discredited' to 'strongly contested', although most refutations I see in the literature are superficial, not evidential or falsifiable, or mere hand waving, as opposed to the meticulous nanascale proxy analysis advances and actual evidence presented by the primary supporters of this hypothesis. I have already changed 'event' to 'hypothesis' on the Younger Dryas page, which is all I can do for you at this point, besides exposing authors or bloggers intrinsic biases and the alternative explanations which still keep the hypothesis alive, even if on life support. Just as soon as you have either some evidence or some explanation that falsifies a falsifiable hypothesis, please do keep us informed here. Thanks. CosmicLifeform (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Addendum : The only reason we are discussing this at all here is because SkepticalRaptor has made it impossible for any informed editor to rewrite or even make minor edits to the page. CosmicLifeform (talk) 09:43, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Addendum II : The negative microspherule result by Surovell et al. has been just 'strongly contested' by LeCompte et al., (published in PNAS) with the aid of a psychologist and stricter size presorting protocols, and these spherules have been chemically identified as impact ejecta of terrestrial metamorphic rock melt quench products. Since SkepticalRaptor is already over there reversing bibliography references there seems no point in attempting to further edit the pages, but any further discussion would be welcome. CosmicLifeform (talk) 16:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * For one thing, I know enough about geology to determine that terminology like “geomorphism” is nothing more than pseudoscientifc mumble-jumble of the quality that characterizes fringe theorists such as Velikovsky,Ed Conrad, and supporters of Earth Crustal Displacement. I also have researched and read the literature in sufficient detail to have discovered that more than enough known about the geology of the "large geomorphism in the Black Sturgeon River area of cryptic structural controls," which is also known either as the “Clovis Comet Crater” or “Darwin’s Valentine,” to clearly demonstrate that it is a pseudocrater (“craterwrong”) that lacks any known connection with a hypervelocity impact of any sort. In addition, I have discussed these matters with the individual workers and authors as I did by posting notes about this research in my November 5, 2011 post to the Meteorite List at Preliminary Evaluation of a Proposed “Younger Dryas Impact” Crater. As this Meteorite List post indicates, I found almost a year ago that the geology of CosmicLifeform's "Black Sturgeon River area of cryptic structural controls" was studied in great detailed by the Canadian Geological Survey and various mining companies. Geologists of the Canadian Geological Survey did "look south of Lake Nipigon" and what they observed certainly was not a hypervelocity impact crater. All of this research found a complete lack of any evidence for any sort of hypervelocity impact origin for this feature. The published observations and interpretations soundly refute the hypothesis that it might be an extraterrestrial impact crater. The main lesson to learn from this so-called “geomorphism” / “area of cryptic structural controls” within the Black Sturgeon River region is the limitations of using topography alone to identify extraterrestrial impact structures and the need for a person to research what they are writing about before they claim to have found a potential hypervelocity impact structure. (By the way, my November 5, 2011 Meteorite List post also demonstrates that contrary to ill-informed and blatantly false claims made above, I did research and read the literature about CosmicLifeform's so-called Black Sturgeon River "geomorphism" and craterwrong and other aspects of the region's geology in considerable detail a little less than a year ago.)


 * The problem is that although there are number of reputable scientists, who are proponents of the Younger Dryas impact, this topic has attracted a large number of enthusiastic fringe theorists, who find Younger Dryas impact craters ("geomorphisms," paleolagoons," and so forth) in every circular or vaguely circular lake, lagoon, bay, igneous ring intrusion, depression, and landform of any type. Without taking the time and trouble to research what they are talking about, they proclaim that they have found a Younger Dryas impact crater. Other fringe theorists recycle long-discredited pseudoscience and other antiquated, discredited, and even fictional "evidence" to support their claims. Using these pseudocraters and such pseudoscience and pseudoevidence to argue for a Younger Dryas Impact without vetting the validity and sources of this material has greatly added to the general skepticism among Quaternary geologists and other Earth scientists about the Younger Dryas impact. Some rather extreme examples of this problem are discussed in Quick Frozen Mammoths and The Younger Dryas Impact. This is just one of the many posts to the Meteorite List that I have made. Although some have sharply disagreed with what Have to say, I am yet to be seriously scolded for either having not read the literature or being biased by the avocational and professional experts on meteorites, impact mechanics, and geology that read the list. The experts and other members of that list would completely disagree with the above comments about me either having not researched or being biased in the quite numerous posts that I have written. Paul H. (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Additional note: Given that this discussion has gotten off-topic and is likely getting tiresome to other editors, I very likely will continue any further discussions on the Meteorite Mailing List. There, we can also get the opinions of "individual workers and authors," which people have complained me about not doing. Paul H. (talk) 13:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * If you can't address the evidence, Paul, you can always attack the language and the presenters, which is precisely what you are doing. The most glaring problem with your analysis is that there was at 13 ka anywhere from 700 to 2500 meters of Laurentide ice at that location, invalidating all of your arguments for a classical impact crater. Furthermore, any impact crater in the ice at that location at that time would serve as a drainage nexus for glacial Lake Agassiz through an isostatically depressed outlet much lower than the continental divide west of Thunder Bay. This hypothesis thus solves the eastern drainage controversy and conundrum, and goes a long way towards explaining the 'geomorphology' and isotope evidence for both catastrophic and long term eastward drainage of Lake Agassiz. Furthermore, any volatile bolide impact into the ice sheet would also inject huge quantities of water vapor into the upper stratosphere initiating an ozone collapse, and the subsequent foliage collapse could explain the black mat boundary layer, wildfires and large megafauna extinctions. This is a falsifiable hypothesis that involves a location, precise time and an easily accessible sediment bed (the Wilmette bed) which would be available for analysis in far greater detail than was performed by Colman in 1994, which also satisfies the microscopic impact proxy evidence provided by the principles of this sordid affair. Hypotheses need to be falsifiable in order to be definitively falsified, and they also have to directly address all of the evidence available.


 * I agree this is wild speculation. But it is falsifiable speculation, and if the principles and the alleged refuters had engaged in this sort of wild speculation well before publishing their speculations, we wouldn't be at this point where a hypothesis that can't be falsified continues to plague the field, and wiki editors (and you for instance) who have little or no familiarity with the published literature relating to the Younger Dryas, continue to drag absolutely false statements into wikipedia to the exclusion of more knowledgeable editors, or continue to hand wave away the perfectly legitimate speculations necessary to formulate falsifiable hypotheses which can subsequently be definitively falsified, or in the worst case scenario - verified. If you can convince me that you know anything about the Younger Dryas I would take your arguments far more seriously, but you are not arguing the evidence, nor is SkepticalRaptor. What you are engaged in here diminishes both wikipedia and science. CosmicLifeform (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The fact that SkepticalRaptor continues to refer to himself as 'we' is quite revealing. CosmicLifeform (talk) 16:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

This Wikipedia 'article' obviously has no direct influence on determining whether an impact event triggered the abrupt climate change that is know to have occurred at the onset of the Younger Dryas. The bias shown here currently can however affect the way students who might have an interest in further investigating this subject proceed. I've been actively searching for evidence of recent environmentally significant impact events since the early 1980s and know all too well the general level of ignorance that unfortunately still exists among many professional investigators regarding this fully natural phenomenon. This subject was simply not taught until recently because impacts were thought to be a waning influence only important to the early formation of Earth. Why perpetuate the notion that trying to find convincing physical evidence of a recent environmentally significant impact is somehow a fringe activity? The study of the Taurid debris streams was begun by Harvard astronomer Fred Whipple in the 1940s and evidence of the robustness of this debris complex has continued to accumulate as investigative tools became more sophisticated. This debris complex was created by a large comet that became trapped in the inner solar system over 15,000 years ago. The orbital period of this parent comet was less than 4 years and crossed the orbit of Earth so it would have been a visible feature of our ancestor's sky that tended to change appearance in a difficult to predict fashion. The distribution of this debris as well as recently detected degassed fragments of this object indicate that it had a long history of disruption that would have made the sky even more exciting for our predecessors. Given the culturally widespread notion of powerful sky dwelling gods as well as the idea that star positions could predict the future, it is quite likely that this one unusual event --the capture of a massive comet in a short period Earth-orbit-crossing orbit-- led to a recent increase in the rate of environmentally significant impact events well above the long term rate of occurrence.

How can a fair objective article on this subject not include a mention of this supportive paper by astronomer Bill Napier?: Palaeolithic extinctions and the Taurid Complex http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.0744/ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16579.x/abstract

It seems that mention of this pertinent article was removed in November of 2010: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Younger_Dryas_impact_hypothesis&diff=prev&oldid=394405391 Bkobres (talk) 23:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

POV Warning Posted
As mathematician/scientist/philosopher, familiar with the issues, cosmo-geo-amateur-expert, impact-knowledgeable: POV violation, incorrect, insulting, lacking informed reference to publications, e.g. by Napier, LeCompte et al. recent, in PNAS, etc, etc. I can see that a previous NPOV dispute has been squelched but would suggest the reasons stated by Sceptical Raptor at first glance appear very likely to be irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent. hgwb (talk) 02:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * See WP:IAC. LMFAO. See WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS. I shall ask administrators to deal with your nasty personal attack. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 03:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Incompetent" is not a person attack. It's not nice, but it's not a personal attack. Slandering others who view the evidence differently than you as "true believers," however, is a personal attack. Shall you ask administrators to deal with that? This article is clearly not presented from a neutral point of view. When nearly 70% of the content deals with (weakly) refuting pro-YDI evidence and confirmatory evidence is constantly removed, there's something very wrong. (Oh, yay. The irrelevent tequila jab is still in there.) I've given up trying to fix this article, and I'm sure others have as well. There are a number of qualified researchers who still view the hypothesis as viable, and the article needs to reflect this reality; right now, it plainly doesn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.91.54 (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No Attack Intended: Thanks for not deleting my POV warning at start of article. This is evidence of a fair and noble attitude of you as an editor. BTW, I merely indicated my impression of the value of and criticized what you wrote, "the reasons stated," concerning previous NPOV dispute. How is this a "nasty" attack? Please follow up and correct the article taking into account the items I criticized. Actually, I was quoting the famous Perry Mason television courtroom drama series where there was frequent use of the standard legal procedural parry "irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent," (in different order) so this was meant partly tongue in cheek. hgwb (talk) 08:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC) hgwb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I have reinstated the POV tag because SkepticalRaptor still is blatantly unaware of his biases. Even with recent evidence that Northern Route (Arctic Drainage) fresh water forcing is roughly twice as efficient as Eastern Route (St. Lawrence) fresh water forcing with respect to NADWF and AMOC reduction, the overall long term forcing of 1500 years of Younger Dryas climate reversal demands continuous fresh water forcing as opposed to catastrophic outburst flooding and says nothing about the order of occurrence of these two Lake Agassiz drainage routes. Furthermore, the initiation of the Eastern drainage route still remains unexplained and unresolved and is still highly controversial among workers in the field. Also, further evidence that the negative microspherule result is unwarranted has since arisen, and this morning I am looking at a paper that claims impact evidence in weathering rinds located in the French Alps. Clearly this is still an ongoing controvery, regardless of which side the arguments lie. SkepticalRaptor has shown no interest in critically examining any of this evidence. CosmicLifeform (talk) 18:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)