Re: A bolide did it! No... not really.

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> The term *disaster* even means *death star*.

No, un-star. Bad star. :-)

> I see these stories as being insights into the mindset of people of those
ages. Astrology is still used today. Why?  It's not because it predicts
anything.

:-) It's because it does predict something -- something that's formulated so
vaguely that it can't help but be true. It's because too few people
understand the scientific method.

> Again... It is as I wrote in my original post... The authors of the
article blaming a bolide for the cooling of climate seem to be forgetting
that it didn't just snap cold over night in the years 536-545 A.D. The Dark
Ages Cold Period actually began roughly 100 B.C. and lasted until about 700
A.D.

This "cold period" didn't only consist of years without summer! But those
are what we're talking about.

> But seriously... Imagine if we would snap into a bad cold spell... akin to
what took place when theThermohaline Circulation weakened in the 1970s...
and during that time, years after it got cold, we had one hell of a Leonid
show... the entire sky set ablaze... and a paper is published blaming the
meteors for the weather.........

...then the peer-reviewers would ask "where's the impact that's bigger than
Tunguska?".

> I often think that the theory... the need... for impacts to be THE cause
for extinctions, particularly the KT, has become such an effective cloud of
judgment, that other, more viable alternatives, in this case for climate
change, are gingerly tossed aside as support for *The Impact-Induced Event*,
no matter how circumstantial that support may be, is sought out with an
almost religious fervor, and when found, is taken as evidence after the fact
for an already foregone conclusion.

Hey, hey. No ad homines "arguments", please. :-)