Talk:Younger Dryas impact hypothesis/Archive 3

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So opinion is allowed now!/?

The screed penned by Dalton in 2011 was nothing but an attack of researchers involved with this hypothesis. Had he fully investigated the history of the hypothesis he would have learned that it had deeper roots. The assertion that West was the nexus of the evidence for the hypothesis is not true. There was already considerable astronomical, biological, climatic and cultural evidence prior to the search for impact debris initiated by West and Firestone. I suggested the likelihood that the younger dryas onset and megafauna extinction were due to extraterrestrial impact in the late 80's, as is demonstrated by the references given in the excerpt from a 1988 paper archived from my website in 1999.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990220131720/http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/discd.html

William F. Prouty's contention (1952) that the Carolina Bays were formed by impact has not been refuted by direct evidence nor has it been tested by more modern methods. Recently, however, several papers have been published which relate evidence that could be viewed as supportive of Prouty's hypothesis. For instance, P.S. Martin's "over-kill" scenario is in trouble due to finds of mammoths in Europe which date 5,000 years younger than earlier discovered specimens. This closes the gap between the youngest date for mammoths in America (10,500 B.P.) and for Europe (12,000 B.P.) to 1,500 years (see G.R. Coope and A.M. Lister, Nature Vol. 330, 3 Dec. 87, pp. 472-474).

The reduction of the temporal difference between finds on these two continents suggests that the megafauna extinction may have been synchronous in the northern hemisphere and related to the Younger Dryas cold event. Evidence is growing that this glacial readvance occurred abruptly (see E. Bard, et al., Nature Vol. 328, 27 Aug. 87, pp. 791-794) and was also felt in the southern hemisphere (C.J. Heusser and J. Rabassa, Nature Vol. 328, 18 Aug. 87, pp. 609-611). There is also suspicion that an atmospheric C-14 anomaly (discussed by E. Bard et al. cited above) may have occurred during this period. A large impact could explain the climate phenomena and account for a C-14 anomaly (see J.C. Brown and D.W. Hughes, Nature Vol. 268, 11 Aug. 77) which, if real, would have been greater around the area of impact (north America), which would in turn cause fauna in this region that survived the initial event to absorb a greater amount of C-14 and so date younger than fauna less exposed, thus further reducing the temporal difference between finds in Europe and America. Considering all this, it is certainly becoming more likely that Prouty's contention was correct. For an excellent review of the controversy over the origin of the Carolina Bays see The Mysterious Carolina Bays (1982) by Henry Savage.

This contention was also included in the original submission of my paper published by The World & I in 1995 but was unfortunately edited out due to length. The full paper with bibliography was however also preserved by the Internet Archive in 1999.

https://web.archive.org/web/19990117070048/http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html

As mentioned above, without detailed groundwork, no definitive conclusion regarding the magnitude or timing of a past impact event can be put forth. It is, however, possible to be relatively secure in asserting that encounters disruptive to the environment have occurred since the end of the Pleistocene some twelve-thousand years ago. Indeed the Younger Dryas cold oscillation, which is contemporary with the Pleistocene/Holocene transition as well as the American and perhaps Euro/Asian megafauna extinction episode, may have been caused by external input.

Firestone first published on this topic in The Mammoth Trumpet in 2001 but invoked a supernova as the cause.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020201045934/http://abob.libs.uga.edu:80/bobk/nuclear.html

I first heard from Allen West in March of 2006 although I was aware of the field work he was doing via earlier correspondence and conversation with Richard Firestone. I've always found him to be a genuine and honest researcher who is interested in learning what caused the younger dryas onset and megafauna extinction. He was certainly not the nexus of nearly all of the evidence for a comet interaction causing the younger dryas event as Dalton contends!

Dalton's training is in journalism and he has apparently specialized in muckraking. He incorrectly refers to the impact hypothesis as a theory within the text and then trumps up Allen's licence mistake into an argument for general deceit and incompetence on Allen's part. Allen's use of a pen name was due primarily to his concern as to how the book would be received and his preference for privacy.

There was for sometime a link to a clarification and counter to Dalton's diatribe by George Howard within this Wikipedia article but someone removed it claiming George's blog was not a proper source.

https://cosmictusk.com/allen-west-defense/

That is when I initially removed the entire, no longer relevant, reference to Dalton's screed.

I am going to do that again! It is worthless! For instance Dalton seems to have been totally unaware of the paper published over a year prior, in 2010, by Bill Napier characterizing the astronomical evidence for the hypothesis.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.0744

Palaeolithic extinctions and the Taurid Complex

W.M. Napier

(Submitted on 3 Mar 2010)

Intersection with the debris of a large (50-100 km) short-period comet during the Upper Palaeolithic provides a satisfactory explanation for the catastrophe of celestial origin which has been postulated to have occurred around 12900 BP, and which presaged a return to ice age conditions of duration ~1300 years. The Taurid Complex appears to be the debris of this erstwhile comet; it includes at least 19 of the brightest near-Earth objects. Sub-kilometre bodies in meteor streams may present the greatest regional impact hazard on timescales of human concern.

Bkobres (talk) 21:34, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

_______

The text below has been in the article since 3/19/2016 with the exception of ~ 3 months due to a strange edit by red letter user CarloMartinelli that for some reason did not show the removal of the clarification of Dalton's assertions. I restored that on 5/15/2017 when I noticed it was removed and this text and link remained until 10/23/2018 when it was removed by an IP (69.75.150.2) user claiming that George Howard's blog was an unreliable source that engaged in ad hominem.

If Dalton's opinion piece is part of the history of the hypothesis then Howard's rebuttal is also and should be restored. The current text disparaging Allen West in this already biased 'article’ is an excellent example of misleading personal attack that the IP (69.75.150.2) user accused George Howard of. It is excessive and a casual reader will not realize that it is taken from an 8 year old opinion piece with many erroneous assumptions. No fraud or attempt to defraud has been established and as I indicated above Allen West has not been the nexus of most of the evidence for a comet debris induced abrupt climate change. The text below was deemed satisfactory for the past 2.5 years and is certainly more appropriate than the current unwarranted character attack on Allen West who is still actively working with other researchers on this hypothesis. I see no good reason not to restore the text that has been stable until recently.

This study has been strenuously disputed by some scientists for a variety of technical and professional reasons. Skepticism increased with the revelation of documentation demonstrating misconduct and past criminal conduct (conviction for fraud and misrepresentation of credentials) by the researcher who prepared samples for the proponents of the hypothesis. However, those charges were later dismissed and expunged by the court.

Bkobres (talk) 13:54, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

References

We can't use a fringe website and a photocopied document as a source

It may be accurate, I don't know. But it fails WP:RS. Doug Weller talk 15:16, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

As I pointed out above the text and references recently removed have been in this 'article' for over two years until it was altered by the ip editor. Giving this much weight to an 2011 opinion piece is entirely unfair if no counter argument is allowed! Given that Allen West is still actively working on this hypothesis and evidence is still being introduced it is ludicrous to reinforce the notion that West as well as the hypothesis are disingenuous, as the Dalton opinion piece implies! Bkobres (talk) 19:29, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Unless we can agree to remove the entire personal attack on West, I'm going to again restore the version that was stable for over two years. Bkobres (talk) 23:45, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Take it to WP:BLPN. Doug Weller talk 10:01, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Who determines fringe, Doug? George Howard has been maintaining a website on the very subject of this article for well over a decade. The Internet Archive began archiving his site in 2010.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101023030308/http://cosmictusk.com/about-george

The designation of fringe seems quite arbitrary here. Bkobres (talk) 11:46, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Why is Bob Kobres allowed to dominate a page about his own hypothesis?

In the following "So opinion is allowed now" section, BKobres identifies himself as a the blogger who first suggested the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis in 1999.

"I suggested the likelihood that the younger dryas onset and megafauna extinction were due to extraterrestrial impact in the late 80's, as is demonstrated by the references given in the excerpt from a 1988 paper archived from my website in 1999." https://web.archive.org/web/19990220131720/http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/discd.html

Mr. Kobres is now acting like he is entitled to be the sole curator of this page, reverting almost every change and addition that does not meet with his approval. He appears to have a personal axe to grind against science reporter Rex Dalton who has written many news stories about this subject without ever having mentioned the fact that Mr. Kobres suggested it on is web page before Mr. West published it in his 2006 book. eg Mr. Kobres called Mr. Daton's news story that exposed the facts about Mr. West's criminal fraud conviction a screed and an opinion piece, called it is an attack on researchers and called Mr. Dalton a muckraker for reporting facts in a news story.

Bkobres latest set of reversions are inconsistent and arbitrary... He objected to my change which included personal information, about the blogger and YDIH enthusiast George Howard who Mr. Kobres cited for defending Mr. West against accusations that he a he is a "criminal charlatan" and "a liar salting his samples at his own expense to get on TV." I removed the personal information about Mr. Howard... the fact that he is a close personal friend of Mr. West, who he says is a frequent house guest... as Mr. Kobress suggested but not the relevant professional information... Mr. Howard is a coauthor of Mr. West on the YDIH papers. Now Mr. Kobress moved the goalpost by reverting that information as well. This information is relevant because it indicates that Mr. Howard's blog is not a neutral source.

I do not think that BKobres is an objective editor or that he should be allowed to have the only word on this web page. 50.225.197.130 (talk) 13:53, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

So ip 50.225.197.130 what is your interest in this hypothesis? You have made two edits using this ip number, both on this topic. Would you be willing to swear that these are the only edits you have made on this particular section of the text? I have been editing on Wikipedia since 2004 when it was considerably more civil. This effort to produce a balanced, objective, description of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis has been particularly difficult due to opinionated contributors who seemed convinced that the whole hypothesis is some sort of fraud. As I have tried to point out over the years on this talk page, it is a valid hypothesis that has several lines of evidence that are not well represented in the article due to the aggressiveness of editors who are primarily interested in discrediting the hypothesis on Wikipedia. I have contributed very little to the body of the text and have primarily pointed out errors via this talk page. I will, however, continue to counter attempts to discredit the hypothesis in the minds of readers who likely have little knowledge of the topic.

The Dalton opinion piece is given far too much weight here. It appeared in a magazine that had launched just three years prior and was undergoing a change of the editor in chief at the time. The piece was certainly not peer reviewed and seems to suppose that the entire hypothesis is an attempt to weaken support for human influenced climate change, which was a topic focused upon by the periodical.

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2011/miller-mccune-editors-resignation-letter-i-will-be-a-thoughtful-guest-and-leave/

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2010/07/miller-mccune/

This section I find particularly biased, speculative and misleading:

West’s history — and new concerns about study results he was integrally involved in — raise intriguing questions about the veracity of the comet claim. His background is likely to create more doubts about the theory. And the controversy — because it involves the politically sensitive issue of a climate shift — is potentially more broadly damaging, authorities suggest.

“It does feed distrust in science,” says Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia University and an international dean of climate research. “Those who don’t believe in human-produced global warming grab onto it.”

West is at the nexus of almost all the evidence for the original comet claims.

As I pointed out earlier on this talk page, West is not the nexus for most of the evidence for this hypothesis and I don't see why this hypothesis has anything to do with people's opinions on human caused climate change. Dalton also cast doubt on the credibility of James Kennett in his piece, depicting him as blinded by a need for further notoriety.

This is supposed to be a balanced article about the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis, not a biased attack on individuals who are trying to gather evidence to support it! Both West and Kennett continue to look for evidence and publish the results in peer reviewed journals, so obviously Dalton's opinion on the demise of the hypothesis was incorrect.

Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 4413 (2019)

Sedimentary record from Patagonia, southern Chile supports cosmic-impact triggering of biomass burning, climate change, and megafaunal extinctions at 12.8 ka

Mario Pino, Ana M. Abarzúa, […]James P. Kennett

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38089-y

Dalton's assessment deserves no more than a passing mention as the version that was stable for over two years provides.

Fortunately the preseverance of people who have continued to search for evidence of impact is beginning to overcome the difficulty of finding conclusive physical indications of multiple atmospheric impact events. The problem is succinctly summed up in the introduction to this very recent paper.

50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2019 (LPI Contrib. No. 2132)

LATE PLEISTOCENE FIREBALLS OVER THE ATACAMA DESERT, CHILE. P. H. Schultz, R. S. Harris, S. Perroud, N. Blanco4, A. J. Tomlinson and M. Valenzuela

Introduction: Large airbursts should be much more common than crater-forming impacts and could represent a significant threat. But the record of such crater-less blast effects is largely missing. Without witnesses of (and fallen trees) from of the Tunguska event in 1908, little evidence would remain after several centuries. Glasses strewn over a broad area in the Atacama Desert now reveal the effects of a much larger event during the Late Pleistocene and provides a new benchmark for understanding the processes associated with massive fireballs.

The rest of the session paper:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/2893.pdf

Additional YD onset papers from the conference:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/3253.pdf

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/2526.pdf

The real impediment to effective action to mitigate human influenced climate change comes from people with political and/or economic power who believe their Lord has everything under control! As well as individuals whose interests are served by supporting and encouraging such a belief.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/05/why-white-evangelicals-dont-care-about-climate-change/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv4w8b/christian-fundamentalists-are-fueling-climate-change-denialism

http://defendgaia.org/bobk/sdanger.html

Skepticism is a healthy response to new information but the attitude that recent environmentally significant impact events are extremely unlikely is, at this point in time, more due to refusing to fully investigate all of the available evidence. There is also a good bit of information to support the notion that the Bronze Age culture suffered one or more destructive encounter with the debris trail from the progressive breakup of the same very large comet. This is why humanity has passed down these stories of a powerful god that can become angry and cause destruction from above, people have experienced such events first hand!

http://defendgaia.org/bobk/phaeth.html

http://defendgaia.org/bobk/bronze.html

I have been investigating this subject for forty years now and I have become pretty confident that episodic encounters with debris from the Taurid complex has produced an expectation and fear in several cultures that their world will eventually be destroyed in some fiery judgement day. The best way to eliminate this fear that tends to work against peace and environmental stewardship is to prove that there was a natural cause for such past events rather than an angry supernatural agent!

http://defendgaia.org/bobk/clube90.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/12/25/incoming-june-meteor-swarm-could-be-loaded-with-surprises

https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/453468

https://phys.org/news/2017-06-czech-scientists-asteroid-earth.html

https://www.aanda.org/component/article?access=doi&doi=10.1051/0004-6361/201730787

Trying to cast doubt on the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis by attacking the integrity of some of the people who are trying to gather physical evidence for it is not fair or in keeping with the spirit of scientific enquiry!

We need to properly assess all of the threats to the biosphere that we can identify to avoid a collapse of civilization!

http://defendgaia.org/bobk/nica.html

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-urgent-rethink-resource-skyrockets.html

I intend to again restore the stable version of the text, with references, that has sufficed for well over two years and does not mention names.

Bkobres (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Current research refutes Clovis Comet

Bkobres appears to be the sole curator of this page and is censoring the fact that current research still contests the Clovis Comet hypothesis. He appears to want people to think it has not been contested since 2017. He is wrong. Here is just one 2019 example. http://anthropology.unm.edu/news-events/events/event/anthropology-colloquia-series-a-clovis-comet,-late-pleistocene-human-population-presented-by-dr.-vance-holliday.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.31.173.26 (talk • contribs) 08:11, April 30, 2019 (UTC)

The sentence reads "The hypothesis has been contested by research as recently as 2017," do you have a reference for a critical research paper published this year? You could just change the sentence to read "The hypothesis is still contested by some researchers," and add the Holiday talk ref. It's misleading to state that new critical research has been published without supplying a valid reference to a paper reporting that new research. Bkobres (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Your assertion falsely implies that the hypothesis has not been contested since 2017. Your claim is contradicted by documentation (see above) that it was contested by research as recently as 2019. You previously cited a blogger but now demand a "valid reference". I will let others decide what standard should be applied in both cases.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.31.173.26 (talk • contribs) 23:59, April 30, 2019 (UTC)

108..., your edit changed the text from saying it has been challenged as recently as 2019 (from 2017). Bkobres argues -- reasonably, IMO -- that the change implies there has been research challenging the hypothesis this year. If I were looking to the article for research challenging the hypothesis and came upon a statement saying it had been challenged this year, I would want to know where. The lack of a reference would be frustrating.

Bkobres is suggesting either providing cite for published work from 2019 or simply omitting the year as a compromise. Is either of these acceptable to you? (If not, you will need to provide some reason why your claim does not need to be verifiable or why you feel the announcement of a lecture is anything other than a summary of existing material.) - SummerPhD^v2.0 12:17, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I am aware of ongoing research by skeptics in 2019. Peer review takes time so there will always be a lag. Yes the best compromise is to simply omit the "as recently as" year because every year there is another published refutation this page will require another update.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.31.173.26 (talk • contribs) 09:36, May 1, 2019 (UTC)

Geologic evidence supports theory that major cosmic impact event occurred approximately 12,800 years ago

Or so phys.org says DarkoNeko x 18:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Here's the report in Nature:

 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-38089-y

This seems to show continued developments in research, so the current lede for the Wikipedia page here seems misleading as to current status. I'm going to change it, and happy to chat here as well if others see reason to revert. --Pablo Mayrgundter (talk) 19:31, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Qualifications of Researchers

Doug Weller in his comment reverting my change says "Needs agreement on talk page, these researchers are not qualified and their ideas not accepted." Nothing could be further from the truth. Info about reserchers qualifications is all available on the web if you want to see for yourself. Their areas of expertise include both the Holy Bible and science and almost all of them have PHD's. If your going to delete this on the basis you claim “these researchers are not qualified and their ideas not accepted” then you would have to delete almost everything else on this page because most of them were written by the very same people!! They are the most qualified people because it’s their hypothesis in the first place!!!

Dr. Allen West has a PHD in philosophy from an excellent Bible college in Nebraska. He was one of the originators of YDIH hypothesis and the very first person to publish it. Dr. Ted Bunch has a PHD in geology from U. Pittsburgh and coauthored all the YDIH papers Dr. James Wittke has a PHD in geology from U. Texas and coauthored all the YDIH papers George Howard is not a scientist but participated in Trinity Southwest University archaeology digs at the site of the Biblical Sodom and coauthored all the YDIH papers Dr. Steven Collins, has 2 PHD’s: (one from Trinity Theological Seminary and the other PHD from Trinity Southwest University in archaeology and Biblical history) Dr. Phillip Silvia has a PHD in Archaeology and Biblical History from Trinity Southwest University and a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary All the other authors of the Tall al-Hammam paper have PHD’s in science or engineering and are coauthors on YDIH papers. Dr. Martin Sweatman has a PHD in Theoretical Physics, University of Bristol, 1995 Alistair Coombs, is a PHD Candidate in Religious Studies, University of Kent

Just because you disagree with them or disapprove of them for using scientific evidence and their Younger Dryas hypothesis to support the biblical record does not mean they are not qualified. Your anti Christian bigotry is showing.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.39.183.113 (talk • contribs) 17:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

See Talk:Göbekli Tepe#Sweatman and Tsikritsis 2017 and [1] and [2][3] [4] among others. Saying that someone from an unaccredited University (Trinity) is not an RS is not an attack on religion. How is a philosopher an expert on this subject? Or an engineer (Sweatman). Or a PhD candidate in religous studies? Etc. @JoeRoe: you've been involved in some of these discussions. CosmicTusk isn't a reliable source. And why is the Sweatman paper not attributed to this journal?[5] Doug Weller talk 16:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC) Oops @Joe Roe: Doug Weller talk 16:32, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Removed again per above. Vsmith (talk) 00:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

My edits continue to be removed with comments like "not a reliable source" and "researchers not qualified". These are not good reasons to remove my contributions because the authors of the work I am citing for my additions are the same ones that have written the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis that is the subject of this page in the 1st place. If you keep deleting stuff by them you need to give a better reason. 71.39.183.113 (talk) 20:43, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

If what they say has any merit, they will be able to publish it in scientific journals. Then experts will quote them. Just wait until that happens, then quote those.

Wikipedia is not a newsticker. We should not add every idea someone has succeeded in publishing in the press. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Article structure

I've made some recent edits to add additional information to the "History of the hypothesis" section and also to clean up the general structure of the article. It was not clear, for example, why some citations appeared in the "Evidence" section rather than in the "History of the hypothesis" section. My own sense is that it would be most useful to readers if the "Evidence" section were relatively clear, succinct, and unladen with information about sources. I also think that the chronological organization of the "History of the hypothesis" section is appropriate, especially given how it has unfolded with new evidence, critiques, responses, and so forth. At present, however, the article does not include much discussion of Göbekli Tepe or the controversial interpretations of the iconography on the monoliths there with respect to the YDIH. It seems to me that angle should merit a new section, for an organization that would keep the physics, geology, and astronomical interpretations separate from the ones based upon artwork. Hoopes (talk) 23:22, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Dismissed by the courts

When I noticed the recent addition and audited it, my impression was that I could verify it in the source: "he went back to court in Victorville, Calif., convincing a judge to void the old plea." —PaleoNeonate – 17:22, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Suggestions

It's unfortunate that responsible editors have not deemed this opinion piece by Dalton irrelevant. It is eight years old and his central contention that the hypothesis was a fraud and would soon be fully falsified was obviously incorrect! The whole Dalton piece is very misleading as is this Wikipedia effort. Wikipedia is extremely poor at fairly presenting novel ideas due to its inherent bias toward the status quo and tolerance of anonymous editors who obviously have an interest in preserving prevailing notions. For instance what in the world does Edger Cayce have to do with this hypothesis!? The inclusion of a purported psychic within this 'article' is an obvious attempt to discredit the entire hypothesis in the mind of a reader!

Fortunately there is currently under way an attempt to better characterize the Taurid debris stream which I and others think has been a source of planet shot over the past twenty thousand or so years. This is why humanity developed the bizarre notion of judgemental sky gods that could cast down fire and brimstone as well as that the position of planets could influence events on Earth!

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/stalking-the-taurid-swarm/

The Taurid debris stream is an intregal part of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis yet it is not mentioned in the current rendition of the Wikipedia entry.

https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/405/3/1901/966774

Bkobres (talk) 13:00, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Although I'm familiar with the hypothesis, my involvement at this article has been very limited, I watchlisted it because of recent WP:FRINGE editing (Talk:Sodom and Gomorrah#Meteoritic explosion for more context). I'd have to read more on it before making a serious comment. I however see you complaining about Wikipedia and editors, for which I suggest WP:BOLD if you can improve the situation. —PaleoNeonate – 23:37, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

History of the Hypotheses

The section about the writings of a 19th century pseudoscientific science fiction writer clearly have nothing to do with the scientific work that is the subject of this article. It has clearly been included to discredit the legitimate science that has been done to support this hypothesis. The YD impact hypothesis is of course highly contentious, and there much more research and evidence needed, but that does not mean it should be rejected out of hand and associated with pseudoscience that has nothing to do with the research. -TC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toadchavay (talk • contribs) 21:36, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

If the writings of Ignatius Donnelly, a 19th century author of pseudoarchaeology, have nothing to do with the subject of this article, then neither do the writings of subsequent speculative authors, including Graham Hancock. If one were to exclude nonacademic trade books, especially publications by well-known New Age imprints, then The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes (Firestone et al. 2006), published by Inner Traditions – Bear & Company, should also be disregarded. The fact is that the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis is firmly embedded within a tradition of speculation and pseudoscience that has sought to associate comets with the Biblical flood myth, the destruction of the lost continent of Atlantis, or the destruction of an imaginary "lost civilization". The YDIH is being promoted in support of myth as well as being a topic of legitimate scientific inquiry. It is essential to provide information relevant to the history and current manifestations of both of those agendas. Hoopes (talk) 19:30, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, in case of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, legitimate research definitely continues to be incorporated into speculation and pseudoscience and promoted in support of myth. The most recent examples are:

Jaye, M., 2017. The Worldwide Flood: Uncovering and Correcting the Most Profound Error in the History of Science. Archway Publishing.

and

Jaye, M., 2019. The flooding of the Mediterranean basin at the Younger–Dryas boundary. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 19(1), 71–83.

The pseudoscientific paper of Jaye (2019), appears have been mistaken for real science and cited by legitimate peer-reviewed papers. For example,

Liritzis, I., Westra, A. and Miao, C., 2019. Disaster Geoarchaeology and Natural Cataclysms in World Cultural Evolution: An Overview. Journal of Coastal Research, 35(6), pp.1307-1330.

and

Oguz-Krca, E.D. and Liritzis, I., 2019, Reemergence of Atlantis: The Shifting Paradigm and Creation of Neo-Spatial Models (Scientific Culture Vol. 5, No. 3, (2019), pp. 69-88. Paul H. (talk) 21:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Can you add contextual language, citations, and references to the appropriate section of the article? Hoopes (talk) 21:42, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Graham Hancock and Other Trade Book Authors

I've reverted the edits that changed the identification of Graham Hancock from "pseudoarchaeology author" to "investigative journalist". While Hancock was originally trained as an investigative journalist, since at least 1995 he has been identified primarily as an author of trade books in the genre of pseudoarchaeology. To my knowledge, he has not written in the capacity of a journalist for a news source in a long time. He makes his living as an author. The addition of a hyperlink to the Wikipedia article on pseudoarchaeology provides more context with which to evaluate his work. Perhaps a compromise would be to change the language to read something like "pseudoarchaeology author originally trained as a journalist" or "former journalist now known for his books in the genre of pseudoarchaeology", but that merits further discussion. What matters most is that the language of the article should be accurate and unbiased. If sources are required, those can be provided. Hoopes (talk) 21:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment and Reply on Wolbach et al. (2018a, 2018b) Journal of Geology Papers

A comment and Reply has been published Wolbach et al. (2018a, 2018b)'s Journal of Geology Papers. They are:

Vance T. Holliday, Patrick J. Bartlein, Andrew C. Scott, and Jennifer R. Marlon, "Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago, Parts 1 and 2: A Discussion," The Journal of Geology 0, no. 0: 000.

and

Wendy S. Wolbach, Joanne P. Ballard, Paul A. Mayewski, Andrei Kurbatov, Ted E. Bunch, Malcolm A. LeCompte, Victor Adedeji, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, Richard B. Firestone, William C. Mahaney, Adrian L. Melott, Christopher R. Moore, William M. Napier, George A. Howard, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Brian C. Thomas, James H. Wittke, John R. Johnson, Siddhartha Mitra, James P. Kennett, Gunther Kletetschka, and Allen West, "Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago: A Reply," The Journal of Geology 0, no. 0: 000.

The original papers are:

Wendy S. Wolbach, Joanne P. Ballard, Paul A. Mayewski, Victor Adedeji, Ted E. Bunch, Richard B. Firestone, Timothy A. French, George A. Howard, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, John R. Johnson, David Kimbel, Charles R. Kinzie, Andrei Kurbatov, Gunther Kletetschka, Malcolm A. LeCompte, William C. Mahaney, Adrian L. Melott, Abigail Maiorana-Boutilier, Siddhartha Mitra, Christopher R. Moore, William M. Napier, Jennifer Parlier, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Brian C. Thomas, James H. Wittke, Allen West, and James P. Kennett, "Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago. 1. Ice Cores and Glaciers," The Journal of Geology 126, no. 2 (March 2018): 165-184.

Wendy S. Wolbach, Joanne P. Ballard, Paul A. Mayewski, Andrew C. Parnell, Niamh Cahill, Victor Adedeji, Ted E. Bunch, Gabriela Domínguez-Vázquez, Jon M. Erlandson, Richard B. Firestone, Timothy A. French, George Howard, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, John R. Johnson, David Kimbel, Charles R. Kinzie, Andrei Kurbatov, Gunther Kletetschka, Malcolm A. LeCompte, William C. Mahaney, Adrian L. Melott, Siddhartha Mitra, Abigail Maiorana-Boutilier, Christopher R. Moore, William M. Napier, Jennifer Parlier, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Brian C. Thomas, James H. Wittke, Allen West, and James P. Kennett, "Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ∼12,800 Years Ago. 2. Lake, Marine, and Terrestrial Sediments," The Journal of Geology 126, no. 2 (March 2018): 185-205. Paul H. (talk) 18:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Further evidence from Syria

FWIW, here is a report from Science Daily on a new paper describing impact evidence at the Abu Hureyra archeological site in Syria. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.168.21 (talk) 07:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

DOI citation for the scholarly paper referenced in the above report.

• Moore, Andrew M. T.; Kennett, James P.; Napier, William M.; Bunch, Ted E.; Weaver, James C.; LeCompte, Malcolm; Adedeji, A. Victor; Hackley, Paul; Kletetschka, Gunther; Hermes, Robert E.; Wittke, James H.; Razink, Joshua J.; Gaultois, Michael W.; West, Allen (2020-03-06). "Evidence of Cosmic Impact at Abu Hureyra, Syria at the Younger Dryas Onset (~12.8 ka): High-temperature melting at >2200 °C". Scientific Reports. 10 (1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-60867-w. ISSN 2045-2322.

Plus, there is also this:

• Carlson, Anders E. (2010). "What Caused the Younger Dryas Cold Event?". Geology. 38 (4). Geological Society of America: 383–384. doi:10.1130/focus042010.1. ISSN 1943-2682.

Peaceray (talk) 17:56, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Graham Hancock mentions pillars in turkey, but so do scientists

"The team from the University of Edinburgh in the UK say these carvings, found in what's believed to be the world's oldest known temple, Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey, show further evidence that a comet triggered the Younger Dryas.

"I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph at the time."

https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-carvings-in-turkey-show-a-comet-hitting-earth-changing-civilisation-forever — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.198.160.79 (talk) 06:03, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

A quote from Jason Colavito: "The article called “Decoding Göbekli Tepe with Archaeoastronomy: What Does the Fox Say?” was published in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 17, No 1, (2017), pp. 233-250. It was written by Martin B. Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis, both engineers—not archaeologists—from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering. While the authors do not cite Graham Hancock, they do cite Collins and list in their bibliography most of the same papers about the so-called Younger Dryas comet impact that Hancock cites, and there is more than a hint of Hancock and especially Collins in the authors’ assertion that Göbekli Tepe should (a) be interpreted astronomically and (b) is the “smoking gun” in proving that the comet really did hit the Earth around 10,900 BCE."

Also, they claim a "sudden melting of the Laurentide ice sheet and immense flooding across large areas of North America." - Not what the geologists say.

Finally, their paper was demolished, see here. Sweatman went on to write a book about his ideas but couldn't get it published reliably so self-published it through Matador.https://www.troubador.co.uk/matador/[6] Doug Weller talk 13:24, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Hancock

These edits are for review and result from a thread opened at WP:FTN in January 2021. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 20:41, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Map ideas

It has been requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality. I'm wondering what that might look like.

The Scholia profile for this subject has a map that includes nearly every one* of the locations that has been mentioned in articles about the YDIH. By itself it's pretty interesting but I think that a customised map with interactive markers would be a better fit. Below is an example of what that could look like. This could be fleshed out here, then moved to the article when it becomes useful.

See the {{Maplink}} template for information on how to style the map, and the following query for finding locations (it's a simplified version of the Scholia topic map query):

# Younger Dryas impact hypothesis related locations

SELECT ?subject ?subjectLabel ?work ?workLabel ?coordinates WHERE {
  ?work wdt:P921 wd:Q1092095 .     # Items where the main subject is the YDIH
  ?work wdt:P921 ?subject .        # Get the other main subjects
  ?subject wdt:P625 ?coordinates . # Return any subjects with coordinates

  SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
}

ORDER BY ?subjectLabel

# 🡗 Click on the blue "play" button to run the query 🡗
# 🡗 Then click on the eye icon and select "Map" to view the locations on a map 🡗

Click here to launch the Wikidata query

* To have the locations displayed, every paper about the YDIH is required to have at least one "main subject" statement that is a location. It obviously also requires that the paper is in Wikidata in the first place.

Aluxosm (talk) 19:05, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, not sure why the markers are only displayed/map is draggable when you're in edit preview mode 🤔. Definitely need to work that out before this goes much further! Aluxosm (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the 'markers not showing up' problem was just a short term caching thing as it seems to have been fixed pretty quickly, and it looks like the 'map not being draggable' issue is just how the template works when you're not editing the page. All good then.  Done Aluxosm (talk) 10:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I've just added a map from Mario Pino et al. 2019. I Still think the interactive map is a better idea (easier to update etc.) but I thought that it would be useful to have something in the meantime. Aluxosm (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Please update with: "Volcanic origin for Younger Dryas geochemical anomalies ca. 12,900 cal B.P."

Please update the article with info on this paper. It should probably go into the section "Criticism" and maybe also into the lead.

It's featured in 2020 in science like so:

A study suggests a volcanic cause for the Younger Dryas geochemical anomalies including the extinction of many ice-age animals about 12,800 years ago and weakens the support for the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 15:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

References

@Prototyperspective: I'm not sure that this paper deserves as much credit it's been given. As far as I can tell, the majority of the articles about it are just reprints of the press release that was put out by the author's university. It's still early days, but it's also only been cited by two papers (according to Altimetric), one of which did not exactly embrace the results. It is definitely worth considering, but to say that it weakens the support for the YDIH is probably overstating it a little. I do find it interesting that it wasn't approached with anywhere near as much skepticism as this hypothesis has been; it seems to me as though a lot of people latched on to it simply because it was providing an alternative to the idea of an extraterrestrial impact.

Even after reading dozens of papers and Deadly Voyager, a book written by a very well credentialed geologist that leaves little doubt as to the validity of the impact hypothesis, I'm still not sure that I'm 100% on board. But it's certainly going to take more than a single paper whose lead author is a doctoral candidate to sway me closer to the volcano camp, there's just too much opposing evidence from scores of researchers with hundreds of years of combined experience.

n.b. When I was looking for other sources reporting on the article, I found a video by Martin Sweatman (the same researcher who authored the YDIH review article mentioned above). In it, he casts even more doubt on the paper's methods and conclusions.

I've added a mention of it to this this article under Claims for impact debris, but I'm really not sure that a place in the lead is warranted. I hope you don't mind, but I've also reworded your entry in July–September 2020 in science — another slight nitpick that I had was that an extinction event is not a geochemical anomaly.

References

Thanks for raising this, and sorry that it took nearly a year for anyone to get back to you!  Done Aluxosm (talk)

@Aluxosm: Perfect, thank you! Thanks for the in-depth explanations and improving the entry in the "2020 in science" article too. --Prototyperspective (talk) 20:06, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Critiques of air burst claims section

A discussion took place at User talk:Aluxosm#Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis regarding the 'Critiques of air burst claims' section, both here and in the Tall el-Hammam article. Thanks. Aluxosm (talk) 11:28, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Edits by Aluxosm

A discussion took place at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Younger Dryas impact hypothesis regarding edits by myself. Thanks. Aluxosm (talk) 09:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Edits by 71.209.176.252

There is currently a discussion at User talk:71.209.176.252#January 2022 regarding edits by an IP user. Thanks. Aluxosm (talk) 09:35, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comet Research Group

Should a section be added that describes the Comet Research Group, which consists of the YDIH proponents and was founded and is directed by original authors of the paper that conceived the hypothesis (Firestone et al, 2007)? It might be useful to tag every paper that has been written in collaboration with the Comet Research Group. 71.209.176.252 (talk) 05:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@71.209.176.252: Having a section that describes them would be great, unfortunately though, I haven't found any reliable sources that really document their history (more than could be summed up in a single sentence at least).

Affiliating every paper seems excessive and problematic. There are good sources that describe a few of the researchers affiliations but we'd likely miss several, this incompleteness would be confusing. The list on their website [7] consists mostly of "co-authors" & "Author, Supporting Paper", this is not enough to infer an affiliation, it's also incomplete. There's also the issue of what to do with people like Peter H. Schultz, who used to be listed,[8] but was removed before he published a paper that was recently recommended by Mark Boslough (WP:OR ALERT). Then there's people like Matthew Boyd, who went from publishing papers opposing the YDIH, to publishing alongside proponents. It'd just become a huge mess.

In short, without a whole load of original research, I don't think this is going to be possible. The best we could maybe do is have a list of the co-founders in a footnote then add the note before papers with those authors, but it just seems excessive and I'm not sure that even that would be okay. Aluxosm (talk) 09:08, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

IP reported to WP:AN3

Among other things, the IP is inserting unsourced descriptions of living persons. Doug Weller talk 17:05, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

List of failed predictions

Since the Hiawatha Crater is 58 million years old, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Younger Dryas. If the Hiawatha crater is mentioned in the context of YDIH, I recommend that it only be in connection to the long list of failed predictions. The Kennett quote is one of the best examples of a failed YDIH prediction & should be restored. I recommend a “failed predictions” section starting with this very prominent one: ‘James Kennett, a leading advocate of the YDIH said, "I'd unequivocally predict that this crater is the same age as the Younger Dryas.” ‘ 66.27.194.90 (talk) 08:22, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

References

In popular culture?

Material on Graham Hancock and other pseudoscientists' love of the YDIH was recently added to the #In popular culture section. I think this is a good addition, but is it really "popular culture"? Should we instead split this off to a section on "Pseudoscience" specifically? Whatever you think of the original hypothesis, it has definitely proved popular amongst the coherent catastrophism/mysterious lost civilisations crowd and I think it could be expanded further. @Hoopes, Doug Weller, and Aluxosm: – Joe (talk) 11:56, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: As of three years ago, Hancock had sold over nine million books;[9] like it or not, he's part of popular culture. I'm not entirely against the idea of a separate 'Pseudoscience' section, but would only really be in favour of one if it actually talked about various aspects of the issue, and was well sourced. Simply moving the Hancock related content out of the current section would serve no purpose other than re-igniting the endless edit wars over the new section's name. Aluxosm (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: I agree with Aluxosm on this. The popularity of Hancock makes it clear that what he is producing is unambigously popular culture. For professional archaeologists, it is also pseudoscience and pseudoarchaeology, but many of his followers would vociferously disagree. The term "pseudoscience" is itself heavily debated and Hancock has stated in interviews--whether credibly or not--that he is "not doing archaeology" even though he is ostensibly using material evidence in order to reconstruct the ancient past experience of humans (which is basically the definition of archaeology). Identifying it as popular culture is more neutral. I suspect a section of this article titled "Pseudoscience" would be endlessly contentious. Hoopes (talk) 21:41, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Hiawatha Crater

Why is there an entire section on a Paleocene Crater? Maybe worth a mention but nobody ever published a claim that it had anything to do with the YDIH. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Please re-read the whole section. Hiawatha Crater is mentioned in multiple papers and news articles. Even if the dating is 100% confirmed (currently not the case), this section will still provide important context for why it was mentioned by so many people in connection with the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. Thank you starting this conversation and not edit warring. Aluxosm (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree completely with Aluxosm. Paul H. (talk) 17:39, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn’t all the other candidate craters and proposed impacts be given equal attention then? There are many including Corossol, Roseau, Saginaw Bay, Various Holes in the Great Lakes, the Carolina Bays, Pica in Chile, and Abu Hureyra in Syria. Nothing is 100% certain but I don’t see what is more relevant or special about Hiawatha than Corossol, Roseau, or Pica for example which are all closer to the right age. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

First, Hiawatha Crater is impact structure that is discussed in great detail in reliable secondary sources as evidence for a Younger Dryas impact. Second, Saginaw Bay, "Various Holes in the Great Lakes," are discussed in unreliable, fringe sources as being related to a Younger Dryas impact. They lack mainstream acceptance as impact structures and are argued in published, reliable, secondary sources as predating the start of the Younger Dryas. Third, the Corossol impact structure is a deeply eroded impact structure whose crater has been destroyed by terrestrial, including glacial, erosion. It is regarded to be Pre-Quaternary, possibly Paleogene or older in age. Fourth, the impact glasses in the atacamaite strewnfield in Atacama Desert in northern Chile near the town of Pica have yielded a mean formation age of 7.83±0.26 Ma (Miocene) from fission track dating. Finally, Roseau Lake in northwestern Minnesota lacks mainstream acceptance as an impact crater. It is regarded to be "exceptionally large glacial kettle." a To add any of these, a person would need reliable, secondly / tertiary sources documenting that these features are impact related; date to the start of the Younger Dryas; and were seriously argued in mainstream circles to related to a Younger Dryas Impact. Paul H. (talk) 01:40, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I’m not aware of any mainstream literature claiming that Hiawatha Crater is younger than 58 Ma. If you have a source claiming it’s YDB age please post it. How is this structure which is unrelated to the YD more relevant than the others you list? BTW pica impact glass from Chile is in fact of Younger Dryas age according to the peer reviewed literature so it is far more relevant to the YDIH than Hiawatha is. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 05:34, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Again, it doesn't matter what age it turned/turns out to be. The fact is that is was discussed widely. You're correct about the Atacama glasses though, it is something that should be discussed more (see the 'needs update' flag in the article). Aluxosm (talk) 10:44, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Although I am still sorting it out, there appear to be two different "Atacama glasses" being conflated. First, there is the strewn field of Atacamaites, splash-form impact glasses, that have "yielded a mean formation age of 7.83±0.26Ma."(Gattacceca et al. 2021). Finally, there is the "Pica glasses," "...irregularly shaped, tabular glassy bodies that occur scattered on the surface of the Atacama desert..." (Roperch et al. 2017). They are argued to date to the end of the Pleistocene. In case of the latter, there still are controversies about whether the glass was created either by a cometary airburst or "...formed during intense fires in soils with thick silica-rich plant litter..." and whether they represent a single event or multiple events (papers by Roperch et al. (2022) and Schultz et al. (2022). Paul H. (talk) 15:37, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Shouldn’t all the other candidate craters and proposed impacts be given equal attention then? — Maybe not equal, but they should get the attention that they deserve. As Paul H. pointed out, we are mostly reliant on secondary sources "to establish the topic's notability and avoid novel interpretations of primary sources." Hiawatha is only really more relevant and special because of the amount of coverage it received from reliable sources. Essentially, we should be focusing on adding/refining useful and relevant information, instead of removing it wholesale because it no longer fits into the picture. If you have links to good sources that cover the places you mentioned, please do add them here! Aluxosm (talk) 10:44, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

It would probably be best if the Hiawatha Crater section title was clearly labeled and the “lead” was not buried. You have to read to the bottom of the section to learn that it has nothing to do with the YDIH and that the connection was just hopefull thinking all along. Maybe start the section by giving the age and saying it’s not related to YDIH would fix the problem. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 15:20, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done: I've just added a see also link to the section which makes it a bit more obvious. The problem with your other suggestion is that this is a pretty recent (and potentially still debatable) result, so we couldn't state it as a fact. It would be tricky to word and probably just end up being more confusing. The section being a bit vague just mirrors the reality of the situation at the moment. I'd be more inclined to agree if it was longer but it's not like it's a lot of work to skip down to the third paragraph. Scrolling to the end for the most recent news is normal behaviour when you have paragraphs staring "In 20xx, ...". Aluxosm (talk) 20:52, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

The simple minor change to the subheading should suffice. This age dating is not disputed by anyone yet so this section was moved out from under disputed evidence heading. YDIH authors have accepted the age. If someone disputes it then it can be modified again. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 00:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

No one needs to dispute it; the findings are not concrete, it really is as simple as that. It's right there in the section: "Confirmation would require drilling almost one km (3,300 ft) through the ice sheet above the crater." It's still not even been 100% confirmed to be impact crater at all, hence "possible impact crater". We can't say "The 58-million-year-old Hiawatha Crater" because we don't know if that is actually the case. The reason I said it would be tricky to word is because you would have to make that ambiguity clear: "A possible impact crater, which according to a recent study may be as old as 58 million years, was discovered in 2018, but at that point an age wasn't known and it was thought to be some point during the Pleistocene and some suggested it was formed as recently as 12,850 years ago." It's just a mess.

On the section renaming: long term, I think it would be useful to have a whole section on "Hypothesised impact methods" or something and put all of this there, along with some of the other places you mentioned. But whether the debate around Hiawatha is over or not, it will always have been "Disputed evidence" so there's nothing wrong with leaving it under that heading. Aluxosm (talk) 11:21, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

The following statement has no source to back it up: “Kurt Kjær, the lead author of the paper, mentioned that the team had considered a link to the Younger Dryas impact but dropped the idea in the final paper because of the controversy around the hypothesis.” I recommend removal unless a published source can verify. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

It's in the first reference you come to after that statement (see WP:CITEFOOT):

• Voosen, Paul (14 November 2018). "Massive crater under Greenland's ice points to climate-altering impact in the time of humans". Sciencemag.org. Leery of the earlier controversy, Kjær won't endorse that scenario. "I'm not putting myself in front of that bandwagon," he says. But in drafts of the paper, he admits, the team explicitly called out a possible connection between the Hiawatha impact and the Younger Dryas.

Aluxosm (talk) 17:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

You are mistaken. The Voosen source doesn’t support the claim that “Kurt Kjær, the lead author of the paper, mentioned that the team had considered a link to the Younger Dryas impact but dropped the idea in the final paper because of the controversy around the hypothesis.” Voosen never said that. The reason the Hiawatha paper didn’t make any connection to the YDIH is because that link didn’t make it through peer review. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 00:36, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

You're right, technically at least. It's heavily implied and it's hard to draw any other conclusion (why else didn't a simple mention of the YDIH make it through peer review when the dating that would allow for it did), but we shouldn't state it as fact because there is room for another explanation. That being said, please try and fix these things if you come across them instead of deleting them outright; the fact that the link was made is still relevant to the section. Aluxosm (talk) 11:31, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

It is not the job of a Wikipedia editor to make inferences or to seek explanations and report them as if they are facts. Original research is not allowed. If you can find a source that supports your opinion then cite the source. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 13:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not making inferences and it's not my opinion. Per the article in Science: "in drafts of the paper, [Kjær] admits, the team explicitly called out a possible connection between the Hiawatha impact and the Younger Dryas." It literally could not be any clearer. The source is cited, please read it. Aluxosm (talk) 14:17, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

According to the cited source,

Leery of the earlier controversy, Kjær won't endorse that scenario. "I'm not putting myself in front of that bandwagon," he says. But in drafts of the paper, he admits, the team explicitly called out a possible connection between the Hiawatha impact and the Younger Dryas.

They didn’t simply decide to drop the link between the crater & the YDIH. The editor required that they remove the connection. It didn’t make it through peer review. 2601:647:CC00:4A0:0:0:0:C2C8 (talk) 02:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

The sentence in the article here does not say that they they decided. It says, "Kurt Kjær, the lead author of the paper, mentioned that the team had considered a link to the Younger Dryas impact but dropped the idea in the final paper." It does not say why because we don't know why, as you yourself pointed out earlier. If you have a source saying that it was removed at the direction of a reviewer and and you feel like that is an important distinction, add it. If you feel like it could just be worded better, fix it. Please stop removing relevant information from the article. Note: Reported to Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Aluxosm (talk) 04:46, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

They didn’t just “drop” it and never claimed that they did. This fake quote is clearly an attempt by Aluxosm & sock puppets to create false narrative. 24.6.183.60 (talk) 16:47, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Is Sweatman 2021 a reliable source?

Sweatman MB (19 May 2021). "The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: Review of the impact evidence" (PDF). Earth-Science Reviews. 218: 103677. Bibcode:2021ESRv..21803677S. doi:10.1016/J.EARSCIREV.2021.103677. ISSN 0012-8252. S2CID 236231169. Wikidata Q106977355. is cited quite a few times in the article, as pretty much the only source that considers the YDIH to have a scientific consensus. But I'm not sure that it's a reliable source. It is a peer-reviewed paper in what is, as far as I know, a perfectly respectable earth sciences journal. On the other hand:

1. Sweatman is a chemical engineer with no discernable background in geology, climatology or impact science and no other publications or citations in those fields.
2. Sweatman is already notorious amongst archaeologists for exhibiting advanced old physicist syndrome. He has written a string of barmy papers[10][11][12][13] and a self-published book[14] claiming to 'decode' prehistoric cave art sites like Lascaux and the carvings at Göbekli Tepe, which have been widely ridiculed as pseudoscience.[15][16][17][18][19][20] The common thread here is that he thinks these sites encode knowledge of a catastrophic impact that triggered the Younger Dryas and which fellow travellers like Graham Hancock (who Sweatman has cited in his papers) believes wiped out a lost advanced civilisation.
3. The paper positions itself as an unbiased review, but Sweatman is an established proponent of the YDIH (see above; his theories about secret messages from ancient civilisations entirely depend on it) and the actual content is remarkably partisan, embracing all the evidence for the YDIH and rejecting almost all of the evidence against it. There is a published comment on the paper which claims Sweatman blatantly misrepresented at least one of the latter category of evidence. I don't actually see any evidence that this 'review' represents anything more than the views of its single author. According to Google Scholar it only has 3 citations from reliable sources,[21][22][23] which in my experience, although it's only been out a year, is still unusual for a review paper on such a high-profile subject.

Obviously a review in a peer-reviewed journal is usually a solid source. But that doesn't mean we should automatically or uncritically assume this is one. Putting the venue of publication aside, we have an extraordinary claim from an author with no verifiable expertise in the subject and previous form publishing outré stuff in other disciplines. Not usually good signs. I don't think we should use it as a source in this article, at least not until it's been digested by the wider relevant disciplines and we can judge how mainstream Sweatman's conclusions are. – Joe (talk) 11:25, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: I'm not sure this is as much of an issue as you've made it out to be:

• [Sweatman 2021] is cited quite a few times in the article — It's not really though, is it? Outside of the paragraph that discusses the paper, it's only cited twice:
  • "The evidence given by proponents of a bolide or meteorite impact event includes 'black mats', or strata of organic-rich soil that have been identified at over 50 archaeological sites across four continents, primarily in North America and Greenland"
  • "It has been suggested that this boundary layer should be used as a local stratigraphic marker."

The first sentence is not controversial and another source could easily be found, this one just sums it up well. The second sentence is also not controversial, it's just the case, as is demonstrated by the first citation to Andronikov et al. Both of these could be removed without changing any of the text.

To your other points:

• Sweatman is a chemical engineer — Does this disqualify him from engaging in other fields? He also has a PhD in theoretical physics,[24] and by the looks of it it's served him well; he seems to be much more accustomed to working with statistical models than some of the authors of the studies he's critiqued. If he had talked about soil samples that he himself took (or something equally out of his wheelhouse), I would be much more sceptical.
• Sweatman is already notorious amongst archaeologists for exhibiting advanced old physicist syndrome. — Cool story, does this mean that his analysis of the evidence is wrong? It's not like he's the only one talking about the YDIH, or alone in thinking that it has merit.
• He has written a string of barmy papers — None of which are used in this article.
• ...Graham Hancock (who Sweatman has cited in his papers) — Could you point to the ones you're talking about? I couldn't find any mention of him in the papers you provided.
• The paper positions itself as an unbiased review, but Sweatman is an established proponent of the YDIH — Would you say that The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: A requiem was unbiased? It, and many other papers cited in this article, were written by established oppopnents, should we also avoid those for the same reasons?
• I don't actually see any evidence that this 'review' represents anything more than the views of its single author — One of the papers you mentioned, Premature rejection in science..., written by James L. Powell, seems like evidence enough. Sweatman's name is mentioned nine times and Powell wraps-up his article with this:
  • "Those who have read this article and Sweatman's have the information to decide whether the YDIH meets this definition [of a 'theory']. In this author's opinion, there is a strong case that it does. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that no other single theory can explain the YD and its associated effects."

I suppose Powell is also exhibiting advanced old physicist syndrome? Pretty sure he's a geologist though...

• But that doesn't mean we should automatically or uncritically assume this is one. — You're right, and 'we' don't.
• we have an extraordinary claim from an author — What claim are you talking about? He's not the first person to accept the YDIH, nor is he the only one talking about its potential promotion.
• I don't think we should use it as a source in this article... — You make it sound like this article states that most scientists think that the YDIH should be called a theory in the lead, and uses Sweatman 2021 to back it up. It's only really used in describing the paper itself and providing context for the following paragraph though.

Even if we get rid of the two citations outside of the paragraph that discusses the paper, I would think that we'd still need to talk about it because it features so heavily in Powell's paper. Aluxosm (talk) 22:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think point by point arguments are productive... can we just focus on the core issue? Is this a reliable source, or not? If not, we can't use it anywhere in this article, whether as a citation for points of fact or summarising its argument. I'd appreciate your opinions @Doug Weller and Hoopes: too, since we've talked about related topics here before.

But not to be rude, answers to your specific questions below:

Extended content

"Sweatman is a chemical engineer" — Does this disqualify him from engaging in other fields? No, but looking at whether the author has a reputation for expertise in the topic is one of the main ways we can judge the reliability of a source. I'm saying there is no evidence that Sweatman has expertise on this topic. Cool story, does this mean that his analysis of the evidence is wrong? Which evidence? The archaeological evidence? His analysis of that is indisputably 100% wrong, yes, comically so. The YDIH evidence? I don't know, and as Wikipedia editors its not our job to assess the truthiness of the argument, only the reliability of the source. So as well as there being no positive evidence of expertise in geology or impact science, his verifiable advocacy for catastrophist pseudoscience is strong counter-evidence. "[fellow travellers like] Graham Hancock (who Sweatman has cited in his papers)" — Could you point to the ones you're talking about? Clube, Napier and Asher are in pretty much all of them; Andrew Collins in the "What does the fox say?" paper about Göbekli Tepe; Hancock himself throughout Prehistory Decoded; Velikovsy in this one I forgot about. Would you say that The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: A requiem was unbiased? It, and many other papers cited in this article, were written by established oppopnents, should we also avoid those for the same reasons? We of course can and should include the arguments of both proponents and opponents of the theory. But unlike those other papers, Sweatman's disingenuously presents itself as a systematic review by a neutral observer, rather than an argument from a proponent of one side of the debate. Our article as it currently stands swallows this hook, line and sinker, writing as if Sweatman just stumbled onto this large body of evidence and came to the only conclusion he could, when in reality, as I've shown above, he is deeply invested in the YDIH being correct and has been writing about catastrophism for years. "we have an extraordinary claim from an author" — What claim are you talking about? The extraordinary claim is that "the overwhelming consensus of research undertaken by many independent groups, reviewed here, suggests their claims of a major cosmic impact at this time should be accepted [...] arguments by a small cohort of researchers against their claims of a major impact are, in general, poorly constructed, and under close scrutiny most of their evidence can actually be interpreted as supporting the impact hypothesis". As the article rightly says, the situation described in the vast majority of other sources is that YDIH is a minority view which, even for those who consider it plausible, is lacking definitive evidence and beset by serious problems of methodology and scientific reasoning.

– Joe (talk) 07:34, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@Aluxosm@Joe Roe Here's Powell's paper [25] which has one citation according to Google scholar, a phd thesis from the University of South Bohemia.

Sweatman has published so much fringe stuff that I can see no reason to use him, he hasn't suddenly become a reliable source.

Old discussions at [26], [27]

I found a possible blog post by Sweatman from 2019 asking people to com to this article supporting him. Somehow I lost it and search doesn't find it. Doug Weller talk 14:09, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: I think it's important to be honest; if we are going to have a discussion on whether Sweatman is a reliable source or not, it's important that we get the facts straight. I'm also not the biggest fan of point by points (if only because of how long they take), but if disingenuous points are raised, I'm of the opinion that it's best to correct them before decisions are based off of them; I'm sure you're well aware that most people will just skim these comments.

Extended content

Throwing things out like "he's even cited Velikovsy!", but ignoring the context of 'why', is not conducive to a frank discussion. In the paper you linked to, he wasn't agreeing with the Jupiter madness, he was just commenting on Velikovsy's impact on the discourse at the time: "however he coupled his theory with an un-physical mechanism ... While not taken seriously by the academic community generally, his ideas took hold within the public imagination." I haven't read Prehistory Decoded but I'm now wondering if you've taken his citations to Hancock equally out of context, especially after making it seem as though he had done it in multiple peer-reviewed papers.

I appreciate your replies, however I feel like you missed the most important part: You said that you didn't see any evidence that his review represented anything more than the views of its single author, but ignored the fact that Powell agreed with his analysis and echoed his call for a discussion on the status of the YDIH.

This paper is about the YDIH, not Gobekli Tepe (which it only mentions in passing). I don't doubt that Sweatman is somewhat biased towards being in favour of the YDIH due to his views on Gobekli Tepe (just as many opponents are due to their prior work), but by suggesting that this was enough to taint his review you're essentially saying that we should ignore what reliable sources have said about it because we know better. I dissagree with your take on the "extraordinary claim" but either way, as you said yourself, it's not our job to assess the truthiness of the argument, only the reliability of the source".

In a nutshell:

• It was peer-reviewed and published in a reputable journal
• It has been cited and agreed with by a well respected geologist
• It was reported on by a reliable news source [28]

I can understand not wanting to use it to back-up every statement in this article, but it's hard to argue that we should completely ignore it.

P.S. @Doug Weller: I'm not sure that you were suggesting this, but just in case there was a concern, I can assure you that I'm not here at Sweatman's (or anyone else's) request. Aluxosm (talk) 20:02, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not being dishonest or disingenuous, Aluxosm. I don't know why you would think that. I acknowledged that the article is peer reviewed and in a good journal article. But it is also written by someone with no verifiable expertise in the field, who has an extensive record of publishing pseudoscience in an adjacent field. For me, that does not add up to a reliable source. I don't see how a single citation from a real geologist or a write-up in a science magazine changes that. – Joe (talk) 08:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@Aluxosm that hadn’t occurred to me. I agree with everything Joe has said about Sweatman. Doug Weller talk 10:33, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@Joe Roe: I don't mean to be rude, but I don't see how you think you haven't been. I'm not saying every point you made was disingenuous, just that even one muddies the waters and makes it hard to judge something fairly. From the beginning of this discussion up to your last comment, this has most certainly been the case with some of your points. I wanted to keep this on-topic so I collapsed some of my criticism in my last comment, sorry for not drawing your attention to it earlier. Summing a few others up:

• You said that Sweatman had cited Hancock "in his papers". He had not. You then pointed to 'Prehistory Decoded' but didn't mention why he was cited. A casual reader would likely come away thinking that Sweatman believes ancient peoples had iPads or some other such nonsense (pretty sure you would have lead with that if that was even close to his actual thinking).
• You followed by saying: "I don't actually see any evidence that this 'review' represents anything more than the views of its single author." In this article, the paragraph that immediately follows the one you took issue with, directly contradicts this: "[Powell] also echoed Sweatman's remarks". Surely you had seen that.
• Even in your most recent comment, you talked about there only being "a single citation from a real geologist" but ignored the fact that it wasn't just a throwaway reference, Powell's paper could almost be seen as a 'Part 2' to Sweatman's, as I showed when I included a quote from the end of it ("Those who have read this article and Sweatman's...") in my first reply. Had Powell co-authored the review would we still be having this discussion?

Play this out and say that we remove all traces of Sweatman 2021, we would still be able to reference the BBC article and consequently keep most of the text as it stands, we'd just lose a lot of the context. Is that really preferable? Aluxosm (talk) 13:20, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

No, we can't depend upon the media. And yes, it's not Hancock but Andrew Collins[29] that that the paper refers to several times. Just as bad.

Then there's the 4 papers they cite by the "Comet Research Group} (look for papers with the names West and Kennett). Allen West is particularly interesting.[30]."West is Allen Whitt — who, in 2002, was fined by California and convicted for masquerading as a state-licensed geologist when he charged small-town officials fat fees for water studies. After completing probation in 2003 in San Bernardino County, he began work on the comet theory, legally adopting his new name in 2006 as he promoted it in a popular book. Only when questioned by this reporter last year did his co-authors learn his original identity and legal history. Since then, they have not disclosed it to the scientific community". Read the rest of that paper. It also says "West has no formal appointment at an academic institution. He has said he obtained a doctorate from a Bible college, but he won’t describe it further. Firestone said West has told him he has no scientific doctorate but is self-taught." West is also a link between the CRG and the Rising Light Group:"The Comet Research Group is linked to the Rising Light Group, a 501(c)3, tax-exempt charitable organization with a clear Christian and biblical agenda, registered in Allen West’s name." See [31] for that and here's the Rising Light Group.[32]. Another mention of that link is at[33]. Then there's the problem that Sweatman wanted to publish a book in 2019[34] and had to self-publish.[35] Not as bad as the rest above perhaps, but he does quote Hancock ( not always agreeing with him) quite a bit, Robert Schoch and Paul Burley[36]. Then there's this.[37]

Finally there's this by someone with a book published by a University Press.[38] Doug Weller talk 15:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Gotta be honest Doug, I'm not entierly sure what point you're trying to make here. We're talking about Sweatman, not West... Unless you're suggesting that we should avoid anyone who cites a paper where West was a co-author? If that's the case, you should probably just nominate this article for deletion now because there wouldn't be much of anything left after the cull. Could you take a look at this article from Powell first though: Sodom and Skepticism? West may be a prolific proponant but he's far from the only arguing in favour of this hypothesis, there are well over a hundred scientists with thousands of years of combined research experience who have co-authored papers with the CRG founders (source). Genuine question, do you think West has managed to dupe them all?

Scratch that, this is getting way off topic. What exactly are you proposing? Aluxosm (talk) 21:20, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The Sweatman paper relies a lot on dubious sources, which I discussed in the post you've replied to. Doug Weller talk 14:39, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry Doug, I still don't follow; what paper are you talking about? This section is about Sweatman 2021 (The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: Review of the impact evidence). Aluxosm (talk) 16:27, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that was the other Sweatman paper. Issues pretty much the same, dependence on the Comet Research group.[39] I have no idea why West plays such an important role, he is frequently the last author which is a key role. Doug Weller talk 16:52, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: It would be practically impossible, and arguably scientifically irresponsible, to write anything related to the YDIH (let alone a review article) without citing papers co-authored by members of the CRG (if only because of their presence in the seminal work).

Sweatman 2021 cites 108 articles, West co-authored 24 of them, and was the last author on 5 of them (first on none). Excluding replies, those numbers go down to 85, 18, and 2 respectively (source). Of all of the 35 scholarly articles West has been a part of, he's been the primary author once, and the last author a grand total of 6 times; I think "frequently" is a bit of an exaggeration. Aluxosm (talk) 10:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Aluxosm you are really not assuming good faith here...

• You said that Sweatman had cited Hancock "in his papers". He had not. – no, I said that Sweatman has cited fellow travellers like Graham Hancock in his papers, and I have given plenty of examples of that above.
• You followed by saying: "I don't actually see any evidence that this 'review' represents anything more than the views of its single author." – I'm now wondering if you're familiar with what a review is in the context of scientific publishing? A review is not supposed to represent the views of the author, it is supposed to synthesise and summarise an existing consensus in broader literature. This is what makes them valuable secondary sources for Wikipedia articles. Sweatman's paper presents itself as a review but, for the reasons I've given above, in reality it seems go be a piece of primary argumentation in favour of the YDIH.
• Even in your most recent comment, you talked about there only being "a single citation from a real geologist" but ignored the fact that it wasn't just a throwaway reference – this makes absolutely no difference to my point, which is that a single citation cannot suddenly make an unreliable source reliable. Would it make a difference is Powell was a co-author? Yes, but... he isn't?

I don't want to be condescending but if you don't understand a point I've made maybe ask me to clarify it instead of assuming I'm somehow trying to trick you or 'muddy the waters'? All I'm saying here is that this one source is dubious and can't be relied upon. I agree that the text would not have to change substantially if we removed it – which is surely a reason not to use it, if it's reliability has been called into question? – Joe (talk) 11:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC)