More Evidence For a Clovis-Killer Comet

fortapocalypse sends word that a new paper was published today in the journal Science on the hypothesis that a comet impact wiped out the Clovis people 12,900 years ago. (We discussed this hypothesis last year when it was put forth.) The new evidence is a layer of nanodiamonds at locations all across North America, at a depth corresponding to 12,900 years ago, none earlier or later. The researchers hypothesize that the comet that initiated the Younger Dryas, reversing the warming from the previous ice age, fragmented and exploded in a continent-wide conflagration that produced a layer of diamond from carbon on the surface. While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."

Comments

12,900 years ago?

[grub]

12,900 years ago? That's over twice the age of the Earth, you heathens!

Re:12,900 years ago?

[larry bagina]

didn't you get the memo? Barack H. Obama is the new messiah. HE has brought forth HOPE. HE will pay for our cars and houses. HE will create 3 million new jobs. And HE has totally ripped abs.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Roxton]

I heartily disapprove of this "play nice" rhetoric.

A few points:
1) Apologists like you prefer to think that the literalists are a small minority. A third of the people I know are young earth creationists, and I live in Massachusetts. 48% of the US public are young earth creationists. 16% of high school BIOLOGY teachers are young earth creationists. If you only get one thing out of this, let it be this: have some fucking intellectual integrity and stop understating the issue. Please.

2) You're right to suggest that an argument can't be productive if there's no common ground from which to argue. It is, however, insulting to assume that there is no such common ground. To suggest that the concepts of Bayesian inference, justifiability, history and psychology are not inaccessible to a deeply religious person is condescending to the extreme -- certainly far more condescending than the comments of the GP.

3) Your comment implies that there is no merit to demonstrating intolerance to bad ideas. That's a very popular conception, and I think that, as a liberal policy, it's been utterly disastrous. Now, clearly, it can be effective in a discussion or argument to assume that the other person is capable of meaningfully participating in that discussion or argument, but that's not the same as tolerating bad ideas. Cultural pressure is one of the great factors in meme progression and suppression, and it needs to be used.

When you don't believe in apodictic truth, it's easy to have reservations about sharing your ideas, because they aren't so much correct as "merely" good. Secularists need to sack up and realize that good is good enough to be loud. Timidity is not a good policy.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[leoaloha]

Mark 6:3 "This is the carpenter the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon, is it not? "

Re:12,900 years ago?

[_ivy_ivy_]

Interesting. What's the SI unit of religious zealotry, and what type of apparatus is used to measure it?

The Jihadi. It is nominally defined as the rate at which the zealot can destroy knowledge.

1 Jihadi = 1 Burning Library of Congress (BLoC) per fortnight.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Qzukk]

How many Burning Libraries of Alexandria are there in a Burning Library of Congress?

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Kjella]

You can't just leave it alone can you. You need to retake you statistics class again. And for religious zealotry it usually falls along the normal distribution curve. (...) You wonder why the radical evangelics fights so hard against science. Because the scientist want to mock them and prove them wrong.

Funny, I thought it was because when you do prove them wrong time and time again, people might start to question the rest too including the belief parts. That people have an incredible capability of cognitive dissonance and explaining away anything the parts that lead to conflict is fairly well known though. It's not just to mock, but it's to point out that it's sort of a package deal - you can't believe in half the commandments, the odd pages of the Bible or whatever. Far too many people simply cherry pick the parts they want, so that they don't have to deal with all the things that are flat out wrong and still believe that everything else is accurate. There's always a good excuse for why some parts shouldn't be taken literally or seriously which happens to fit your own opinion.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Culture20]

didn't you get the memo? Barack H. Obama is the new messiah. HE has brought forth HOPE. HE will pay for our cars and houses. HE will create 3 million new jobs. And HE has totally ripped abs.

I used to think this was a joke, but a journalist on NPR recently stated: "[description of economic woes ...] Is there any light at the end of this darkening tunnel? Where is what the Greeks called the deus ex machina -- the god who descends at the critical moment to sweep all our troubles away?
That could be President-elect Barack Obama [...]"

NPR says he's a god now, not just Limbaugh.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98912392

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Joseph Hayes]

You could also throw some cynical imagination in there, humility that we could all be completely wrong, and the Pagans had it right the whole time. Perhaps the Earth is a "living" entity in ways we don't yet recognize. And all the flora and fauna are just parasites, including us. There are an aweful lot of galaxies out there, and they all have planets. Can a flea comprehend that a dog, or human is what it is? I doubt it, it's just food, shelter, and a body to colonize and breed on. They inhabit the parts that are good for them, and avoid the places that they are likely to die. Much like us on earth. They suck blood, while we mine and farm. So while we see Earth as a beautiful place full of life. Other planets may see her as the filthy whore of the region, and use their gravity to throw rocks at her.... hehe Okay, that's a little dumb, but I think I've conveyed my message. Just wanted to put a spin on things for you all. I wonder what religion that makes me?

Re:12,900 years ago?

[anethema]

You're replying to a guy named "bigblacknigger". I wouldnt get too worked up.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone goes up to you and tries to open a religious flame war, just respect their beliefs

You know, I'm sick and tired of being told I have to play nice with religious people.

Why? Why do I have to respect their beliefs? Why do I have to pussy-foot around the fact that they're choosing to believe in an imaginary friend with absolutely no empirical evidence?

Sure, that's your choice... But why do I have to respect you for it?

If you tell me that you can fly, do I have to respect that belief too? What if you tell me that paper isn't flamable? What if you tell me that cyanide is a healthy supplement to have with breakfast? At what point does it become acceptable for me to call you a flaming idiot?

People kind of grin and chuckle at the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Flying Spaghetti Monster... But religions like Christianity are just as ridiculous. The only reason Christianity gets any kind of respect is because it has been around longer. So, in a couple thousand years, are people going to have to respect the beliefs of a Pastafarian? Or will they still be allowed to grin and chuckle?

And, of course, this respect only goes one way. We're all supposed to respect the beliefs of the religious folks... But they don't have to respect ours.

Religions are constantly trying to impose their beliefs on anyone and everyone around them. I'm not just talking about evangelists who just won't take no for an answer... Take a look at the big battle of Proposition 8 in California.

It doesn't matter whether I believe that you should be able to marry whoever you want...the religious folks think it should just be between a man and a woman. Are they willing to respect my beliefs? Are they willing to let atheists and agnostics and whoever else go around marrying who they want to, and just worry about keeping their own flock on the straight-and-narrow? Nope! No same-sex marriages for anyone!

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Dragonslicer]

Interesting. What's the SI unit of religious zealotry, and what type of apparatus is used to measure it?

The Jihadi. It is nominally defined as the rate at which the zealot can destroy knowledge.

1 Jihadi = 1 Burning Library of Congress (BLoC) per fortnight.

Would that make the Crusade the Imperial unit? And if so, what's the conversion equation?

Re:12,900 years ago?

[ScentCone]

Similarly, not tolerating bad ideas will eventually lead to a fight

You mean, like slavery? One group decides to continue to tolerate it, and another group decides not to. A big bloody fight ensues. One side wins. The intolerable idea becomes insignificantly present in the resulting, altered culture. Or are you suggesting that we should tolerate it, because it's gosh darn socially awkward to tell someone that they're wrong?

Liberal policy of live and let live is really all about the first part. You will never be left to live in peace unless you're willing to do the same to others

Yeah, except for the part where there are some people who consider the very act of you living the way you want to, peacefully, with things like daughters who are allowed to read and write, and marry who they choose... to be sufficient grounds to kill you. And your family. Can you really find moral comfort in that scenario by just physically removing yourself far enough away from the person who considers the nature of your day to day life to be an abomination requiring your death? Does your eager embrace of tolerance for every point of view include tolerating someone who doesn't tolerate you, and feels a religious duty to erase you from the planet?

You do realize that suppressing a meme requires oppressing the people who would pick it up or keep it

Or simply demonstrating in very plain, obvious ways that it's wrong. Or that embracing and pushing an incorrect world view or bad piece of information has consequences. Are you really equating a solid science curriculum that actively looks to shut down absurd superstitions in its students with Stalinism? Man, it must be exhausting to work so hard at moral relativism.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[fugue]

Very good points. I want to emphasise the target audience that you are discussing.

Telling a religious nutcase that he's an idiot, nay, even proving it to him, will never convince him to change his mind. Only the wise will change their minds after being shown that they are wrong. Yes, even if you show a religious person that Ockham's Razor makes a god nigh-impossible, he will usually fall back to "Probability describes only what you can infer given your data. I know that God is real, so your calculation, while valid, does not incorporate data that I have."

However, being intolerant of stupid ideas is still a good idea. While you won't convince religious people, you will have a good chance of convincing those who are on the fence, or who want to question but who have had their questions suppressed by family and "friends". Mocking religious people in private is generally useless (albeit fun), but I wanted to emphasise that public humiliation (cultural pressure) is a great weapon, especially when it has good science behind it.

The target is not the idiots. The target is their potential victims.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[ScentCone]

not tolerating bad ideas will eventually lead to a fight. Thank you for showing a good example of that

But you're ignoring the fact that the fight was necessary, and had the result of ending the applicability of the bad idea. The bad idea wasn't tolerated, and now it's gone. Tolerating the bad idea is tacit approval of it.

I don't think anyone's argued that you should tolerate people trying to kill you.

How about tolerating them moving into your neighborhood, and changing the laws under which you live such that the women in your family are no longer allowed to go to work, at the risk of being stoned to death? After all, it's just an idea. And if the majority of people in your neighborhood begin to hold that idea, why... tolerance dictates that you allow them to, right?

but getting the hell away from people trying to kill me has worked just fine for me this far

Would you say that it has worked for everyone in London? In Madrid? In Bali? In New York?

Actually, believing that the world is 6000 years old is unlikely to have any consequences.

You're kidding, right? You can't imagine the consequences to a child's life for having been raised believing in magic and nonsense? You can't see how that might impact the way they vote, the manner in which they relate to other people, or the chances that they'll become - by virtue of having been convinced that a plainly irrational world view is accurate - the very sort of intolerant, narrow-minded people you so dislike? No consequences for trapping your mind in the middle ages? Here's a consequence of that: the middle ages. And another: whole religious movements, which run whole countries and their militaries, that prefer the way they had things in the middle ages. The young earth loonies aren't any different than the "our prophet flew to heaven on a winged horse" loonies.

I'm saying that "using social pressure to suppress memes" sounds suspiciously like Stalinism

No. "Killing tens millions of people who didn't conveniently get with the program" sounds like Stalinism. Using your voice to shame parents into teaching their kids that the world isn't flat and that dinosaur bones weren't cleverly planted in the back yard as a humorous test of faith from On High - that's hardly Stalinism. It's getting people to grow up and stop with the Magical Thinking, already.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[FooAtWFU]

I think there are two ways you could go about things. The first is anti-religion. It's saying that religion is all a sham, there is no God, et cetera. Then there's another one. It is pro-science. I think it's more productive.

I think the greatest tragedy of the whole evolution/creation/ID mess is the confusion of these two stances. It's a tragedy started by the anti-religious types, but the anti-science types did a lot of work dragging the rest of Religion in it themselves. But you can be pro-science without being anti-religion, and there's obviously people who have reconciled religious belief with scientific inquiry, through a variety of means. Yea, even with ultra-literal Sola Scriptura Protestant fundamentalists, something can be argued; you can pull a Luke 20:25 on them and tell them to render unto Science that which belongs to Science, and give to God what is God's. (Those who never insisted the Bible was literal in every letter have it easier.)

Back when they showed us Inherit the Wind in middle school, one of the characters (a journalist, IIRC) had a small piece about how this was about nothing less than the freedom of thought at stake! But he was wrong. The trial itself was never about free thought. No one was under arrest, or fined, for thinking. It was about teaching standards. These are a potent issue, to be true, but free thought was not that which was addressed. And in these days, we have come to see in the great national debate (outside the courthouses and legislatures proper) that freedom of thought is under attack, but now it is the freedom of thought to believe in God, or intelligent design, or even young-earth 7-day Creationism. Oh, they may not be right thoughts, but they are free. And so things have come full circle. While it's easy to support freedom when most people are right, do we as a society really support the freedom of people to be wrong?

Disclaimer. I believe in God and not Intelligent Design (in the sense of any principles espoused by the movement which calls itself by that name) and not literal 7-day Young-Earth Creationism. I happen to like "Let there be light" as ancient analogy for the Big Bang.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[powerlord]

Interesting. What's the SI unit of religious zealotry, and what type of apparatus is used to measure it?

The Jihadi. It is nominally defined as the rate at which the zealot can destroy knowledge.

1 Jihadi = 1 Burning Library of Congress (BLoC) per fortnight.

Would that make the Crusade the Imperial unit? And if so, what's the conversion equation?

Yes, the Crusade is the Imperial Unit. Of course like most other Imperial Units it is out of favor world-wide except in the US.

As for conversion, they both start out from the same reference point, such that zero Jihads= 0 Crusades, and 1 Jihad = 1 Crusade.

After that the a conversion factor is needed since Crusades scale as per the number of vassals you have available and the number of Knights they are required to send forth, while Jihads are a direct correlation with relevant population as divided by the number of Zealots/Million.

In general the first follows a more linear progression, while the latter falls more into a Geometric progression (often offset by future population to the detriment of the involved).

[/humor]

Re:12,900 years ago?

[E 99]

I think atheism is just as ridiculous as you think Christianity is. Yet I think your foolish thinking makes you no less of a human being, deserving of dignified treatment. I think you should be given respect, and given platform to fully express your beliefs. I think this because when beliefs are clearly stated in a respectful manner, it is left to the light of reason to chose which is superior and which is inferior; and the light of reason favors the truth. The truth can stand under it's own power in the presence of anyone who desires it. It needs no help from me. It needs no one to shout down, mock, or silence those who speak foolishly. It stands on its own. If you had confidence in your own beliefs, I would think you would similarly extend those same courtesies to those whose beliefs you find foolish. If nothing else, everyone will think better of you for it. Difference of opinion is nothing to fear, except for those who fear being wrong more than they love truth. As Thomas Jefferson said, "Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth."

Re:12,900 years ago?

[jbengt]

But you can be pro-science without being anti-religion

I disagree. The examination and testing of assumptions--belief in "facts" only as far as they are supported by data--is pretty fundamental to science, whereas faith (ie. belief without proof) is fundamental to religion.

No, you can be pro-science without being anti-religion, and you can be pro-religion without being anti-science.
For any system of understanding, even scientific ones based on pure logic using facts supported by data, you have to begin with some axioms, postulates, or principles, etc. that must be taken on faith. Most religious people question and examine their religious assumptions, despite some religions condemning doubt. Science does not encourage all scientific assumptions to be examined and questioned, since you always need a framework to work within. So it would take a lot of work to overcome fundamental assumptions of science even in the face of good evidence to the contrary. Rational people in both fields (not that there are many people who are often rational) should be able to find a lot of common ground. Don't let the anti-science of particular intolerant religions lead you to conclude that science requires you to be anti-religion in general.
For what it's worth, you make some good points in the rest of your post.

Re:12,900 years ago?

[epine]

If I had a child, I'd be tempted to teach him or her to respond "my father taught me to be respectful toward people who believe in biblical horse shit".

I think we're right in the middle of a flood myth revival: the flood of data, genetic data. Unlike that blogging outfit, Adam and Eve made a *lot* of off-orchard backups. with some diligence, we might yet recover much of the original.

This time, however, the bible thumpers will paddle for 40 days and 40 nights, and the flood will not recede. This time the dove will land with a genetic scroll in its beak.

Curiously, one question I've never seen asked is this: how many genes present in the human population 7000 years ago (or 70ka or 700ka) have since gone extinct within modern humanity? How would one go about determining this?

It could be the case that we have an essential modern gene that converges on an introduction (fork) into the genome X years ago, but prior to X some other gene we no longer have must have been there, or the genotype would have been lethal.

Adam wasn't much of a poet, was he? Only woman in the known universe, and he doesn't even mention her eye color.

No, wait, he did, but some zealot wiped it out.

http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_8.html#zeilinger

Re:12,900 years ago?

[Renegade Iconoclast]

Personally, I have seen far more stark examples of this in so-called science than in so-called religion. It's the failure to stop and listen to the other side, and to try to think objectively, which prevents you from see where you are falling into the same trap of anti-critical thinking.

What exactly is it in the religious person's arsenal of beliefs that qualifies as "objective"?

It's precisely the lack of any objective reasoning on the part of religionists that causes all supernatural claims to be thrown out of the scientific window.

Look, you can have your philosophy, and we don't mind. We mind when you start saying we're the ones who lack objectivity. Given the shameful history of violent church suppression of inconvenient scientific facts, methinks the lady doth protest too much. How many religious people have been killed or tortured by Atheists because they said God exists? Can you give a single example?

The fact is that even if we found Jesus's corpse in a tomb, complete with a crown of thorns, and an official, contemporaneous certificate of death from Pontius Pilate, it wouldn't stop Christians from saying he arose bodily from the dead and ascended to heaven, merely on the basis of stuff written long after his death. That's what a lack of objectivity looks like.

As for me, if you can offer any evidence whatsoever for your claims, I'll examine it. If the facts warrant, I'll even start praying to Yahweh. First, you need to provide some evidence that Yahweh exists. Next, show me some evidence that An, Anu, Anat, Aphrodite, Appollo, Artemis, Athena, and Atlas, to name just a few of the A's, do not exist , because I want to be sure not to anger them, if I'm praying to Yahweh.

Go ahead and get started on that and get back to me.

Lonsdaleite

[mdsolar]

The NYT article mentioned some of the diamond is hexagonal: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/science/02impact.html

This is a type of diamond that seems to form when meteors enter the atmosphere and it a called Lonsdaleite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonsdaleite

This material is of interest as a replacement for structural steel since it can be formed in a simple manner using chemistry. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2008/01/anaximenes-way.html

Tunguska event had no crater

[Jason Quinn]

It's worth pointing out that the Tunguska event left no crater. Lack of a crater is not a major problem with this hypothesis.

Re:Tunguska event had no crater

[FooAtWFU]

They're actually investigating Lake Cheko as a possible impact site for a fragment of the Tunguska body. 8 km away, conical, pointed straight away from the blast center, seems (magnetically) to have a metal rock about a meter wide at the bottom (which the University of Bologna intends to dig up some time this year).

oldest event preserved in history?

[peter303]

Whats the oldest verifiable event or person preserve in human oral or written history? I think we get barely half-way to this meteor.

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[u38cg]

Sumerian cuneiform (sp?!) dates to something like 3500BC, IIRC a few centuried before the Egyptians really got going. So yep, roughly halfway.

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[Hognoxious]

What do you think cave paintings represent?

Need new club? Go to Ug! Only one bearskin. Bad credit no problem, one egg now, one each moon change one hand fingers times.

(YMMV, Where taboo, no go)

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[Guido von Guido]

Gilgamesh is older than that. It was handed down from before the pictograms that preceded cuneiform.

First, that 3500 BC date includes the pictogram phase. The characteristic cuneiform wedges didn't come until later.

Second, there's not any evidence that the Gilgamesh epic was handed down from earlier. The earliest versions of the Gilgamesh legend date from the third dynasty of Ur, beginning roughly 2150 BC. There is some historical evidence for an actual Gilgamesh, who is mentioned in the Sumerian king list. There's also some contemporary evidence for some of the other kings mentioned in the epic. If he did exist, he probably dates to around 2700 BC.

To be fair, the epic of Gilgamesh could certainly be based on older legends. There's just no evidence for it.

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[E 99]

I wouldn't say there's no evidence for it. The strong connections between the Gilgamesh epic and other, generally dissimilar mythologies, the best example perhaps being the connections between the flood myth in Gilgamesh and other flood myths around the world at the same time, is evidence of an earlier common connection.

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[E 99]

Evidence for the earliest temple mounds in Tallahassee points to 10,000 years ago.

Although there's not much in the way of writing from earlier than 5,000 years or so ago, there is overwhelming cumulative evidence, IMO, that the culture of that time originated from many thousands, probably many tens of thousands of years earlier. One large part of the evidence is the knowledge of astronomy at that time, and astronomical cycles on the scale of thousands of years. (Most of that knowledge was lost, before being rediscovered in more recent times.) Another large part of the evidence lies in the various mythologies. I believe that the earliest known mythologies contain an untapped wealth of information. Just as it is possible to data-mine DNA populations to determine dates of earliest common ancestors, I believe it is possible to do the same with mythologies. All that is lacking is someone smart enough and motivated enough to figure out how to do it.

Re:oldest event preserved in history?

[DerekLyons]

Although there's not much in the way of writing from earlier than 5,000 years or so ago, there is overwhelming cumulative evidence, IMO, that the culture of that time originated from many thousands, probably many tens of thousands of years earlier. One large part of the evidence is the knowledge of astronomy at that time, and astronomical cycles on the scale of thousands of years.

Which is utter horseshit. You don't have to have records through the entire cycle to measure the length of a cycle - all you need is the ability to measure the rate of change and a bit of simple mathematics. (For example, we know the earth's poles precess at such a rate that it requires 28,500 years to complete a cycle - even though astronomical records only go back something like 5,000 years.) It's also horseshit because if the culture existed earlier than currently believed - where are the artifacts?

Very true

[emasson]

I saw something on Discovery or National Geographic about a few days back.... The scary part is that they speculate on the size of that killer rock. Scientists believe now that its size was much smaller than expected. Meaning smaller asteroid/comet that was previously though trivial are now possible humanity killer!

Re:Very true

[foniksonik]

An event that could create a lethal environment for early civilization won't necessarily have the same 'impact' on modern civilization. The scenario described here is that the impact caused weather patterns to change dramatically which lead to widespread famine. These people relied upon natural weather for their survival (rainfall for irrigation, etc.) and while this would cause huge issues for any society today it's not likely that it would be nearly as widespread or as long lasting.

So I can tell the girlfriend...

[kaizendojo]

"Those aren't diamond chips, Baby...they're NANODIAMONDS!" Makes me sound less cheap.

The solutrean hypothesis

[Nicolas MONNET]

Just to point this interesting, if far fetched, hypothesis about the origin of Clovis people, based on the striking resemblance of their stone tools and that of those found from the Solutrean.
A friend who's studying archaeology told me about this. He's learned to make stone tools, and that made the connection quite appealing. The particularities that both techniques are not found in any other stone using culture.
Again, it's far fetched, probably not true but makes for a captivating story to get started in studying the paleolithic.

Re:The solutrean hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddamnit, not that hypothesis again. The paper in question that proposes the connection was authored by Bradley & Stanford, published in World Archaeology 36(4), and is titled "The north Atlantic ice edge corridor: a possible Palaeolithic route to the new World.". They propose a north Atlantic warm water current that would push solutrean tech users from the spanish peninsula to the new world. They base this on a hypothetical similarity between the clovis and solutrean points. There is no such thing. The best thing to come out of that paper is the monster put-down by Strauss, Meltzer & Goebel, published in the same journal a year later and titled "Ice Age Atlantis? Exploring the Solutrean- Clovis "connection"". Man, that read is amusing, and i heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to see the way to kick ass in academia.

Re:The solutrean hypothesis

[chill]

You know, I first read that as based on the striking resemblance of their stone tools and that of those found from the Soul Train. and went WTF is he talking about? Picks and platform shoes?

does Gilgamesh remember big flood?

[peter303]

Soem people postulate the filling of the Black Sea 7150 years ago. Or the filling of the Mediteranean about 15000 years ago. Thirdly, the end of the last ice was so quick that shorelines retracted miles in a person's lifetime then. There are some "100 year loads" in Mesopotamia that are pretty nasty and Giglamesh could remember some of those. Flood legends are common around the world along with floods.

If it Reverses Global Warming...

[sycodon]

...then hell, why not?

Please be careful when taking excerpts

[DiegoBravo]

From the slashdot heading:

>> While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."

From the article:

>> he said: "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained. But the impact hypothesis just doesn't make sense."

(bolds mine)

Re:Please be careful when taking excerpts

[CopaceticOpus]

While disputing the current hypothesis, NASA's David Morrison allows, "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained."

1. David Morrison disagrees with the comet impact hypothesis.
2. However, he thinks the recent discovery of nanodiamonds could have some other interesting meaning.

he said: "They may have discovered something absolutely marvelous and unexplained. But the impact hypothesis just doesn't make sense."

1. David Morrison thinks that the recent discovery of nanodiamonds could have some interesting meaning.
2. However, he disagrees with the comet impact hypothesis.

These have the same meaning. What is the problem?

7000 years?

[mdsolar]

There is speculation that a supernova from about 5700 BC may have been recorded in a drawing: http://www.tifr.res.in/~vahia/oldest-sn.pdf

That is not writing or oral but interesting.

Enough with the Area 51 crap, guys

[RobertB-DC]

Ok, I'm not from New Mexico myself, but what is it about the southeastern part of the state that attracts these crazy theories? Roswell, Area 51, aliens, and now you say a killer comet is going to take out Clovis. Geez, can't the state get a break? Sure, it's rugged and arid, but can't people just drive through there without making up some sort of crazy story? Or is there something about those hundred-mile drives with nothing on either side of the road but yucca and cactus that messes with peoples' heads?

Killer comet in Clovis. Next, you'll be telling me you've got a bottle of White Sand from Alamogordo on your shelf, and it's grown by an eighth of an inch just since you came back.