Re: Extinction

[art@acc.com (Art Berggreen)]

>
>Sir, I am a physicist and I am afraid you are far off base with your above
>description.  Very, very, few physicists were among the "hordes of
>supporters" you speak of.  In fact Ponds and Fleishman were harshly
>criticized and ridiculed from almost the very beginning, though most
>physicists wanted to give them a fair shake at first.  They provided little
>to support their conclusions, and they employed more than a little hand
>waving.

Any opinion is handwaving until there is a carefully constructed theory
with data to support it.

>But the evidence for the impact theory is simple and straightforward: an
>impact occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period that created a 120 mile
>crater.  And the dinosaurs died out at the same time.  If there was no more
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To what time resolution?  It's possible that there the dinosaurs had
been gone 100K years before the impact, or lasted 100K years after.
I don't think the current fossil record can tell us that.

>evidence it would still be virtually impossible to not acknowledge the strong
>possibility of a connection.  

Sure, everyone is interested in the possibility, but an acceptable theory
needs a lot more than that.

Art