Chicxulub: A Consensus With Big Questions
An asteroid that killed the dinosaurs but
not the butterflies deserves skepticism.
Did dust from the Chicxulub asteroid impact kill the dinosaurs? (Nature, 30 Oct 2023). Artwork of an asteroid impact and suffocated dinosaurs collapsed on the ground accompanies this article. A team publishing in Nature Geoscience concluded that dust particles kicked up by the impact would have blocked sunlight for 15-20 years, killing the plants and leaving the dinosaurs with nothing to eat. That idea comes from computer simulations only, since the team did not have access to a time machine.
“We need to gain deeper knowledge of what caused the global cooling or the loss of photosynthesis in order to advance our understanding of the exact killing mechanisms that followed the Chicxulub impact,” says Senel. “This is the first time that paleoclimate simulations have pointed to a two-year suppression of photosynthetic activity and 15 to 20 years of dust-induced impact winter.”
The press release doesn’t ask important questions, however. Why did all the marine reptiles go extinct, too, but not the fish? Why did the blast leave birds surviving, but not any pterosaurs? Why are delicate butterflies and amphibians and worms doing just fine? Were there no refugia where some small dinosaurs might have survived on the far side of the globe?
The Chicxulub site has inpsired many renditions. That doesn’t make them accurate depictions of real history. For instance, the aftermath would not have looked like this at all. Artwork courtesy of Detlev van Ravenswaay/ScienceSource.
See my article at Evolution News asking additional questions about the Chicxulub myth. When all scientists agree, that could be the best time to be skeptical. It may be that all uncensored scientists agree, or all scientists subject to groupthink agree. Remember that ‘all scientists’ (we were told) agreed that it was a pandemic of the unvaccinated. All scientists agree on climate change, dark matter, and Darwinism. Real science is subject to debate and challenge.
