Paul Orwin has been bugging me for evidence that asteroid impacts have actually had an effect on humanity in the past (the post in which this occurred is actually the lead for my Fox News column today). I replied that it was certainly conceivable that the biblical flood and other mythical catastrophes could have been the result of such an event.

Someone via email pointed me to this article at Space.com from November that says exactly that.

Thanks, Rand!
That was a very interesting article, and an entirely plausible argument. I guess we have another reason to get rid of Saddam, eh? As if we needed one.
Speaking of this issue of space rock impacts, I wonder if one reason that people don't think about it is the sheer enormity of the event. It is the same reason most people don't think too much about earthquakes when they move to CA. If you can't do anything about it, it is daunting to consider. Of course, it is at least plausible that we could do something about an incoming asteroid, but I don't think that most people understand that, and movies like Deep Impact and Armageddon don't help.

Does this mean we'll have to resurrect Immanuel Velikovsky?
Or at least his reputation.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Aubrey, Jr.

Nope. It's one thing to say that we were hit by asteroids. It's another to say we were hit by Venus. His theories remain loony.

I thought it was a near-miss.
Anyway, we ought to retire "velikovskian" as an all-purpose dismissal of catastrophism events.
Maybe we can say something like "not supported by evidence we currently know about", or "so dramatic that only Know-Nothings could possibly conclude it's true."
It appears that a post-glacial lake of enormous size in Canada broke its crumbling glacier dams and either diverted the Gulf Stream by tripling the outflow of the St. Lawrence, or by de-salinating the Arctic Ocean stopped the thermohaline circulation that is supposed to moderate global weather. After which we had a thousand years--so they say--of a near return to the glacial age. This is supposed to have happened about twelve thousand years ago.
And the Montana Scab Lands are the result of a similar process which might have gotten the attention of the locals, if there had been any.
It's interesting to see the professionals getting into the possibilities of Big Events as causes of major changes in human history and pre-history.

Sincerely,

Richard A. Aubrey, Jr.

Did you happen to catch the piec on Discovery Channel or TLC a couple of months ago regarding the evidence for "supervolcanos", one of which is Yellowstone and which last errupted some 400,000 yrs ago and was discovered when scads of healthy rhino bones, etc were discovered in Nebraska. Anyways, the last of these ocurred in Sumatra some 70000 yrs ago and corresponds with evidence of a major bottleneck in the human gene pool around that time. Incidentally, the Yellowstone supervolcanos have gone off every 4-600000 yrs for the past 1.2 mln yrs or so.

I'd heard of both of them. I saw the Discovery bit about the bottleneck in human progress. Scary.
Suppose it hadn't happened, forcing our gene pool through a keyhole.
What would we be like?
Or, if the few hundreds (?) or whatever they were had not managed to hang on. Were there sufficient hominids around to make another start?
BTW, your name and Flint have been together. Do you still live there?

Sincerely,

Richard A. Aubrey, Jr.

"BTW, your name and Flint have been together. Do you still live there?"

Oh, are you talking to me?

No, not in over twenty-five years. I still have family in the area, though.

I'll shortly (like tonight or tomorrow) be posting some stuff over on Arcturus recycled from some goodies I sent to Brink Lindsey when he incautiously expressed a desire to find out more about this topic. The gist of it is that Tunguska-class (and smaller) events are far more common than dinosaur-killers and could interact most unpleasantly with human civilization and politics.

Terrific discussion here, as always. I have caved in and permalinked to this site.

Well, should I hope so. After all, I gave you a link in my Fox News column last week. ;-)