© The Cosmic Tusk
I was not surprised to see the paper below this week in Science. I have read all of Mike Baillie's books, as well as Catastrophe by David Keys, leaving me feeling as though I had actually lived through the 6th Century.
The inescapable conclusion of the popular books and the hard science is that something quite horrid happened during this period. Dr. Baillie, one the world's most experienced and published dendrochronologists, has maintained for over a decade that the sum of all the evidence; tree rings, ice chemistry and (heretically) written accounts from the time, suggest that it was a horror from above - not below - that led to the worldwide decline of trees, global cultural upheavals, and human health reversals such as the Justinian Plague.
As might be expected, other scientists disagreed with Baillie's conclusion and instead finger an unidentified equatorial volcano for the misery of the era. Chief among these critics is Keith Briffa of "Climategate" fame.
Over the next week or two, the Tusk plans to dig more deeply in the drift of evidence for the ~536 event and it's cause. I hope to bring attention to what I believe is another attempt to brush away the reasoned conclusion of a respected mainstream scientist - Mike Balllie - by a group of thinkers consumed by an agenda that discourages free inquiry or alternative explanations.
Comment: Although there are good reasons to question the established theory of evolution the way it is described in this article (like the story of human migration out of Africa, for example), the reality of the situation is, that evolution on this planet, exposed to a periodic bombardment from space, was indeed marked by the survival of the fittest of the luckiest. And it looks like it might happen again...and rather soon.