Chris Moore of the Comet Research Group rebuts Boslough's pseudoskepticism (updated May 2026)

Recently, Mark Boslough wrote yet another scathing piece about the Comet Research Group and the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) in the Skeptical Enquirer (he's a long time member of their college). 

The Problem with Inadequately Reviewed Fringe Science | Skeptical Inquirer

In it, he infers the YDIH is is worse than pseudoscience; he regards it as a massive fraud, similar to Piltdown Man x 100.

But the YDIH is actually a complex scientific debate that has raged for nearly 20 years and has pushed the boundaries of the science of airburst impacts. Ironically, (given the volume's title - see above), Boslough doesn't address any of these emerging scientific issues. Instead, he tackles the people involved. As aleady pointed out by James Powell in his "Premature Rejection" and "Pillars of Salt" articles,

Peer review and the pillar of salt: a case study - James Lawrence Powell, 2023

Premature rejection in science: The case of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis - James Lawrence Powell, 2022

Boslough's approach is itself Pseudoskepticism. It is not how we do, or should do, science.

The fact is, hundreds of articles in peer reviewed journals have published data supporting the YDIH. While dozens of articles, usually involving Boslough, have adressed their supposed deficienceies, including the most recent "Comprehensive Refutation",

Comprehensive refutation of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis (YDIH) - ScienceDirect

these apparently refuting arguments have themselves been refuted,

Rejection of Holliday et al.'s alleged refutation of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis - ScienceDirect

Rebuttal of Holliday et al.’s Comprehensive Gish Gallop of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis – ScienceOpen

In fact, most of their faulty arguments are based on poor statistical analysis, mishandling of data, straw-manning, poor logic, poor rhetoric, or other forms of poor scientific practice;

The Language of Opposition: A Quantitative Analysis of Four Papers Critical of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis – ScienceOpen

Geochemical re-evaluation supports cosmic impact rather than volcanism at Younger Dryas onset, Hall’s Cave, Texas: Reply to Sun et al. 2020 – ScienceOpen

In other words, articles that atempt to suppress the YDIH are typically co-authored by Bolsough (and/or Holliday) and of very poor quality, and this should be obvious to any scientist if they read more than just the abstract, while pro-YDIH papers are generally of high quality.

The fact is, the YDIH is a live scientific debate. Christopher Moore, an established archaeologists and member of the Comet Research Group, has published a response to Boslough. It is much better than my effort here, so please go and read it.

Pseudoskepticism Isn't Skepticism: A Response to Mark Boslough

Put another way, how do Boslough or the other critics explain how new evidence supporting the YDIH keeps on being found, exactly where it is expected, over and over again? This simply could not happen if the hypothesis were false. So claims of a reproducibility crisis are false - in fact, the opposite is true. The (few) early failures at reproducibility were made by a few critics who used faulty analytical and/or data analysis methods, as described in my papers with Powell and West above. And these critics don't seem able to back down, even though it is very clear they were mistaken.