The "human" statistics of terrestrial impact cratering rate

TL;DR

This paper highlights that the apparent periodicities in Earth's impact crater record are largely due to human biases in age assignment, which must be considered in scientific analyses of impact events and mass extinctions.

Contribution

It reveals that the perceived periodicities in impact crater data are primarily caused by human-signal biases, challenging previous interpretations of impact periodicity.

Findings

Impact crater ages show significant bias due to human-assigned integer ages.

The perceived periodicities in impact records are largely artifacts of data assignment.

Scientists should account for human-signal bias when analyzing impact and extinction correlations.

Abstract

The most significant periodicities in the terrestrial impact crater record are due to the human-signal: the bias of assigning integer values for the crater ages. This bias seems to have eluded the proponents and opponents of real periodicity in the occurrence of these events, as well as the theorists searching for an extraterrestrial explanation for such periodicity. The human-signal should be seriously considered by scientists in astronomy, geology and paleontology when searching for a connection between terrestrial major comet or asteroid impacts and mass extinctions of species.