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The “Pacemaker of the Ice Ages” paper by Hays, Imbrie, and Shackleton convinced uniformitarian scientists of the validity of the modern version of the Milankovitch hypothesis of Pleistocene ice ages. Spectral analyses performed on three variables from two Indian Ocean sediment cores showed prominent spectral peaks with periods corresponding to dominant cycles in earth’s rotational and orbital motions. Yet there are serious problems with this iconic paper. The assumed age of 700 ka for the Brunhes-Matuyama (B-M) magnetic reversal boundary, used to help construct age models for the analysis, has since been revised significantly upward to 780 ka. Also, the paper’s authors may have needlessly excluded nearly one-third of all the available data from the second core. This paper discusses statistical significance and the manner in which these issues affect the original published results. These changes dramatically weaken—if not completely invalidate—the argument for the Milankovitch hypothesis presented in this paper, even if one excludes the disputed section of data from the second core. This conclusion has tremendously important implications for uniformitarian dating methods and the global warming/climate change debate.
