You forget that the egregious hucksters on TV are televangelists.
But don't let that stop you from being condescending as to real scientists - it helps identify which luddites shouldn't be listened to.
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html The above link will take you to the Cambridge Conference
Network which follows such news.
Piser has had speculation of large craters in southern
Iraq for some time now. What remains to be done now is
to get in and get some core samples to narrow the date
range. I'm sure that the margin of error in dating the
age of the suspected impact crater is currently large
enough to terminate the civilization of your choice.
Thanks, always glad to help out. Haven't been called a Luddite in a while, feels real good!