So…if we burn enough geologists at the stake, perhaps we can appease the Earthquake God.
Why not? Many folks want to do the same to climatologists over the predictions they are making…
I don’t know of anyone seeking to sacrifice climatologists, only fakes like Mann.
Akatsukami,
Why do you call him a fake? He has a tenured position, strong educational credentials and is well respected in his field by his peers. Or have you just been reading Rand’s blog too long?
So they are willing to send seismologists to jail if they cannot predict when an earthquake will strike?
Hey, no problem. Write me the check and I’ll take that job.
I hereby predict a 9.0 magnitude earthquake will strike every single spot in the country every single day for the next century.
Ok, put that sucker up on my government paid website, and I’ll be down in the corner bar, spending you suckers my money.
Sure we can. I predict there will be an earthquake. Just not with any precision.
Scientist who make claims should be held accountable for their actions. Some environmental ones with their claims could be charged too
IIRC, the convicted categorically rejected any possibility of an earthquake and at one point said that people should relax, stay home and “have a glass of wine.
False prophets have often claimed special knowledge otherwise hidden from ordinary folk, yet authentic science rarely deals with absolutes. Hopefully, punishment here will lead to future appeals to scientific authority to include the necessary caveats.
The first time I heard about this, I thought it was insane that scientists were, according to the headlines I saw, “prosecuted for failing to predict an earthquake.” As I dug in a bit I saw things along the line of what navytech said–it seems like instead of stressing the point that they couldn’t make predictions, and indicating that the slight tremors really didn’t help them make any prediction (as I am understanding it), they instead said things which convinced people there would not be a big quake. Essentially, they weren’t being ‘prosecuted for not predicting an earthquake,’ they were prosecuted for making a prediction (that there would be no big quake) which was flat out wrong. They certainly put in (I think) caveats, but the thrust of their message was ‘don’t worry, no big earthquake.’
It’s still crazy to prosecute them. But is the lesson here, ‘don’t listen to anything scientists say?’ Or is it ‘scientists are wasting a lot of time and money studying stuff and nothing useful to our lives and safety comes from it?’ Or is it ‘scientists should be alarmists?’ Or ‘scientists need to be much better at communicating uncertainty levels?’ Or ‘scientists shouldn’t help the government calm people down when there is indeed something to worry about?’
And is it or is it not the case that a big quake is more likely after small tremors, or is there no correlation whatsoever? I know that near a volcano, a volcanic eruption is more likely after small localized tremors.
‘Don’t be a scientist in Italy?’
When you treat science as a neo-pagan idol –as so many do– this is bound to happen.
So…if we burn enough geologists at the stake, perhaps we can appease the Earthquake God.
Why not? Many folks want to do the same to climatologists over the predictions they are making…
I don’t know of anyone seeking to sacrifice climatologists, only fakes like Mann.
Akatsukami,
Why do you call him a fake? He has a tenured position, strong educational credentials and is well respected in his field by his peers. Or have you just been reading Rand’s blog too long?
So they are willing to send seismologists to jail if they cannot predict when an earthquake will strike?
Hey, no problem. Write me the check and I’ll take that job.
I hereby predict a 9.0 magnitude earthquake will strike every single spot in the country every single day for the next century.
Ok, put that sucker up on my government paid website, and I’ll be down in the corner bar, spending
you suckersmy money.Sure we can. I predict there will be an earthquake. Just not with any precision.
Scientist who make claims should be held accountable for their actions. Some environmental ones with their claims could be charged too
IIRC, the convicted categorically rejected any possibility of an earthquake and at one point said that people should relax, stay home and “have a glass of wine.
False prophets have often claimed special knowledge otherwise hidden from ordinary folk, yet authentic science rarely deals with absolutes. Hopefully, punishment here will lead to future appeals to scientific authority to include the necessary caveats.
The first time I heard about this, I thought it was insane that scientists were, according to the headlines I saw, “prosecuted for failing to predict an earthquake.” As I dug in a bit I saw things along the line of what navytech said–it seems like instead of stressing the point that they couldn’t make predictions, and indicating that the slight tremors really didn’t help them make any prediction (as I am understanding it), they instead said things which convinced people there would not be a big quake. Essentially, they weren’t being ‘prosecuted for not predicting an earthquake,’ they were prosecuted for making a prediction (that there would be no big quake) which was flat out wrong. They certainly put in (I think) caveats, but the thrust of their message was ‘don’t worry, no big earthquake.’
It’s still crazy to prosecute them. But is the lesson here, ‘don’t listen to anything scientists say?’ Or is it ‘scientists are wasting a lot of time and money studying stuff and nothing useful to our lives and safety comes from it?’ Or is it ‘scientists should be alarmists?’ Or ‘scientists need to be much better at communicating uncertainty levels?’ Or ‘scientists shouldn’t help the government calm people down when there is indeed something to worry about?’
And is it or is it not the case that a big quake is more likely after small tremors, or is there no correlation whatsoever? I know that near a volcano, a volcanic eruption is more likely after small localized tremors.
‘Don’t be a scientist in Italy?’
When you treat science as a neo-pagan idol –as so many do– this is bound to happen.