Dr. Prothero on Earthquake Prediction

I have avoided talking about the horrible earthquake in Japan because there are much smarter people than I out there talking much better science than I could. I found one example in this past week's eSkeptic. The article written by Dr. Prothero, a geologist and vertebrate paleontologist at Occidental College in Los Angeles, takes on one of the worst offenders of passing off lies as science.

Among those that got their 15 minutes of fame during the post-quake media blitz was a well-known crank, Jim Berkland, who got a full interview promoting his ideas on Fox News on March 17 (but on no other network). First, the reporter put up a map of the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and earthquakes around the Pacific Rim, pointed at Chile, then New Zealand, then Japan, and implied that this circle of quakes might end in California. Apparently, he never consulted a geologist, who would have pointed out that each of those regions is an entirely different type of plate boundary and they have no tectonic plates in common. Then Fox gave Berkland a full five minutes to spout his ideas, with the same credulous reporter tossing him softball questions, and no rebuttal from any other geologist or seismologist.

It is a good article and worth going to read the whole thing. I also want to note that Dr. Prothero is now blogging on the skeptic site so go follow him I am sure he will have some great posts in the future.

2012

I probably wouldn't have come across this had Jen, of BlagHag and boobquake fame, not retweeted it earlier today and I am glad she did. It is a blog post on Skepticblog by Daniel Loxton titled Children Waiting for the End of the World. In it the author says that the children of today are scared for the end of the world not because of fear of nuclear extermination, like the kids of the 60's-80's, but because of the fear the world will end it 2012. At the end of his post he says this:

What do we, as skeptics, do about that [children suffering from fear]? Step one is simply to internalize the same truth again and again and again: when paranormal beliefs burn out of control, people get hurt. Ordinary, smart, good people — people like your loved ones, and mine.

And then, we need to roll up our sleeves. With that in mind, I’d like to ask you to do something this week, something small: try to make someone feel better about 2012. Talk to a friend. Tweet a resource. Share a link.

Well darn it if he hadn't liked to the same things that I would have so I will share the link to his article (see above and what the heck here) but I will also link to the articles he linked to in his post.

The USGS on the "increase" in earthquakes

USGS earthquake fact and statistics

New York Times article by a seismologist

And finally a Skeptic magazine article "A NASA Scientist Answers the Top 20 Questions About 2012"

So continue sharing information and we can relax on this fear and enjoy your life because you only live once.

Michael Shermer's What I Believe

Michael Shermer the editor of Skeptic magazine, and eSkeptic online magazine, something I recomend that everyone subscribe to (its free), put this out yesterday. It is a good read and while I do not agree with everything he says I agree with enough to send it on. Enjoy

http://skepticblog.org/2009/09/08/science-and-the-power-of-humanity/