From sci.research Thu Oct 15 17:06:59 1992 Xref: utcsri sci.geo.geology:2975 sci.astro:27122 sci.research:3453 Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology,sci.astro,sci.research Path: utcsri!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!sarah!tyr.albany.edu!ss6349 From: ss6349@tyr.albany.edu (Steven H. Schimmrich) Subject: Re: THE TRUE CAUSE & ORIGIN OF EARTHQUAKES... Message-ID: <1992Oct15.144135.18866@sarah.albany.edu> Followup-To: /dev/null Originator: ss6349@tyr.albany.edu Keywords: Pseudoscience Sender: Steven H. Schimmrich Organization: Department of Geological Sciences, SUNY at Albany References: <2ADCC2C0.22668@news.service.uci.edu> Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 14:41:35 GMT Lines: 58 In regard to the four part series on THE TRUE CAUSE & ORIGIN OF EARTHQUAKES (AND THEIR PREDICTION) posted by lockhart@uci.edu (Jack C. Lockhart). I'm glad the above articles were posted. It's good to remind people that pseudoscience is still alive and well. A few pointers to recognize pseudoscience when you see it... - Using technical and scientific words in incorrect ways. Most of the psuedoscientists enjoy tossing around physics terms like field, vector, energy, quanta, etc. but few have any idea of what they're talking about. - Writing for the layman, not for people who can accurately judge the validity of the claims -- not many seismologists or physicists would wade through all of that pompous verbosity. It's obviously written for people who are not scientists. - No mathematics where it would be appropriate. Ever look at a seismology paper in a journal? It's all partial differential equations :). Using words and not equations to present a hypothesis like this shows that it is about as useful as anything anyone could make up off the top of their head to explain the cause of earthquakes (e.g. little gnomes live in the ground and their mining activities cause the earth's crust to shift). - Presenting one's self as the lone defender of truth standing up against the arrogant scientific community. They often compare themselves to Galileo and have delusions of grandeur. - Portraying all scientists as stupid, close-minded, oafs who wouldn't know the truth if it bit them in the ass. Or, worse yet, as people who do know that they are defending disproven theories but do it anyway because they are malicious, scared of the truth, etc. It's obvious that the author has never attended a scientific conference. Go visit a Geological Society of America conference sometime and just look at the arguments that erupt after the reading of some papers -- it's hardly a close-minded, monolithic community. - Overlooking obvious problems with his hypothesis -- why have these "massive quantities of electromagnetic energy" which cause large earthquakes never been detected? - Putting forth a complicated model to explain observed phenomena after the fact. Anyone can do that. Who cares if you can fit some celestial data to the 1906 San Francisco quake -- fit it to a large quake which hasn't occured yet and people will sit up and take notice! Well, you get the idea. I feel sorry for the guy wasting so much of his time and energy on worthless pursuits. He should go back to school and at least learn something so he can make a contribution to the world rather than annoy people and waste their time. But, after all, being a real scientist means you're probably not going to make some wonderful, revolutionary discovery like this (it's possible, but realistically most just plod along making moderate contibutions to their field of knowledge). My advice to the author of the posts -- get a life! -- Steven H. Schimmrich Department of Geological Sciences "Non semper ss6349@csc.albany.edu State University of New York at Albany ea sunt quae ss6349@albnyvms.bitnet Albany, New York 12222 (518) 442-4466 videntur."