Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Some geophysicist from UCLA claims there will be a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Southern-California by September/05/2004.

That's a rather specific prediction

If he's right, then he'll be hailed as a genius, perhaps rightfully so. On it's face, it reminds me of those predictions by doomsday cults. A more reasonable prediction would've been for a magnitude 6+ prediction within 2 years. You give yourself a lot more leeway with something like that. As it is, if such a quake doesn't hit by September 5th, he'll come off looking like a crank, which would probably be undeserved. After all, he has probably spent his professional life studying this stuff and is probably very knowledgeable on the subject.

I wonder if he actually made the prediction that precise, or did some reporter take a prediction of "six months or so" and put that date to it. The press has been known to do that sort of thing before.

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