Hi Petra:

That was quite a bit of clarification.

re:"A person who does not know how to interpret the tones can use the information and do so in an incorrect way and what develops in the end creates the wrong assumption."

Yes...I also understand from at least at least 4 or 5 others who have posted on other sites the variety and customization of some of the "sounds" heard and how they relate to one location. So from the "highest quality of use" standpoint, not having the original "hear'ers" custom info. may be a deficiency in coming up with a location. However, just having the rudimentary info. about a tone could still have some value in regard to similarity in duration, frequency, and time of the event (and location of 'hear'er').

As you know, "Proof" from a scientific aspect would likely require a high correlation "success" rate for predictions based on "ear tones" over a long period of time. Even 50 hits out of 50 preds (on Mag 5+) may not be enough to convince the die hard skeptics who would apply statistical tests to weigh out how well the method works. So regardless of the pitfalls (which may effect performance) the output of any method would be required to display a high statistical significance. In cases where a predictor did not have access to the 'hearer's' qualitative aspects of the tone heard...this may hurt their performance and therefore there credibility when making a prediction. So this pitfall kind of gets factored into the results / evaluation of the results and whether or not to have confidence in the predictions in the first place. The value of lesser information about the fact of an ear tone shouldn't be underestimated IMHO though...despite the pitfalls.

The "left ear tone is north / south" observation/conclusion is also open to further questions without having a large data set from which statisical tests show a significance for. (Maybe it's a left hander / right hander thing not a north / south thing?)

To what extent does the "length of tone gives distance to epicenter" fail ? These would also be useful maybe....

This is true about offering an explanation for everything. I think LW said that there are probably 50 things that can cause ELF waves to register. One would have to try and identify the list of all possible things this could be caused by and then try and negate each one accordingly (or successfully predict based on the tones Or both).

Without being able to explain everything...showing a high success rate still speaks volumes and could lead to more research answering the remaining questions. There may be an iterative process where speculations follow looking at data which leads to revisions in speculations (large or small) which leads to looking at data...etc, etc...

Yes...without knowing the track record of a predictor and understanding the method / process a person would be hard pressed to accept (or find useful) a prediction (from anybody).

I think one might be allowed some misses...sort of like the a weatherman.... I do think that mentioning using ear-tones as input and then missing predictions could lead to ROTFL-laughing- stock material though...(even without the "miss").

The gov't door is probably open if you have evidence and theory "in spades"...until then it will be a very hard sell. I think demonstrating successful predictions is definitely a way to show "evidence in spades"....

LOL...looks like somebody wasn't thrilled to get a prediction from you ?! What a thought...an email box fire....

Yes... I've gotten your clarification....

Do you and Don have a target date for your publication ? Just curious....