If you have been reading the notes that I have been posting here and some of the responses made to those notes then you can see that people are not agreeing on very much. I have several degrees in the physical sciences. And one of them specifically involves the development of special investigative skills for solving scientific problems. I can work on just about any type of problem in any area of science.

I am fairly good at telling the difference between good and bad data. And if other scientists do not agree with me on something that I am fairly certain about then I usually correctly conclude that we are either simply not looking at the same types of data, or we are evaluating those data in different ways which cause us to come to different conclusions regarding their significance. In other words, we are trying to compare the proverbial apples and oranges.

If you lived in an isolated community in a southern region for most of your life you might have seen only citrus type foods such as oranges and grapefruit, and never something like an apple which usually grows farther north. And in order for you to realize what an apple is someone would have to describe it in detail.

This is essentially what I am doing with all of those charts, tables and research reports at my Web sites. They are describing phenomena which many other researchers say and apparently believe that they have seen and investigated in the past. But that is really not the case. If they had done this type of work then I am certain that they would be coming to the same conclusions that I am.

So, it is really a question of how much detail I have to provide before other researchers have a clear idea of what an "apple" is. And when I keep seeing people insist that they have already investigated this or that, all they are doing is convincing me that they have never received the very specific types of training that professional investigators often have which help them avoid drawing premature and incorrect conclusions regarding some subject.

APPROACHING DISASTER

I do not like arguing with people any more than anyone else. But you have to keep the following in mind here. We know that certain parts of the U.S. are seismically active just as many other parts of the world are. And scientists can undoubtedly state with a high level of certainty that at some point there will be a tremendously powerful and destructive earthquake in one of our U.S. fault zones near a major population center. They can state that because they know that as long as tectonic plates keep shifting etc. there will be earthquakes in those fault zones. What they apparently cannot presently tell us is when and where that next really catastrophic earthquake will occur. Perhaps it will not be for another century. Perhaps it will be in a few months. We don't know. But we do know that there will eventually be one.

It is my opinion that my earthquake forecasting research, and especially my earthquake triggering research could be tremendously helpful to our developing an ability to tell when that next major earthquake is going to occur. And since I already have a high level of confidence in my ability to tell the difference between good and bad science I do take note when people say something which actually has something to do with the technology I myself am discussing. But I do not pay too much attention to these endless claims that this or that has already been investigated etc. in part because I recognize the fact that people are talking about oranges while I am discussing apples. And for some reason they do not yet seem to realize that.

It you wish to debate whether there was ever life on the planet Mars or what caused the dinosaurs to become extinct then you can afford the luxury of sitting back and postulating endless lists of theories and never arriving at any definite conclusions. But when you are dealing with a phenomenon such as powerful earthquakes which can decimate an entire city, claim hundreds of thousands of lives in just a few minutes, and plunge the economy of an entire country into chaos then you cannot afford that luxury. It is essential that you be as productive with your efforts as possible even if that means not paying too much attention to other people's arguments when you are convinced that what they are saying is either simply wrong, or just does not apply to the specific subject which is being discussed.

However, if there is actually someone out there who can provide us all with a clear and believable warning regarding when that next truly catastrophic earthquake is going to occur here in the U.S. then please let me and everyone else know that. There are many other things that I and many other researchers around the world would probably rather be doing with our time than trying to advance the science of forecasting earthquakes.