John, You appear to me to be consistently missing the point here. That could be accidental on your part or deliberate. I suspect that it might be a combination of both.

From what I understand and as you must be well aware, a really powerful earthquake can release an amount of energy equal to that released by the highest yield nuclear device ever detonated by any country. And I believe that like most scientists you would probably agree that if you have a situation where that much energy is stored in a fault zone somewhere then there should be some type of evidence of that somewhere. And logic would suggest that it might be a type of evidence that we could detect and use as an effective earthquake precursor.

Most scientists would probably also agree that it would be logical to expect that at some point in time we will know how to detect those precursors and make good use of them. So, you could say that we are presently at point “A” in this process. Many people feel that we cannot yet predict earthquakes. When we do know enough about those precursors we will be at point “B.”

Everyone, not just the scientists, would probably agree that during the time interval between points A and B earthquakes will claim tremendous numbers of lives. We could lose a good part of a major city here in the U.S. And even if we are lucky enough to avoid that, earthquake damage to other nations around the world will undoubtedly continue to affect our economy in a negative way.

One of the most important reasons that I am posting these notes is not to insult people but to insist that my own data are clearly stating to me that we could probably be predicting many of our destructive earthquakes right now. The time interval between points A and B could be dramatically reduced in length. But we need to get moving in the right direction. And that is not happening very fast.

Good science requires that we look at things in detail and publish flocks of technical papers on the subject matter. But when so many human lives are at stake, taking that “safe” and slow approach is not enough. You have to go out and examine and try everything even if it does not at first sound reasonable.

Parts of the notes that I am posting contain technical information which is intended to help get things moving forward at a faster rate. With other parts of those notes what I am doing is publicly reminding other members of the scientific community that large numbers of people are dying as the result of earthquakes. And with what is I feel a suitable amount of restraint I am complaining to them that they are not moving fast enough to improve the situation.

If you feel that this is insulting then that is your choice. It is not my intent. But even if you do regard it in that manner I have to propose that perceived insults generally leave shallow wounds which heal rapidly. Earthquake related broken bones and shattered lives might never heal.