Your comments are in my opinion pretty good indicators of how little scientists in general know about discussing important things in public. One of the best and fastest ways you can get into trouble is to go public and start bragging about some accomplishment. For every ten people who think you did a great job there will be one who is really angry with you for one reason or another. And those people can cause some real problems.

Perhaps the main reason that the science of earthquake forecasting is in such miserable shape is because every time some forecaster thinks that an earthquake is approaching he or she heads to the nearest newspaper and has the prediction published. The earthquake almost never occurs when and where he or she thought it would. And the forecaster gets into all kinds of trouble with his or her government for causing people to panic.

Back in January of 2001 there was a devastating earthquake in India. Some astrologer in that country reportedly decided that there was going to be a major aftershock on some day around February 1. And he went out and warned everyone. I thought that there might be one as well on the same day but sent my warnings only to India government personnel.

People got quite upset by the astrologer’s prediction. Many got out of town from what I remember. And there was in fact a strong aftershock on the day expected. But it just shook some buildings and frightened everyone. The astrologer got put in jail. And I later heard that he died possibly as a result of the events that had taken place. No one complained about my forecast. And I have an excellent working relationship with certain forecasting personnel in India.

The moral of the story is, “If you are going to say anything in public about earthquake forecasting or any other topic that is highly important to people, first learn something about public relations.” My own background includes that type of training. And it has been quite useful. When I get old and grey(er) I am planning to get a book written about some of the projects I have worked on. People who might have gotten upset by the material should all be sitting in wheelchairs in nursing homes by then.

In all of human history, no one has ever developed an earthquake forecasting computer program like the one available for downloads through my Web sites. If you can’t understand how it works then there isn’t much that I can do about that.