Yes, Roger - there is still, apparently, a flat-Earth society, but I've always questioned whether the members actually hold that belief or are simply enjoying being anachronistic and having some fun with the notoriety.

My point with Luke was to show that his flip answer to Chris' valid objections was easily turned against his own weak argument ("They said the earth was flat ... and it was "implausible" to be round" - in response to Chris' point that it was "implausible that Luke's surface temperature measurements were due to frictional heating at fault depths). Though Luke did make accurate reference to some very early flat-Earth theories, my point was that discerning individuals, with wide-ranging knowledge and education, put together several lines of evidence early on to reach the conclusion that Earth was round/spherical. Things such as the masts of ships appearing over the horizon before the hulls hove into view, the circular shape of Earth's shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses, and other evidence demonstrated the fact long before more sophisticated cosmological models destroyed biblical explanations.

In short, our knowledge of the world is gradually made more accurate by those with knowledge and observational skills - and, importantly, the ability to draw on many lines of evidence. Chris has that ability and was able to immediately see the problem with Luke's reasoning. Luke is the flat-Earther.

I didn't respond to Luke's Aug. 19 response to my questions since his points were non-sequiturs (as in the case of his answer to my question regarding his elimination of quakes not felt by >10 people), or simply unhelpful. At any rate, NE California during the period in question is notable primarily for its lack of any significant seismicity, and the prediction, as a whole, failed.

Finally, though I don't have the time to read Luke's webpage, if he is actually using land surface temperatures in an attempt to determine something about future seismicity he must be ignorant of the fact that surface temperatures are almost wholly climatological- and weather-related. There is such a thing as "heat flux" which, IIRC, is related to heat sources at depth, but that's a different thing entirely. And why would a fault which is not yet in failure mode be producing frictional heating? I suspect Chris had something like these objections in mind . .