Hi Pavel,

As I have stated many other times on this bulletin board,

The reasons that earthquakes are not being predicted are largely political rather than technical.

We could probably have had fantastically accurate earthquake forecasting programs developed years and more likely even decades ago for just a tiny fraction of the time and expense that was involved with the latest science probe that was sent to Mars – 2.5 billion dollars US.

I am fully supportive of those NASA science efforts and would not want them to disappear. But we can also afford to do the earthquake work.

The reasons that they are not being predicted are the following:

Scientists get plenty of training with adding numbers. But they usually get virtually no training with dealing with controversial topics. When they go out in public and talk about something controversial they say the wrong thing and get themselves into trouble.

One of the easiest ways to get into trouble in that manner is to circulate a forecast that says that there is a 100% chance that an earthquake will occur at this particular location at this particular time. Regardless of how accurate a forecasting program is, it can probably never, with present technology, be 100% accurate.

So, the forecasters need to present their data in terms of probabilities. But they generally don’t know how to do that in a manner that it doesn’t get people upset. And when people get upset they get mad at their governments. And the governments get mad at the forecasters.

The forecasters then go into hiding. Or if they remain in public they might change their tune to the popular one that says, “Earthquakes can’t be predicted.”

In a manner of speaking they are correct. Earthquakes can’t be predicted by people who don’t know anything about public relations for the simple reason that they will eventually say something in public that gets them into trouble.

So, why don’t the scientists learn anything about public relations?

It is largely a matter of laziness and personality.

Scientists stratify into different groups based on their personalities. Highly aggressive scientists might go to work for NASA where they could be involved with the expensive and high risk business of sending rockets into space. The low aggression, “knitting club” personality scientists go into other areas that don’t involve much risk or controversy. And unfortunately, most governments are trying to get those low risk people to predict their earthquakes for them.

Those people are demanding 100% certainty before they will agree that earthquakes can be forecast. Instead they should try to assume that they can be predicted to at least some extent, and use the best available technologies such as yours in order to forecast them.

Perhaps worst of all, there are so many of the scientists and technical people who are out there who don’t have any idea regarding how to forecast earthquakes in public without causing problems and who for one reason or another are not even interested in learning how to do that that they have created an “Earthquakes can’t be predicted” logjam. People who do know how to discuss forecasts in public are threatened or shouted down to the point where they at times have to even worry about their personal safety.

My own first official forecast was sent to a U.S. government agency on December 30, 1994, a little over two weeks before the city of Kobe, Japan was decimated by an earthquake. And I have circulated quite a few forecasts since then, some extremely accurate, some not very accurate.

As far as I am aware, there has never been a public outcry over any of my very widely circulated forecasts. No one ever panicked and left some city only to have the earthquake never occur.

So, forecasts CAN be discussed in public. You just need to know how to do that. Or, a person at least needs to WANT to learn how to do that. Most scientists can’t be bothered with such details. So, earthquake forecasting science has this giant international scientific community anchor holding it back!

When people tell you that you have to “prove” that your forecasting method works it means that they are really not especially interested in learning whether or not earthquakes can actually be predicted.

What I myself am doing is developing my own forecasting technology. And I am trying to help other people such as you and your colleagues with getting their methodology developed and approved. But at the same time I am also working on the real problem that is holding things back. And that is all of the international government and scientific community politics associated with this science.

These are personal opinions.