Don, I am going to try expressing this “credibility” matter in mathematical terms.

Constant = Interest x Credibility

What that equation says is that if you are trying to accomplish something in an area where there is a lot of Interest then you often do not need too much in the way of Credibility. Someone will take an interest in what you are saying and doing and perhaps help push the effort forward. For example, if someone stated that he or she had developed a cure for the AIDS disease I am sure that this person’s idea would get a lot of attention regardless of his or her medical credentials.

On the other hand, there appears to me to be relatively little Interest in the development of earthquake forecasting programs. And so for that Constant to remain the same, the Credibility variable has to be unusually high. In fact, it would have to be so high that probably no one could attain it.

A person who wishes to move the science of earthquake forecasting forward must somehow develop his or her forecasting program in a way that it will satisfy that equation. And along those lines, what I myself am presently trying to do is get a particular type of earthquake forecasting computer program developed. I believe that it would produce sufficiently accurate data that it would have a Credibility rating high enough to overcome that equation’s low Interest variable.

These are my personal opinions.