Petra,

We are arguing without a common ground. I'm sure your friends are warm, loyal and likeable people, probably more so than I am.

But saying earthquakes are predictable does not make
them so. They may be, they may not be, only time will
tell. Maybe geoForecasters will show earthquakes to
be predictable, although there is no evidence for that on the new site.

We can examine the effect of tides, and tidal forces do
not much influence when earthquakes occur. Cuddly
as Berkland must be, he's not right about tides, and we
have known that for many decades, since before he
came on the scene.

You say that Lowell "looks objectively at everything
and see's many correlations." However, from his
published work, which is almost entirely abstracts, we
scientists see someone who has never documented
a single one of his ideas to the point of knowing
whether it was right. His SRL editorial was nicely
written and charmingly idealistic, but not evidence for
the predictability of earthquakes.

If this board is about earthquake prediction, perhaps
posters should be tolerant of people seeking the right
answer.

John