Hi John,

I think you danced around this one matter just a little. In hard cold facts, a person posted predictions here, in writing, in front of everyone, in a public place. They included everything that was required by the science community in doing so. They were not erased, not sent by e-mails or telegrams and cannot be altered once posted.

Thus the evidence remains to be captured and reviewed time and again. Therefore, it is only a matter of someone going into the archives and retrieving the posts and giving them to an evaluator for their opinion.

With those hard cold facts, a scientific evaluator who is not connected to the individuals can make a subjective determination as to the what the results show. But they are here. But, I think to be fair, as each evaluator works a little differently, it might be good to get three evaluations and see how each evaluator arrived at their conclusions.

Though I know to you geoForecaster doesn't fit your criteria as to how you would like to see the program, what I see from it is that this is the first of many steps that will follow in the years ahead. But the best part of the program is that it will draw public attention to prediction and rather warm them up to the idea that this may be in their future. And last, but surely not low on the totem pole, give them a reason to prepare for a certainty, in that one day a large quake will occur in a major metropolitan area in CA and we need to get ready for that eventuality. Not all so bad.

I would like to thank you for expressing your points of view on this important issue. I do like hearing from your scientific background as to how you view prediction and various methodologies. The dialogue I believe has afforded all of us here with the ability to think upon lines we may not have, without your input.

Petra