In general I would agree with you on this but in Jim's case I believe he is either dishonest or deluded.

He's too good a scientist to not know his method is wrong. And he persists in it even when he's shown to be wrong. Not only that, he will claim credit for quakes outside his predicted parameters just to boost his score.

I'll grant he's not making much off of this and he's doing good work in increasing public awareness with his talks. But some of his flock believe his every word and that's just wrong.

Roger