From: ss6349@tyr.albany.edu (Steven H. Schimmrich)
Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology,sci.astro,sci.research
Subject: Re: THE TRUE CAUSE & ORIGIN OF EARTHQUAKES...
Keywords: Pseudoscience
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:41:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: sarah.1992Oct15.144135.18866
Followup-To: /dev/null
Organization: Department of Geological Sciences, SUNY at Albany
Originator: ss6349@tyr.albany.edu


   In regard to the four part series on THE TRUE CAUSE & ORIGIN OF
EARTHQUAKES (AND THEIR PREDICTION) posted by lockhart@uci.edu (Jack C.
Lockhart).

   I'm glad the above articles were posted.  It's good to remind people
that pseudoscience is still alive and well.  A few pointers to recognize
pseudoscience when you see it...

   - Using technical and scientific words in incorrect ways.  Most of the
     psuedoscientists enjoy tossing around physics terms like field, vector,
     energy, quanta, etc. but few have any idea of what they're talking about. 
   - Writing for the layman, not for people who can accurately judge the 
     validity of the claims -- not many seismologists or physicists would 
     wade through all of that pompous verbosity.  It's obviously written for
     people who are not scientists.
   - No mathematics where it would be appropriate.  Ever look at a seismology
     paper in a journal?  It's all partial differential equations :).  Using
     words and not equations to present a hypothesis like this shows that it
     is about as useful as anything anyone could make up off the top of
     their head to explain the cause of earthquakes (e.g. little gnomes live 
     in the ground and their mining activities cause the earth's crust to 
     shift).
   - Presenting one's self as the lone defender of truth standing up against
     the arrogant scientific community.  They often compare themselves to 
     Galileo and have delusions of grandeur.
   - Portraying all scientists as stupid, close-minded, oafs who wouldn't
     know the truth if it bit them in the ass.  Or, worse yet, as people who
     do know that they are defending disproven theories but do it anyway
     because they are malicious, scared of the truth, etc.  It's obvious
     that the author has never attended a scientific conference.  Go visit
     a Geological Society of America conference sometime and just look at
     the arguments that erupt after the reading of some papers -- it's
     hardly a close-minded, monolithic community.
   - Overlooking obvious problems with his hypothesis -- why have these
     "massive quantities of electromagnetic energy" which cause large
     earthquakes never been detected?
   - Putting forth a complicated model to explain observed phenomena after
     the fact.  Anyone can do that.  Who cares if you can fit some celestial
     data to the 1906 San Francisco quake -- fit it to a large quake which 
     hasn't occured yet and people will sit up and take notice!

   Well, you get the idea.  I feel sorry for the guy wasting so much of his
time and energy on worthless pursuits.  He should go back to school and at
least learn something so he can make a contribution to the world rather than
annoy people and waste their time.  But, after all, being a real scientist
means you're probably not going to make some wonderful, revolutionary
discovery like this (it's possible, but realistically most just plod along 
making moderate contibutions to their field of knowledge).
   My advice to the author of the posts -- get a life!

--
Steven H. Schimmrich     Department of Geological Sciences         "Non semper
ss6349@csc.albany.edu    State University of New York at Albany   ea sunt quae
ss6349@albnyvms.bitnet   Albany, New York 12222  (518) 442-4466   videntur."
Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology