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Web Site Selling "Earthquake Forecasts"
waytoomuchcoffee writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is running a story on geoForecaster.com, a site that offers 'earthquake forecasts,' for a fee. California is looking into claims that the site is practicing geology without a license."
Damn those SCSI drives know how to vibrate
They have a page for Snake-Oil too, I've heard that's a cure-all for gullibility.
They should be looking at PayPal doing bank practices but not being recognized as a bank. I think that'd benefit more people than going after a forecasting site. Though, I have no problems with doing both.
California is looking into claims that the site is practicing geology without a license. If you let people practice geology without a license, The terrorists have already won.
Sounds like typical snake oil salesmen to me. But I wonder, why on earth do you need a license to practice geology?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
I had exactly the same problem here in NZ. My father consulted for mining groups for several years, and was caught for practicing without a license. While he was as trained as anyone working in the field, the fines (based on his income for the previous decade) were enough to destroy his business.
It sucks
I forecast that this company will go out of business at 2.5 on the Enron scale.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
"practicing geology without a license"?!? Does that mean that the local rock & mineral club, of which I'm a member, could be violating laws when we go out and study the local terrain, searching for specimens?
I'm glad I don't live in California. I'd hate to learn that my checking the webicorders could be illegal.
Lemon curry?
Is that a joke or what, I am astounded that there is a law against someone "practicing geology without a license", I'm interested, what does it take to get a "geology license", how much does it cost? What if someone in japan hosted a site predicting earthquakes in california, what then? This whole thing seems rather bizarre to me.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
You people act like you've never seen a scam before.
Be sure to send me your credit card information so you can be billed the $9.95 you owe me for this information.
Unfortunately, the reality is increasingly that many in the scientific profession achieve success by attracting public attention, the public often being a poor judge of true innovation. Why? Because if you aren't making wild claims, CNN just doesn't care, and how does a Professor that has made a genuine contribution to their field compete with an idiot that is on CNN every second day?
There are those that have made a career out of telling the media what they want to hear. People who gladly accept publicity even when their self-aggrandization hurts serious research in their field.
For the perfect example, learn a little about the career of Kevin Warwick, the UK's foremost pseudo-scientist.
Science and academia are increasingly a joke. For some time now, it has been more about public image than genuine contribution to the human understanding of the world around them.
slashdot.org has received a warning from regulators who have alleged that the service is a sham and amounts to wilful Denial Of Service attacks.
Our proprietary methodology is based on a combination of published research and our own in-house research, which has been under development for the past three decades. We use a multitude of techniques to derive our forecasts and take a global approach in our models. There is simply no way to accurately and reliably forecast earthquakes using a single methodology.
Meaning, there is simply no way to accurately and reliably forecast earthquakes at all.
The NEIC gives you all the data you need to predict your own Earthquake as accurately as any other internet-diploma geologist.
That's like living in Vancouver or Seattle and paying for a weather forcast that tells you it's going to rain.
Sounds like this is geared more towards professional geologists than amateurs.
... we'll need to say IANAG, if California
cracks down on them for not being geologists.
to practice geology. Only a head full of rocks.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
My dog got freaky one day and hid under my desk for no apparent reason. Later, there was a small earthquake. Ever since, I've been issuing 'Brown Alerts' (her fur is brown) whenever she hides under the desk.
I didn't realize that her lack of a license was a reason to discredit her. *sigh* I'm really disappointed.
Anyone who has any basic knowledge of geology can predict where an earthquake is to occur. Siesmic gaps, the frequency of large quakes along specific fault zones, the actual types of fault zones. Facts: Large earthquakes occur along sliping faults like Western American coast. Larger quakes occur along subduction zones, where the plates slide under each other, such as lower north america, japan and northern india. We know where this stuff happens. It's just a matter of when. San Francisco is 10 years overdue for a magnitude 6-9. I've got my flashlights and water!
I'm skeptical, but it seems to me as if they've made it easy to test the accuracy of their claims. All we need is for one person to subscribe to their service, record all of their predictions for a few weeks, then compare it to public earthquake data from USGS.
Be sure to check that they don't change any of their data after the fact - i.e. that their archive of past forecasts really does match what they predicted. Also, make sure that the "updates" they make to each forecast aren't too dramatic - if the forecast says that there'll be an earthquake here in one week, but tomorrow the forecast says it will actually be 300 miles away from here, then it's a lot less useful as a resource.
Reading through their site, they certainly don't show many of the typical warning signs of a scam. Sure, it would be nice if they published their methodology, but it doesn't really matter. We can test the accuracy of their system as a "black box" without their cooperation, simply by comparing their forecasts to reality.
That said, here are my main concerns:
1. They claim 90% accuracy of earthquakes magnitude 6.5 and higher. Their sample period is three years - how many 6.5+ earthquakes have there been since 2000? Also, does this mean that of all earthquakes that did happen, they predicted them with 90% accuracy, or that of the earthquakes they forecast, they were 90% accurate? With the latter interpretation, they wouldn't be penalized for earthquakes they didn't forecast at all.
2. They give themselves a near-perfect score if they underestimate the magnitude of an earthquake. Is this reasonable? Should they get credit for forecasting a 2.5-3.5 earthquake if a 5.5 hits? Or a 7.5?
3. After the first time they forecast an event (up to a year in advance!) they update their prediction daily. After the predicted time window has passed, do they score themselves based on the most recent prediction, or based on the first prediction? One could imagine that their methodology really does work - but only two days in advance. To make it seem like they can predict much farther in advance, they just make up random predictions and update them daily, changing the closest random prediction two days before a "real" prediction says an event will occur.
I wonder if the real issue is not that they are practicing geology, in the sense that school science clubs and hobbyists do, but rather in the sense that they are selling their "findings', claim to know what they're doing, and yet don't seem to have any sort of certification, licensing, or references to prove it.
Believe it or not, a lot of different factors go into choosing a site for a major building. One of them is the stability of the ground. It's generally considered a Bad Idea to put 50 story highrise buildings on loose gravel. Thus, you need a geologist to conduct a survey and figure out whether the ground can support the weight of your planned construction. If you don't take that step, your new building might start looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
I can understand needing a licence to practice medicine or do brain surgery, because you could kill someone.. or even a licence to be an architect or a lawyer because you could seriously injure or screw people up if you go wrong.
But doing scientific research into the planet? What is there to screw up there? Measuring some vibrations is hardly life-threatening, even if the quake turns out to be.
Watch out, they'll make you get a licence to be able to program soon.
mogorific carpentry experiments
But governments aren't skilled professionals, they're organizations that threaten to use force on people who disobey them. That may be an appropriate thing to do for stopping rapists and murderers, but it's a highly inappropriate tool for society to use on unlicensed housepainters, or for people who want to operate businesses without paying protection money. Sometimes they're able to hire people who are competent enough to decide who should be licensed, but then sometimes they hire people like the bozos at the Patent Office. The classic argument for why they're necessary is licensing medical professionals - and while they _have_ driven lots of dangerous snake oil peddlers out of business, they've also radically raised the cost of medicine by limiting the supply of approved medical schools, thereby limiting the number of doctors allowed to practice, and by requiring many services to be done by full-scale doctors when a skilled nurse could do most of them just as well, and requiring that people get prescriptions from doctors to buy medicine when they're usually intelligent enough to make their own choices for most normal problems.
In this case, if the government wants to bust these guys for being a scam that's selling bogus services to the public, that would be perfectly reasonable, but instead they're threatening to bust them for not getting a state shingle on their wall.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
and we love you so much!
You obviously don't no a thing about the law, as is aparent from your post.
First off, the "unalienable rights" you are quoting comes from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The Tenth Ammendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Secondly, how can an amendment to the Constitution be unconstitutional? By definition it is part of the document and hence the supreme law of the land. Also, if you knew anything about law or government, you'd know that the 10th ammendment was placed as an appeasement to the states during the ratification of the Constitution. It has seen little or no use since the Civil War.
Next off, the state of California has made no claims to owning earthquake waves. Anyone can study earthquakes and geology to their hearts content and publish said reseach. However, the moment you begin trading your reseach and expertise for profit, the state of California has reserved the right to regulate that commerce. There is ample precedent for this in the law: lawyers, engineers, and doctors all have certifications they must pass before they can practice their profession. This is the guarntee the state gives its citizens that when they go out and get advice from a professional, they are getting someone with real credentials. Also, note that this is governed by the states and the states' constitutions, not the US Constitution.
Next time, know WTF you are talking about before you go trolling. Please don't compare rational laws and law-making to an Orwellian dictatorship.
ph34r teh p0w3r 0f th3 c0w
- a story from the Southeast Missourian website that features several quotes such as this one from Professor Nicholas Tibbs of the Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau:
-
this entry on the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics" website identifying a Michael J. Kozuch, Ph.D. as being a geoscientist "with active interests in Honduras"
- this web page listing Michael J. Kozuch in an academic reference to a geological map of Honduras.
- this web page listing him Michael as part of the GNS of New Zealand. The GNS, formerly New Zealand's Geological Survey, which was transformed into a government-owned company in 1992. Interestingly, the GNS website hosts the New Zealand Hazard Watch web page which provides "up-to-date information on volcanoes, floods, landslips, tsunamis, solar activity and earthquakes." The GNS website identifies Mike Kozuch as one of two project leaders of the Quake Tracker Development Team. Perhaps Michael used his experience with this development to try to make a website that was more financially rewarding.
My take? Present knowledge and technology cannot forecast an earthquake. In my opinion anybody that represents otherwise is incorrect...you can be the judge of the reasons for their statements to the contrary."You can't accurately predict earthquakes," he said. "The technology to do that doesn't exist. It sounds like a scam to me."
Michael J. Kozuch; Ph.D., Peace Corps Volunteer Geologist, Honduras 1987-1990; Seismologist with the Institute of Geologic & Nuclear Sciences (New Zealand). Honduras Expertise: General geology of Honduras, tectonic modeling and geophysics Current activities: Investigation of novel approaches in seismic hazard analysis and collection of geophysical information relevant to Honduras, email: m.kozuch@gns.cri.nz Mail: P.O. IGNS, P.O. Box 1320, Wellington, New Zealand, Tel: 64-4-473-8208 (wk) or 225 Country Club Dr., San Francisco, CA 94132 USA. additional information at: http://www.gphs.vuw.ac.nz:80/staff/kozuch.html
They "predict" a couple and then they use their secretly hidden devices to cause them.
Remember that "earthquake swarm" in San Ramon (a town of burb claves just over the hills from SanFran/Oakland)??? I think it made national news (my dad in New England rang me about it)...
Perhaps that was their testing of their "prediction" scheme.
So they predict a few, then the maybe "predict" an 8.5 for San Francisco if they don't pony up perhaps Venture Capital.
"Maybe you're safe, see? Or maybe there's an earthquake coming to your mudda's house. Or your kid's school, see? So let's see some investment here or we'll predict the penninsula back to orchards"
Have you ever tried talking to a reporter about something vaguely scientific? I agree with you that there are people in the public eye who make a living out of hyping up the media, but I tend to disagree with a lot of what you've said.
As someone who's had to talk to the media on several occasions about scientific subjects, I can say with some certainty that with very few exceptions, the media does everything they possibly can to sensationalise whatever information you give it. They can and do chop and change whatever you might say to put whatever spin they want to put on it, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Welcome to capitalism, where populist media determines public opinion.
I've seen lots of friends get caught out by this. It's easy to read people quoted in the paper as saying something, and assume they were stupid to say it. In actuality it's much more likely that the reporter's chopped out every second word and rearranged some sentances to get a desired effect as well as completely and absolutely ignoring the 95% of your conversation where you stressed that whatever you said was excessively unlikely. They will have done just enough to have quoted you completely out of context, but stopped mind numbingly short of mis-quoting altogether.
Geologists have yet to predict an earthquake. What are they afraid of - competition?
I predict a major earthquake in California within the next 10 years. Do I have to have a license also to say that?
Woohoo...too bad I didn't get this in my previous posting (see above). Check this out... this comes from the Earthquakes FAQ from the Quake Tracker website created by Michael Kozuch, the guy responsible for geoForecaster.com:
4. Can earthquakes be predicted?
It is possible to estimate where big earthquakes are likely in the next 50 to 100 years, based on geological investigations and the historical record of earthquakes. However, it is not yet possible to accurately predict the time and location of the next earthquake. A number of physical changes have been observed before some earthquakes, but the problem is that so far, no particular change has been noted consistently. Some scientists have observed changes in the earth's magnetic and electric fields, gas emissions, changes in water well levels, and changes in the levels of dissolved gases in groundwater. Other scientists have noted changes in the frequency and location of small earthquakes. A very small number of earthquakes have been successfully predicted. The most notable success was near Haicheng, China in 1975, where 90,000 people were evacuated a few hours before an earthquake that destroyed 90 percent of the buildings. The prediction was based on unusual animal behaviour and a greatly increased number of small earthquakes (foreshocks) that suddenly stopped. One of the animal observations was that snakes came out of hibernation and died due to the cold. It is now thought that this was caused by unseasonably warm weather. However, scientists wrongly predicted a major quake in Kwantung Province, and for two months millions of people lived in tents before authorities decided the prediction was wrong. Later in 1976, an unpredicted quake, magnitude 7.8, in China's Tangshan Province took 250,000 lives. It was the most disastrous earthquake this century. Since then, China has moved its resources away from earthquake prediction and into improving the earthquake resistance of buildings.
I find it highly amusing that the FAQ page of the website hosting his earlier project says you can't predict an earthquake. I guess he didn't read the page.
...astrology. They'll probably set up a 900 number next: call in and let Lady AstraShake predict YOUR earthquake future.
Government licensing programs are an attempt by various groups to get the government to give their members a monopoly and interfere with their competition. Occasionally they're done with good intentions, but they're still offensive to a free society. Certification is a different matter - if I'm hiring someone to do something life-threatening or risky, I'd want a skilled professional to do it, and certifications by professional organizations can help me make that decision.
As much of an anarchist as I am, I have to disagree with you. When my partner and I registered our business with the state of Washington, it was just a matter of declaring our classification, stating our size, and giving a physical address and other contact information. The reason? So the state government can send out tax filing information, so they can make sure they get their chunk. In order to do business, you have to let the government know you're doing business, and that's all the license amounts to.
In other businesses, though, the license includes a lot more important shit. For instance, not anyone can go into the mechanic business. You have to demonstrate that you can dispose of used oil and other fluids in an environmentally safe fashion (dumping them down the toilet is unacceptable). In the food business you have to demonstrate that you can prepare, cook, and serve food without giving out food poisoning as a seasoning.
In the state of california, I can see a definite interest for the government to try to filter out shysters in the earthquake business. Ever yell earthquake in a movie theater? Well, start up a business and pass yourself off as a geologist and start selling people "earthquake insurance" because your methods have accurately predicted a 6 point earthquake in the next 6 months. After 6 months of work, pack up and go to a different county or something.
Now, I don't like the idea of having a master list of who's allowed to do business in a given area, but with people screaming left and right about how this or that business fucked 'em over, what's the state to do? Have you got a better idea?
I know, the state shouldn't have to protect people from their own stupidity, but a good shyster does his damndest to convince people no matter who they are. And just for the record, I don't much care for the fact that states protect people from their own stupidity as much as possible.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Thusands of California rockhounds are being rounded up for questioning and detention without lawyers for praticing geology without a license. Sources closest to the source say the mis-information these backyard geologists are dispensing is just plain horrific!
-- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
I predict this article will be reposted as a dupe within the next 48 hours.
Quit it with the anti-California rhetoric already.
The majority of US states regulate their geologists (Washington isn't on this list, but Washington hardly regulates anything).
Do any states register geologists?
Yes. Twenty-six states now have registration or certification laws: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Puerto Rico also has passed a registration law.
California has more geologic activity in it's little pinky then most states have in their whole territory. Regulation and strict building standards is why over 30-million Californians can survive in Earthquake, flood & landslide country. The potential for fraud is enormous. As a homeowner, I'm glad for the regulation.
In 1989, a 7.1 earthquake in the SF Bay Area killed 62 people.
By contrast, in 1999 a 7.4 earthquake hit Turkey, killing over 30,000 people. Turkey has regulation, but doesn't enforce it.
Yes, their are many factors involved in these two numbers, but regulation saved many lives in 1989.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."