ringworld theory

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:27:00 +0000

On Ken Ring's Earthquake Prediction

I'm somewhat of the same opinion as Brian Edwards over Campbell's interview with Ring. Later onto the interview he does end up looking like an ass and sets himself up for a sucker punch from Ring. No doubt this will draw more followers to Ring's site.

Despite Campbell's "stuttering" and shouting at his interviewee, he did make some good points; that Ring's predictions covered an awful lot of February (update: half the year so far). Ask me and it read a bit like a horoscope.

Ken Ring's writings are to be taken with about a metric ton of salt per sentence. The man will come up with complete nonsense, such as his theory that CO₂ can't possibly cause global warming because (amongst other, totally absurd reasons) the CO₂ molecules are heavier than the rest of air and so "fall out" into the ocean. And that this also disproves the ozone hole. Direct observation, on the other hand, shows otherwise, as described in a science history book, in 1950.

The silly thing is that there is a well documented scientific connection between the tidal cycle and earthquakes. I found lunar and solar triggering of earthquakes from 1990, a Chinese paper from 1994.

Then there's Knopoff (1970) which seems to make the point that the correlation is actually specious. From the small amount of Schuster (1897) online it seems to be making a similar case. This is probably what the GNS scientist was referring to in the interview.

I thought about setting up a website to test this empirically, but decided that it would be a waste of my time chasing the crazy theories of a demonstrably mad man.

The point is, that Rings writings tend to not reference, answer or consider the scientific literature. And that does his credibility an immense disservice. I decided after reading an American Institute of Physics science history book on global warming that basically everything he wrote about had already been covered by scientists before. I felt betrayed that I was being introduced to these arguments, as if they were new things and stupid scientists had just jumped to the wrong conclusion.

So by all means reach your own decisions, but I do recommend reading what the science actually has to say. You'll learn far more from it.

pages tagged earthquake

ringworld theory

On Ken Ring's Earthquake Prediction