Sometime back I slammed an article about astrology and earthquake prediction that was published by DNA. Mr. Amit Dave who made those predictions works for the Mumbai municipal corporation. He read my post and sent me quite a courteous reply along with a list of probable earthquakes for the month of September.
Here is the list:
8 th sept 2008 - 7.2 on Richter scale
10 th sept 2008 -7.3 on Richter scale
15/ 16 th sept 2008 - 7.5 Richter scale
He is not able to give locations but is apparently working on fine tuning his predictions. As September rolls along I will keep you posted :-)
Update: Was September 08 Earthquake Month?
Hmm, given the frequency of magnitude 7 earthquakes, the likelihood of one happening in September is relatively high. So, without location specifics and given that any magnitude 7 earthquake will be taken by your astrologer to be an accurate prediction, what's the point? I had a guy after me for a long time saying he could predict earthquakes. I challenged him to provide a magnitude, an exact day and the location to within 1000 miles. He would never accept that, but everytime an earthquake happened he e-mailed me saying "Oh I forgot to send you that one".
ReplyDeleteCheers
Joe meert
Joe-
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you. this guy apparently had "predicted" the recent Sichuan earthquake, meaning he had given a list of 10 odd days in May when earthquakes may occur (no locations given) including May 12 which he took as "proof" that this method works. But they never want to submit their claims to any real tests. People get impressed by this trickery and as I wrote in my earlier post on earthquakes and astrology the media is all too eager to sensationalize it.
cheers
suvrat
Perhaps you should dig a few statistics and find out what is the probability of having major earthquakes in a given day at any location on Earth. Then one can use Bayesian theory to evaluate the probability of him being a scholar or a fraud.
ReplyDeletesir
ReplyDeleteThan you all fro observing my dates. IF it is only a fluke , YOU and I both have equal probability of success or failure
I will be little more specific in my prediction .Here are the time on the given dates
1. 8th sept 08 --0150 IST or 2020 GMT on 7th sept 08
2. 10th sept 08 ---1950 GMT
3. 15 th sept 08---0910 GMT
4. 16th sept 08-----2015 GMT
pl watch the dates and times
regards
Amit.J.Dave
sir
ReplyDeleteThank you all for observing my dates. If it is only a fluke , You and I both have equal probability of success or failure You can also give some dates randomly,which also have the same probability.
I will be little more specific in my prediction .Here are the time on the given dates
1. 8th sept 08 --0150 IST or 2020 GMT on 7th sept 08
2. 10th sept 08 ---1950 GMT
3. 15 th sept 08---0910 GMT
4. 16th sept 08-----2015 GMT
pl watch the dates and times
regards
Amit.J.Dave
Very interesting challenge but without specifying a location, it's not really much of a prediction - there were 12 medium to high intensity earthquakes in September last year ranging from 6.2 to 8.5 on Richter scale.
ReplyDelete______________
2007 09 02 - Santa Cruz Islands - Magnitude 7.2
2007 09 06 - Taiwan Region - Magnitude 6.2
2007 09 10 - Near the west coast of Colombia - Magnitude 6.8
2007 09 12 - Southern Sumatra, Indonesia - Magnitude 8.5
2007 09 12 - Kepulauan Mentawai region, Indonesia - Magnitude 7.9
2007 09 20 - Southern Sumatra, Indonesia - Magnitude 6.7
2007 09 26 - New Ireland Region, Papua New Guinea - Magnitude 6.8
2007 09 28 - Southeast of Loyalty Islands - Magnitude 6.5
2007 09 28 - Mariana Islands region - Magnitude 7.5
2007 09 30 - South of the Mariana Islands - Magnitude 6.9
2007 09 30 - Auckland Islands, New Zealand region - Magnitude 7.4
2007 09 30 - Auckland Islands, New Zealand region - Magnitude 6.6
______________
Therefore, unless the prediction is accurate to the same decimal point and falls within the same time period, it's easy to say that there will be a major earthquake around that time.
I'll be eagerly awaiting mid September to see which of the four predictions come true, if any.
Manu-
ReplyDeletesure. As Joe and you point out there are so many earthquakes of 6-7 magnitude every month somewhere on earth that its not surprising that "predictions" can come right once in a while.
cheers
suvrat
sir
ReplyDeleteAs you all have agreed that there could be major quakes in September 08 ,or for that matter in any month,why you people hesitate in giving three dates
regards
AMIT DAVE
Amit, unlike Joe and Suvrat, I'm not saying this is a hoax. I'm only setting up the qualifying criteria. For your prediction to be considered true, the earthquake should:
ReplyDeletea) occur on exactly the same date and (approximate) time mentioned by you
b) be of the same intensity to the decimal point as mentioned by you.
I look forward to seeing if the predictions come true or not. I hope you'll be around to respond in either case.
Dear Manu
ReplyDeleteI hope you are watching the recent quakes on 8th and 10th of September 2008.
15th and 16th of September 08 will witness yet major quakes
Let us not work blind folded in the name science
regards
Dave
Astrologer /Engineer
Amit, I'm not aware of the earthquakes you refer to. There have been earthquakes in Iran and Indonesia in the past week but not on the same date, time and intensity you had predicted.
ReplyDeleteDear Manu
ReplyDeletepl note Satara quake on 17th morning at 3.35 am ,vis a vis actual prediction
Amit Dave
Amit,
ReplyDeletePlease fill in the blanks below so that we can compared how accurate your predictions were:
DATE & TIME (GMT)
S.No. Predicted Actual
1. 07Sep 2020 _____________
2. 10Sep 1950 _____________
3. 15Sep 0910 _____________
4. 16Sep 2015 _____________
LOCATION
Predicted Actual
1. None __________
2. None __________
3. None __________
4. None __________
INTENSITY
Predicted Actual
1. 7.2 _____
2. 7.3 _____
3. 7.5 _____
4. 7.5 _____
sir
ReplyDelete6th 0547 -5.7 HIndukush
7th sept -mid atlanticridge
8th sept 0303 GMT -6.2-vanuattu
8th 1852 GMT 7.0 vanuattu
9th 1222 GMT-6.1 soloman
9th 2318 5.6 santacruz islands
10th1308 GMT 6.4 ENTRAL MID ATLANTIC
10TH 1100 -6.1 SOUTHERN iRAN
11TH 0020 -7.2 HOKAIDO -JAPAN
11TH 0000gmt -iNDONESIA 7.4
16TH 1115 GMT 6.2 TiMOR
14th -0000GMT 6.1 Timor
16th -0728GMT -5.8- Midatlantic
17th -0317 IST -4.9 Satara
regards
Amit Dave
Astrologer/Engineer
Amit,
ReplyDeleteSo these are 14 earthquakes instead of the 4 you had predicted -- yet none of them occurring at intensities matching those you had predicted and none occurring even close to the time you had predicted.
Moreover, all of them occurred at locations you had failed to identify.
When we know that quakes of these intensities occur somewhere or the other all the time, do you still want us to think you made a prediction that came true?
Based on the above, I'd say your predictions were a complete failure.
Sir
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. Few things to be noted
1) Why do we need 0% or 100 % prediction ?. Can not we have a smoth progress ?
2) 6.8 and above earthquakes occur roughly 20 to 22 in a year and not always
3) If i put it this way
Supposing if I give 36 dates for year 2009 Jan to Dec(ie 10% of the year) .This means there will be about 10% quakes during these days.
How if 90% of the quakes (6.8 and above) occur on these 10% dates ?)
Amit, there were only two earthquakes with intensities 6.8 and above out of the 14 in your list.
ReplyDeleteNeither of them fell on a date you had predicted.
As to predictions for the next year, sure you can try but as far as these predictions are concerned, they clearly did not come true.