Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predicting Eart

[kiki5711]

But, I was thinking along the lines of looking at that "particular" region and it's animals. For example, before the tsunami hits, animals were seen running for higher ground. Hint, hint, being that area is surrounded by water and the animals running upwards into the mountains, rather than away from the mountains, gives some clue. If it was a volcano that was to explode, maybe the animals would not be running towards it but away from it.

[Faithfree]

this is something I'd have to study up on before I make a judgment.

for example:

When animals predict earthquakes

17 February 2007 by Matt Kaplan
Magazine issue 2591. Subscribe and save

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ON THE morning of 26 December 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. A herd of buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then turned and stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.

Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling the catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour across a menagerie of wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk along the beach. Could these creatures have been sensing early warning signs of the massive earthquake that triggered the Asian tsunami? It is an outlandish assertion, given ...

It's not that animals "predict" it, it's that they have natural sense to knowing something's up, or down, however you want to look at it. So, maybe instead of relying on machines to predict earthquakes, maybe they should be studying animal behavior in those regions in accordance to the climate and past known earth activity, and to keep diary of it all for future reference.

Stories about animals behaving strangely before earthquakes go back well before the Asian earthquake and tsunami. These are always anecdotal accounts that emerge after the event. While there are vaguely possible mechanisms that could explain this phenomenon (e.g. animals detecting increased electromagnetic activity), what is needed before this could be taken seriously as a predictive tool is a database reporting how often animals do something strange and no earthquake occurs, and how often an earthquake occurs when no animals were perceived as acting strange before the event.

[kiki5711]

My cat randomly gets the ghoolies and sprints from one end of the house to the other and back again. The only thing it is surely predicting is it's own mental instability.

my cat use to do that too. this is different kind of behavior especially for indoor animals or domesticated animals.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But, I was thinking along the lines of looking at that "particular" region and it's animals. For example, before the tsunami hits, animals were seen running for higher ground. Hint, hint, being that area is surrounded by water and the animals running upwards into the mountains, rather than away from the mountains, gives some clue. If it was a volcano that was to explode, maybe the animals would not be running towards it but away from it.

But how can we tell that they're running for higher ground because an earthquake is coming and not because one animal got spooked? Too many false positives to get any use from this system.

[kiki5711]

this is something I'd have to study up on before I make a judgment.

for example:

When animals predict earthquakes

17 February 2007 by Matt Kaplan
Magazine issue 2591. Subscribe and save

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ON THE morning of 26 December 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. A herd of buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then turned and stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.

Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling the catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour across a menagerie of wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk along the beach. Could these creatures have been sensing early warning signs of the massive earthquake that triggered the Asian tsunami? It is an outlandish assertion, given ...

It's not that animals "predict" it, it's that they have natural sense to knowing something's up, or down, however you want to look at it. So, maybe instead of relying on machines to predict earthquakes, maybe they should be studying animal behavior in those regions in accordance to the climate and past known earth activity, and to keep diary of it all for future reference.

Stories about animals behaving strangely before earthquakes go back well before the Asian earthquake and tsunami. These are always anecdotal accounts that emerge after the event. While there are vaguely possible mechanisms that could explain this phenomenon (e.g. animals detecting increased electromagnetic activity), what is needed before this could be taken seriously as a predictive tool is a database reporting how often animals do something strange and no earthquake occurs, and how often an earthquake occurs when no animals were perceived as acting strange before the event.

Exactly. THat's what I said before. The behavior would need to be diaried and data stored to see if anything pans out over the course of time.

[kiki5711]

But, I was thinking along the lines of looking at that "particular" region and it's animals. For example, before the tsunami hits, animals were seen running for higher ground. Hint, hint, being that area is surrounded by water and the animals running upwards into the mountains, rather than away from the mountains, gives some clue. If it was a volcano that was to explode, maybe the animals would not be running towards it but away from it.

But how can we tell that they're running for higher ground because an earthquake is coming and not because one animal got spooked? Too many false positives to get any use from this system.

I think it's kind of that feeling we get of "calm" before the storm. Change in atmospehere, the air, the wind, etc...different than let''s say a wolf comes around a bunch of sheep and they all start running haywire.

[pErvinalia]

My cat randomly gets the ghoolies and sprints from one end of the house to the other and back again. The only thing it is surely predicting is it's own mental instability.

They get the crazies when they're in the mood.

Yeah, particularly so, given it's a Burmese. The craziest of a crazy bunch.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But, I was thinking along the lines of looking at that "particular" region and it's animals. For example, before the tsunami hits, animals were seen running for higher ground. Hint, hint, being that area is surrounded by water and the animals running upwards into the mountains, rather than away from the mountains, gives some clue. If it was a volcano that was to explode, maybe the animals would not be running towards it but away from it.

But how can we tell that they're running for higher ground because an earthquake is coming and not because one animal got spooked? Too many false positives to get any use from this system.

I think it's kind of that feeling we get of "calm" before the storm. Change in atmospehere, the air, the wind, etc...different than let''s say a wolf comes around a bunch of sheep and they all start running haywire.

Again, confirmation bias. "I told you so." As for collecting information on animal behavior, it's been and is being done. That's one reason it's not being relied on. The data shows it's no better than random chance at predicting these events. (Purdue is heavily into animal behavior, being in a farming state, and I've spoken with some very frustrated researchers who have looked into this.)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My cat randomly gets the ghoolies and sprints from one end of the house to the other and back again. The only thing it is surely predicting is it's own mental instability.

They get the crazies when they're in the mood.

Yeah, particularly so, given it's a Burmese. The craziest of a crazy bunch.

Meh, my Muslims are pretty fuckin' crazy. (I know they're Muslims because they all have "Alley" in their name.)

[pErvinalia]

this is something I'd have to study up on before I make a judgment.

for example:

When animals predict earthquakes

17 February 2007 by Matt Kaplan
Magazine issue 2591. Subscribe and save

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ON THE morning of 26 December 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. A herd of buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then turned and stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.

Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling the catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour across a menagerie of wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk along the beach. Could these creatures have been sensing early warning signs of the massive earthquake that triggered the Asian tsunami? It is an outlandish assertion, given ...

It's not that animals "predict" it, it's that they have natural sense to knowing something's up, or down, however you want to look at it. So, maybe instead of relying on machines to predict earthquakes, maybe they should be studying animal behavior in those regions in accordance to the climate and past known earth activity, and to keep diary of it all for future reference.

Stories about animals behaving strangely before earthquakes go back well before the Asian earthquake and tsunami. These are always anecdotal accounts that emerge after the event. While there are vaguely possible mechanisms that could explain this phenomenon (e.g. animals detecting increased electromagnetic activity), what is needed before this could be taken seriously as a predictive tool is a database reporting how often animals do something strange and no earthquake occurs, and how often an earthquake occurs when no animals were perceived as acting strange before the event.

The other thing to consider is what would compel them to run up a hill? I can't imagine a behavioural mechanism that specific. Sounds like woo to me.

[Faithfree]

My cat randomly gets the ghoolies and sprints from one end of the house to the other and back again. The only thing it is surely predicting is it's own mental instability.

They get the crazies when they're in the mood.

Yeah, particularly so, given it's a Burmese. The craziest of a crazy bunch.

In that case if it suddenly behaved non-crazy it could be a predictive sign.

[mistermack]

Has anybody ever successfully predicted Earthquakes?
They probably have, because people make predictions all the time. Most turn out to be rubbish, but the law of averages says that some will be right.

What if the animals DON'T give a warning. Can we prosecute a farmer for manslaughter?

This puts seismoligists in an impossible position. If they predict an earthquake, and it doesn't happen, they are responsible for the complete waste of time and upheaval and even road deaths of a panic evacuation. So they could be liable for manslaughter.
If they don't, apparently they are committing manslaughter.

Their best bet would be to give out a calculated percentage chance of earthquakes every day.
That way they cover their asses both ways.

[pErvinalia]

My cat randomly gets the ghoolies and sprints from one end of the house to the other and back again. The only thing it is surely predicting is it's own mental instability.

They get the crazies when they're in the mood.

Yeah, particularly so, given it's a Burmese. The craziest of a crazy bunch.

In that case if it suddenly behaved non-crazy it could be a predictive sign.

I don't know. It's still a cat. In between seeing dead people, he just sits around and sleeps. But I must admit, he's getting less crazy as he gets older. His nervous twitch in his eye is possibly reducing in frequency and amplitude. Maybe he's starting to realise with time that the ghoolies aren't real.

[kiki5711]

this is something I'd have to study up on before I make a judgment.

for example:

When animals predict earthquakes

17 February 2007 by Matt Kaplan
Magazine issue 2591. Subscribe and save

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ON THE morning of 26 December 2004, villagers from Bang Koey in Thailand noticed something strange. A herd of buffalo grazing on the beach lifted their heads, pricked their ears and looked out to sea, then turned and stampeded to the top of a nearby hill. For the baffled villagers who chose to follow them, it was a live-saving move. Minutes later, the tsunami struck.

Since then, there have been hundreds of reports of animals seemingly foretelling the catastrophe - not just minutes, but sometimes hours and even days before it occurred. These include tales of bizarre behaviour across a menagerie of wild beasts including elephants, antelopes, bats, rats and flamingos, plus stories of dogs refusing to go for their usual morning walk along the beach. Could these creatures have been sensing early warning signs of the massive earthquake that triggered the Asian tsunami? It is an outlandish assertion, given ...

It's not that animals "predict" it, it's that they have natural sense to knowing something's up, or down, however you want to look at it. So, maybe instead of relying on machines to predict earthquakes, maybe they should be studying animal behavior in those regions in accordance to the climate and past known earth activity, and to keep diary of it all for future reference.

Stories about animals behaving strangely before earthquakes go back well before the Asian earthquake and tsunami. These are always anecdotal accounts that emerge after the event. While there are vaguely possible mechanisms that could explain this phenomenon (e.g. animals detecting increased electromagnetic activity), what is needed before this could be taken seriously as a predictive tool is a database reporting how often animals do something strange and no earthquake occurs, and how often an earthquake occurs when no animals were perceived as acting strange before the event.

The other thing to consider is what would compel them to run up a hill? I can't imagine a behavioural mechanism that specific. Sounds like woo to me.

To get away from the water. Obviously. why else? what part of this sounds like woo?

Surviving the Tsunami
What Sri Lanka's animals knew that humans didn't.
By Christine KenneallyPosted Thursday, Dec. 30, 2004, at 5:47 PM ET

Listen to this story on NPR's Day to Day Listen to this story on NPR's Day to Day.

Illustration by Robert NeubeckerReports from Sri Lanka after Sunday's tsunami say that despite the enormous number of human casualties—116,000 deaths and rising, at last count—many animals seem to have survived the tidal wave unscathed. At Sri Lanka's national wildlife park at Yala, which houses elephants, buffalo, monkeys, and wild cats, no animal corpses were found on Wednesday. (Yet according to Reuters, the human devastation there was as tragic as elsewhere: Only 30 of the 250 tourist vehicles that entered the park on Sunday returned to base.) Did Yala's animals sense the oncoming tsunami and flee to safety?
PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...REPRINTSSINGLE PAGE

There's a good chance the wildlife knew trouble was on the way. History is littered with tales about animals acting weirdly before natural disasters, but the phenomenon has been hard for scientists to pin down. Sometimes animals get crazy before a quake, sometimes they don't. Here's what we know: Animals have sensory abilities different from our own, and they might have tipped them off to Sunday's disaster.

First, it's possible that the animals may have heard the quake before the tsunami hit land. The underwater rupture likely generated sound waves known as infrasound or infrasonic sound. These low tones can be created by hugely energetic events, like meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, and earthquakes. Humans can't hear infrasound—the lowest key on a piano is about the lowest tone the human ear can detect. But many animals—dogs, elephants, giraffes, hippos, tigers, pigeons, even cassowaries—can hear infrasound waves.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Kiki, they noted that event because the animals happened to run in that direction and then the earthquake struck. If the earthquake hadn't struck they'd made no long-term note of that kind of behavior. It's like saying, "I believe in God, what proof can I find to support that?"