Do you think it has to do with that comet Elenin nearby? 7 strong earthquakes (over 6.0) and one major earthquake all in one week is a pretty busy earthquake week. What do you think, is it the comet, or coincidence?
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Not really - just more covered in the news.
In case poldi doesn't respond to your comment:
poldi was informing YOU that earthquakes happen all the time, so it doesn't make sense for you to repeat that to him as if he didn't know. If YOU would do a little research, you would find that "7 strong earthquakes (over 6.0) and one major earthquake all in one week" is NOT an especially busy earthquake week. What matters is the sum of how much energy is released in all 227 quakes.
If you want to systematically observe (without confirmation bias and without the media's sensationalist bias) the quantity and magnitude of earthquakes all over the world, visit this site (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/r… at the same time every week for one year and take a screen shot each time. Then scroll through all your saved screen shots in order for an animation of weekly quakes. I've done this before, although not for a full year, and it changes a little bit, but not that much. They do happen in cycles, or clusters, primarily because of after shocks and dynamic triggering from big quakes. There is no correlation with other planets, moons, comets, or asteroids - their gravitational effect on Earth is way too small.
It's true that scientists are wrong sometimes, but that is not a good reason to *always* take what they say with a grain of salt. In fact, when it comes to the opinions of experts about things they are experts on, you should, by default, take what they say with more weight - lots of grains of salt. That doesn't mean turn off your critical thinking filters and close your mind to other possibilities, it just means that expert opinion IS worth more than non-expert opinion. Of course professionals are limited in their understanding of some things, but not as limited as the non-professionals - by definition - otherwise they wouldn't be the professionals.
In case poldi doesn't respond to your comment:
poldi was informing YOU that earthquakes happen all the time, so it doesn't make sense for you to repeat that to him as if he didn't know. If YOU would do a little research, you would find that "7 strong earthquakes (over 6.0) and one major earthquake all in one week" is NOT an especially busy earthquake week. What matters is the sum of how much energy is released in all 227 quakes.
If you want to systematically observe (without confirmation bias and without the media's sensationalist bias) the quantity and magnitude of earthquakes all over the world, visit this site (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/r… at the same time every week for one year and take a screen shot each time. Then scroll through all your saved screen shots in order for an animation of weekly quakes. I've done this before, although not for a full year, and it changes a little bit, but not that much. They do happen in cycles, or clusters, primarily because of after shocks and dynamic triggering from big quakes. There is no correlation with other planets, moons, comets, or asteroids - their gravitational effect on Earth is way too small.
It's true that scientists are wrong sometimes, but that is not a good reason to *always* take what they say with a grain of salt. In fact, when it comes to the opinions of experts about things they are experts on, you should, by default, take what they say with more weight - lots of grains of salt. That doesn't mean turn off your critical thinking filters and close your mind to other possibilities, it just means that expert opinion IS worth more than non-expert opinion. Of course professionals are limited in their understanding of some things, but not as limited as the non-professionals - by definition - otherwise they wouldn't be the professionals.
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