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Perdicting Earthquakes

Drew has been so vague that he is leaving open almost any type of explosion happening in the USA to be interpreted as a hit for him. But unless it falls directly into one of his dates and places, it will be a miss. As he continues to expand the dates/times/locations, he lessens the credibility anyone will put on his prediction if what he has predicted comes to pass.

Look at his current prediction: 10 possible dates; a number of locations; and any type of controlled explosion other than in a quarry. He's even given a time of the explosion but says this 'might' be the time. That means nothing because it also might not be the time. At the moment, this is nothing better than a guess. We all know that, but maybe Drew thinks we don't. Even if an explosion happens in Ohio on one of the dates Drew has 'predicted', the most likely response here (unless Drew can refine his prediction to be more specific about the date and location) will be, "meh"
 
Man, you guys are funny. Sorry for saying plus or minus a couple days. I was just saying that because the earthquake that I got a hit on was exactly one day late. That was predicted a month out. So I'm thinking the further out I predict something the better chance it has to be off by a day or two. I haven't done too many of these to prove this time offset thing.

Wow Reno, so your saying that even if I get this first date right along with the time and location then that won't prove anything. That's really sad that you guys would be so blind to the possibility that something like this does happen. Believe me I use to think like you guys did but things have happened in my life that have pushed me into investigating things like this and it would be amazingly ignorant to ignore things like this.

Let me tell you a little story. Back when my mom was pregnant with me she worked at a bank. One day she woke up and had the strongest feeling that the bank was going to be robbed that day. She told my dad about it and he dismissed it. She told the bank manager when she went into work that day, that it was going to be robbed. His response was that they haven't even had an attempt in 10 years. But that day while my mom was at work the bank was robbed. As I understand the story she wouldn't wake up every morning and say the bank was going to be robbed. Just that day that it did happen. I would really like to hear how everyone here will spin this.

So again sorry for not providing more info about what might happen on the 21st of this month. But this isn't something that is easy to do. As for the 13th that just came and went. I said that I had been thinking about it for some reason. Whatever it was didn't feel to threatening to make me take down stuff around my house. There was an earthquake on the 13th down near Mexico, a 6.0. But since I didn't say what it was or anything other than I had been thinking about that day I won't consider it a hit here on this forum or even for my record.
 
Drew, there's a couple of things at work.
Mostly, the Confirmation Bias and coincidence (or the law of truly large numbers).

People have "premonitions" or vague feelings of something bad about to happen all the time. Most of the time, nothing comes of it, and no one tells that story. On the occasions when (as chance dictates) the premonition does coincide (purely by chance) with something happening, that story is remembered and repeated (and sometimes embellished and cleaned up to seem more like an actual prediction). So the evidence is distorted--no one remembers the misses, and the hits get exaggerated.

Here's an excellent essay about how to think of truly large numbers:

http://skepdic.com/lawofnumbers.html

There are so many people, and so many events that happen all the time, that it would be extremely unlikely NOT to have some pretty amazing coincidences happen with some regularity.
 
First of all, Drew, you certainly aren't able to remember if she said the bank was going to be robbed. The story may have been remembered differently and embellished since then.

A little over a year ago, I put on a musical written by Trey Parker. I had nightmares for weeks that Trey Parker was going to show up and we'd all have stage fright and embarrass ourselves in front of him.

We discovered him sitting in the audience on the second night of the run. Five minutes before curtain! In a tizzy we ran to the bar and did as many shots as we could before we went on. Our performance was the worst we gave the entire run. And a local snotty reviewer was there to witness and record it all.

Am I psychic?

Nope. It's just a very memorable "hit". It's been proven scientifically that we forget the misses, and build on the hits.

I grew up a woo. My family has a very long tradition of cold reading, though they preferred to be called gypsy card readers and mediums. No one, to my knowledge, knew what they were doing was cold reading--they were sincere in their belief. We all have an amazing knack for it. Yet, all of the living woos in the family lived in the San Fernando Valley during the Northridge quake, not one of us saw it coming. Not one of us saw September 11th coming. My mother and I didn't know my brother had died until he'd been reduced to ashes in an urn for over a year. Yet to this day she believes we're all psychic.
 
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Drew599 said:
Wow Reno, so your saying that even if I get this first date right along with the time and location then that won't prove anything.
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No Drew, that's not at all what I said. Please re-read my previous post.

If you get the date, time and location right, then that will be worth studying. However, you haven't chosen a date. You have given 5 possible dates for the explosion, and 5 possible dates for the other thing that will be directly connected to it. You have not given a location: you have said it will be somewhere in the middle of USA. That is a helluva lot of square mileage. You also have not given a time: you said it might be 6:32 local time. (we don't even know if that's am or pm, so that's 2 possibilities)

So, Drew. If you'd like to predict a time and a date and a place, go right ahead.
 
You know Drew, given the huge area you have predicted for your explosion, I'd be pretty surprised if some kind of controlled explosion doing a lot of damage didn't happen on one of your 10 dates. I'm sure there will be a building demolished somewhere in the USA on one of those dates.

You really need to refine your prediction if you want any results to be taken seriously.
 
Drew599 said:
Wow Reno, so your saying that even if I get this first date right along with the time and location then that won't prove anything.
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I don't know about Reno, but my saying exactly that.

It would be interesting, and, as Reno says worth studying, but would certainly prove nothing.

If you refined and nailed down your prediction and nothing happened, would that prove anything?
 
Okay, when I say purposeful explosion. I should have just said that its going to be a bomb. It will be an attack. Now I hope that isn't too vague for all of you. Like I said before I hope I'm wrong about this because if this attack happens then there will be an attack with either more bombs or some very distructive device in a lot more cities all over the US on the April 19th date.

Miss Anthrope, I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your parents. But mine have no reason to lie about what happened. Both my mom and my dad have confermed the story a couple times over. Also my mom never forced this kind of stuff on me. We only started talking about it over the last couple years. Also if your doing a musical written by Trey Parker I'm thinking you had to know someone to get that. So the idea of him showing up isn't a very good example. More importanly how can that be compaired to a bank robbery?

So what would prove that ESP or whatever you want to call it for the sake of this agument, exists for you guys.
 
1 - A bomb will be detonated in some kind of attack on March 19th or 20th or 21st or 22nd or 23rd somewhere near the middle of the USA. It might happen at 6:32 local time.

2 - More bombs will be detonated in cities all over the USA on April 19th.
 
Drew599 said:
Let me tell you a little story. Back when my mom was pregnant with me she worked at a bank. One day she woke up and had the strongest feeling that the bank was going to be robbed that day. She told my dad about it and he dismissed it. She told the bank manager when she went into work that day, that it was going to be robbed. His response was that they haven't even had an attempt in 10 years. But that day while my mom was at work the bank was robbed. As I understand the story she wouldn't wake up every morning and say the bank was going to be robbed. Just that day that it did happen. I would really like to hear how everyone here will spin this.
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Drew, this is a perfect example of the danger of believing in woo. Your mother worked in the bank and therefore had a good subconscious feel for the normal behavior of the patrons. One day, or even over a few days she subconsciously observed an odd behavior by one or more patrons that did not register consciously. At night when her mind was free to replay the recent memories, the behaviors were interpreted as the robbers casing the bank in preparation for the robbery. Because we have people making outrageous claims of psychic predictions this real dream processing gets thrown into the same bowl. If properly handled, your mother probably could have reconstructed the events that led her to believe there was going to be a robbery and this could have been confirmed on the video surveillance tapes. The bank could then have possibly prevented the robbery.

You have said before that you want to have your power to help your family if there is going to be a disaster. But by believing in supernatural powers your family will treat you as sick, not psychic. Even if you had real information about a real pending disaster you are going to have a harder time convincing anyone to listen simply because of your beliefs.
 
I don't know what kind of relationship people on this forum have with their families but mine listen to what have to say. The earthquake I predicted was right by where my Dad was camping. I told him before he left on his trip to watch out and be careful because I had a feeling that an earthquake was going to happen. I told everyone in my family about the earthquake and they know that I was exactly 24hrs off by the date and time.

So now my family reminds me when my prediction dates are coming up asking what's going to happen and I tell them as much as I can. They also listen to me because I'm one of the most responsible and logical people they know. I know me saying that here in this forum doesn't mean much because I'm sure that most if not all think I'm crazy or something along those lines. And I'm sure someone is going to say something like, "Well there must be a lot of crazies in that area." Or something very narrow minded.

I also never got a responce back from any of you about Cognitive Sciences Laboratory and the work that they are doing there. All of the work they do is based on hard data collected from people coming in there and getting tested by monitoring heart rate and some other methods. I've gone there and taken the test and tested into the 40% of the people that go in there that have a preresponce. Its all done in a computer program and graphed out. The program shows that people that have tested into this 40% have a 3 second preresponce to a noise that is randomly played. I can understand that none of you want to go and check this out because it directly conflicts with your current beliefs. But I guess ignorance is bliss, right.
 
The only thing I'm interested in right now Drew, is logging your predictions accurately so we can discuss the results afterwards in a logical and responsible manner. Since you are one of the most responsible and logical people your family knows, you should be happy with this.

If you want to start chucking about ad hominems (i.e. ignorance is bliss), please wait until after your predicted dates have passed. To do so beforehand is illogical and irresponsible. There will be plenty of time to call us names later.

As for things conflicting my current beliefs? You should know right now that I hold no beliefs one way or the other. You show me proper evidence and I'll believe you. That's what we're attempting to do here - validate your prediction. You'll get my response about the work being done by the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory after your predicted dates have passed. One thing at a time Drew, one thing at a time, ok?
 
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Well there is your ticket to the million. If you could duplicate the testing that Cognitive Sciences Laboratory is doing and get a computer to turn on a light 3 seconds before a random sound is played, Randi would sign that check over to you on the spot.

But Randi's million is only the beginning. What you have demonstrated is a time machine with a 3 second feed-forward loop. This loop could be amplified using regeneration to any duration (subject to signal degradation). You need to stretch the loop out to only a few hours to retrieve the winning lottery numbers before the ticket sales are closed. A similar time loop could be used to profit from swings in the stock market. If someone were to setup a lab where they could convince volunteers to hook up to their computers they could literally roll in the dough.

But I digress.
 
Fair enough Reno.

Dan, I don't think I was clear enough for you reguarding the computer program. It records the participants heart rate in relation to the randomly generated sound. So its the person not the computer.

I'll have to remember that about the MDC and these tests. Next time I run into the guy that heads up this research I'll make sure to let him know. I'm sure that extra million could help his research quite a bit.
 
Drew599 said:
....snip
Let me tell you a little story. Back when my mom was pregnant with me she worked at a bank. One day she woke up and had the strongest feeling that the bank was going to be robbed that day. She told my dad about it and he dismissed it. She told the bank manager when she went into work that day, that it was going to be robbed. His response was that they haven't even had an attempt in 10 years. But that day while my mom was at work the bank was robbed. As I understand the story she wouldn't wake up every morning and say the bank was going to be robbed. Just that day that it did happen. I would really like to hear how everyone here will spin this.....snip.
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Not a spin, Drew, but a story of my own, and it's absolutely true:

When I was in college, I was asleep one night when a friend of mine walked into my room and stood at the foot of my bed, calling my name. I woke up and asked him what he was doing there. He said, "I came to tell you goodbye." I turned on the light and he was gone. Must have been a dream, I thought.

The next morning I heard that my friend had died in a car accident the night before. His spirit must have come to tell me goodbye because we had known each other forever, had gone to the same schools, and were even talking about starting a business together after we graduated. I had been visited by a ghost.

I told that story for many years, just that way, because it was the way I remembered it--very, very vividly. However, I have always kept a journal, and a few years ago when my wife and I were moving, I came across the journals I had kept in college. I read through the one for the year my firend died and found out that I had written, in great detail, about that strange dream. However, the journal showed that I dreamed it not the night that my friend died, but the night following his funeral, at which I was a pallbearer. I was not lying when I told people I had experience with a ghost, but my memory was playing tricks on me. Since then I have found how unreliable memory can be. This kind of thing (maybe not as jarring) occurs to virtually everyone.

Just something to think about.
 
Rodney said:
Really? Please explain how you could possibly "misremember" that you didn't have your dream until after your friend's funeral.
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I have no idea. At some point months or a year after my friend's death, it just seemed to me as if the dream had occurred on the night he died. I felt absolutely certain that it had happened that way. I told people about the dream as evidence that something really werid had happened. I would have sworn on my life that the dream had occurred the night he died.

But there in my journal the day after his funeral was the story: "Had a hard time getting to sleep after the funeral, and then I had the most vivid dream. T-- came into my room and stood at the foot of my bed, calling my name until I woke up. I looked up and could faintly see him in the dim light from the window. I felt cranky at being awakened and asked, "What do you want?" He said, "I just came to say goodbye." I turned on the light and he was gone. At that point I really woke up, and I actually had to turn on the light for real to make sure T-- wasn't in the room."

A year after that, I was telling people the dream took place the very night my friend died, and I honestly believed I was telling the truth. This is actually a very common occurrence. Memory is notoriously unreliable.
 
a question of probbailty

as some of the posters pointed out, since there are so many earthquakes everyday, it's really a numbers game/ statistics game.

for example, I can predict an earthquake will hit the USA today. (of course I'm right)

But the more specific you are (E.g. magnitude, exact location), the less likely this will happen. So if you get 1000 people who claim to have ESP, get them all to file affidavits predicting date X, place Y, magnitude Z, then wait for the event, you will quickly see that most of them are wrong .
 
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