Ken Ring.

I don't really blog that much. Mostly I only write something when I have the time to write about it properly, or I think something is important enough to have a rant about. This probably results in long rants that no one wants to read, but at least I feel better for getting it off my chest. Anyway, a lot of this post comes from other stuff I’ve written and read over the past few days.

Recently here in New Zealand we suffered a tragedy to our second largest city. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck 10km from the heart of Christchurch, levelling the city and killing at least 150 people (as the death toll currently stands - but this is almost certain to rise with roughly another 200 still missing). In times like this people look to superstition or a 'higher power' to explain what has befallen them. We saw this in Haiti and many religious extremists suggested it was merely God's wrath for Haiti 'selling its soul to the devil' as American evangelist Pat Robertson put it.

But, I digress. Here in New Zealand we have a gentleman called Ken Ring. Ken is a weather "predictor" and he uses a bunch of nonsense (mostly, but not exclusively the Moon) to make loose, vague 'predictions' about weather phenomena. Every so often Ken springs into the media limelight here in New Zealand, usually around a storm or some other phenomenon (such as this earthquake) that he claims to have predicted. You can find his website here.

If you’re willing to part with your hard earned money, you'll see the variety of tricks he uses to convince people of his unscientific and largely unfounded claims. Unfortunately he has claimed to have predicted the Christchurch quake, and has now sprung back into the media - sparking a huge media furore and another groundswell of fools believing his coincidental nonsense. Of course altogether too quick to forget the other 90% of the time he predicts things that never come true or simply gets wrong. You can see the interview staged by John Campbell here:

http://www.radiolive.co.nz/John-Campbell-vs-Ken-Ring-/tabid/439/articleID/18900/Default.aspx

This has become somewhat of a media debacle due to Campbell’s overly emotional, ill-handling of the situation, but he has since apologised to Ken Ring and invited him back on the show to properly explain his point of view (goodness knows why). Ring has declined that offer.

No doubt this has been debated ad nauseum, and thankfully information is pretty easy to find. In general, people of the scientific persuasion get worried about the likes of Ken Ring because he undoes so much of the grounded, evidence based work that they do. The biggest worry with someone like Ring is that the general public seem not to notice that he is doing all of this for money. Everything on his website comes with a fee attached, and so does his book. His information is not available for everyone to look at, unlike the GNS or any other scientist who actually does the work for no other ulterior motive other than the truth.

It is a horrible time for many in New Zealand, and it is a classic trait of a hack and a con man to crop up and feed off peoples' grief when times are tough.

Anyway a few things to note -

1/ Ring didn't predict this earthquake- he got the date & size incorrect, despite predicting an earthquake to hit most days in February, and the location vague at best

2/ His claims to have predicted this earthquake are a straight faced lie

3/ No geologists or meteorologists put any credence in his beliefs and theories. Not one...

4/ Most people who believe Ring have not done any reading about him, the subject, or even attempted to read his website (mostly a waste of time unless you're prepared to spend a few hundred dollars on his 'theories'

5/ This most recent quake was an aftershock, not a standalone earthquake - that information is for all to see on the GNS website (for free)

6/ The GNS make forecasts for the numbers of aftershocks (like this most recent one) on their website, which included broad location & magnitude (5+) predictions for the most recent quake

Anyway – some actual information... the next link shows some really useful stuff; like just how many earthquakes Ring 'predicts' and gets wrong. There is an excellent graph showing the lunar cycles and plotting all of the aftershocks against that graph - showing no real correlation other than coincidence.

http://sciblogs.co.nz/the-atavism/2011/03/01/ken-ring-cant-predict-earthquakes-either/

There is a great quote in the comments below as well:

"Ring has a ready-made market for his speculation not just because laypeople reject or don’t understand the difference between his work and science but also because no-one else is predicting earthquakes at a time when people would desperately like the claim to predict earthquakes to be a genuine ability. Ring’s positioning of what he does as “opinions”, not predictions, still enables him to make money and garner fame/notoriety, because he’s positioning himself where science doesn’t go."

The next link is a couple of experts replying to the questions around the prediction of earthquakes. The scientists do not refer specifically to Ken Ring, but that is who they are talking about.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2011/03/01/i-predicted-the-earthquake-scientists-respond/

Here's another good link on Ring's weather predicting 'skills' - this has abbreviated and extended analyses of Ken Ring's methods, and just how many major events and weather systems he has missed not only in New Zealand, but in Australia too:

http://www.sillybeliefs.com/ring.html

For me it keeps coming back to the money. Ring is not a scientist, he's just a public machine trying make money. Not entirely relevant but highlights the credibility of the man - he co-authored a book in 1999 about how to read your cat's future by reading the palms on their paws... I'm not joking here, he actually believes you can read a cat's paws, and is *still* selling that crazy book. You can find it here.

So when he's not telling us that Saturn's alignment is causing earthquakes, he's busy reading cat palms, or performing as a magician clown at children's birthday parties (again I'm not joking)... And this is a man that people are trusting over centuries of built up geological and meteorological evidence and method. It just baffles me - especially considering the fact that he almost never gets anything right.

Here's another article that, whilst not related directly to Ken Ring, talks about confirmation bias and the desire for people to dig out patterns and form their own opinions on things despite all evidence to the contrary. It's a little long but is a really interesting read, and is related very closely to this subject in terms of its psychology: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/09/11/the-texas-sharpshooter-fallacy/

The majority of people are willing to believe things that are told to them without gathering any actual information about it. We see it in so much crap all around the world... Conflicting religions, star signs, tarot cards, feng shui, mood rings & power crystals, psychics etc etc - the list goes on. People now think they can pick and choose what is scientific based purely on emotion and what they would *like* to believe - a classic case is this whole MMR vaccination debacle.

Anyway - the point is that in general the public are misinformed when it comes to scientific matters, and with things like earthquakes people are looking for a reason behind them. A method to predict them would eventually save them from all of this potential heartache, but that does not excuse lazy thought and acceptance of nonsense. The sad thing is most people don’t care and see Ring’s breed of profiteering as harmless, much like tarot cards and numerology. The simple fact is that he is a scaremonger and if people chose education over believing such bullshit, we would all be better off. It frustrates me greatly that people think they can pick and choose which parts of established science that they want to believe, based purely on emotion and hearsay... especially when all it takes is one step back from the picture and a little bit of investigation.