Honestly, this is a post I never thought I’d actually write but here I am. Many people I know and respect who are both intelligent and rational have begun taking the predictions of astrologer Ken Ring seriously when it comes to the predictions of earthquakes.

First let’s take a look at Ring’s theory: Basically Ring believes that the gravitational pull of the moon puts additional strain on fault lines during times of full or new moon, or proximity of the moon and this can lead to an “increased risk of earthquakes”. His theory is dismissed by all geologist and seismologist in the country, but as a result of his predictions Mr Ring has enjoyed a certain amount of media spotlight.

First the claim that he successfully predicted the September 4 earthquake. What he actually said was, that on September 6 the earthquake was “entirely predictable”. Of course it was, it happened two days ago and that’s not a prediction. Unfortunately I’m unable to find an online source for this.

Secondly he claimed success for the deadly February 22 quake in Christchurch in a tweet reading, “Potential earthquake time for the planet between 15th-25th, especially 18th for Christchurch, +/- about 3 days.” Now it’s interesting to note that even with his margin of error, and it’s a pretty wide one, he was off by a day.

Then there was his roundly criticised prediciton of a major earthquake on March 20, where he claimed that it would be “one for the history books”, that there was a “killer loose on the street”, and it would hit an east-west fault line which are only found in Malborough and North Canterbury.

On that date, we did have an earthquake. A 5.1M quake hit right in the heart of the eastern suburbs of Christchurch. It killed nobody, will only be mentioned in the history books as a footnote and did not occur in Malborough or North Canterbury.

But this is stuff that everyone knows, skeptics point to this as evidence that Ring’s theories are wrong, Ring and his believers interpret them as being close enough to correct.

To find out more, we must go to the source. I sat and read Ring’s website and tried not to let my gut reaction to physics defying woo such as “earthquakes cause fault lines, not the other way around” or “CO2 levels cannot increase because CO2 is heavier than air and sinks to the ground where it is absorbed by plants”. Instead I looked at cold hard evidence.

Take this for example, Ring claims this is evidence that his moon-earthquake coorelation theory is correct.

On the below list of all of the major earthquakes in New Zealand since 1843, we list the phase of the moon when the earthquakes occurred. Of the 28 EQs listed, full moon or new moon within four days featured 19 times, or nearly 70%. 

First of all, 19 times out of 28 earthquakes is 68%, let’s deal with accurate numbers and not round them up hmm? Now, the moon has approximately a 29 day cycle, it actually varies throughout the year but 29 is a reasonable average. If we take the days of the full and new moon, and add four days either side as Ring does, we get two windows of nine days where the risk of earthquakes is “elevated”, or a total of 18 days out of 29, or 62% of the moon’s cycle. So 68% of our most significant earthquakes occured during 62% of the moon’s cycle? That’s as bad as saying that 20% of all sick leave is taken on a Friday.

Finally I did some analysis myself, comparing every earthquake this year up to March 25 (there were 4550 of them) with the age of the moon. This begins at 0 on the new moon and goes up to 28 the day before the next new moon. 

If Ring’s theory is correct, we should see an increase in both the number and magnitude of quakes from days 0-4, 11-18 and 24-29.

Notice the trend line on the middle of the graph, almost no slope to it at all. Notice the R-squared value (0.0116), this is a measure of statistical corelation. If R-Squared is 1.0 then given the value of one term, you can perfectly predict the value of another term.  If R-Squared is 0.0, then knowing one term doesn’t not help you know the other term at all.  More generally, a higher value of R-Squared means that you can better predict one term from another.

Like so many other forms of woo, Ring’s theories make sense at first glance, but under careful scrutiny they quickly fall apart. Mankind has always tried to predict disasters, including earthquakes, and kudos to Ring for trying, but clearly in this instance his theory is wrong.

The first thing someone said to me at work today was, “How long did it take you to get to work this morning?”, to which my reply was, “No longer than usual”. Apparently it had taken her nearly ten times longer than usual to get to work.

Then I headed into my office and was asked the same question by another colleague. Odd to be asked the same thing twice by the first two people I saw, 

Speaking with more people at work, I found out that traffic seems to have gotten considerably worse in the past week. Commutes have more than doubled for many, while others are taking very long detours in an attempt to beat the traffic. But when did it get this bad?

My drive home yesterday took longer than it should have as two lanes merged into one to turn right by the hospital, where it is clearly NOT sign posted for motorists, leaving long queues as those in the left lane attempt to push in, while those in the right lane shake their fists at the perceived queue jumpers. 

Today I took an alternative route and found it not much better, with right turning traffic queues so long at two sets of lights that they were blocking straight through lanes. 

So what’s happened? Surely it can’t all be earthquake related! I noticed that even four lane Brougham street was backed up, despite the fact that I know there isn’t a single lane closed due to earthquake damage.

Any ideas?

“Gentlemen, once again it has fallen to us to perform a mission considered by command to be impossible. Make no mistake, the risk of taking casualties on this mission is extremely high. The mission is simple: get into the mall, buy Xmas gifts and escape.

“Field intelligence reports that the best time to enter the mall is between the hours of 3pm and 5pm. During this time there is deconflictaion as the teenagers have burned up all their energy from their sugary drinks and are unable to continue their mating rituals, while the regular people are still at their place of employment. This is when we will strike.

“We will insert via ground vehicle from the east, gaining ingress from the eastern carpark entrance. From there proceed directly to the target area, expect to encounter heavy resistance from sales, enormous signs promising huge savings and pushy sales reps forcing handcream, debt cards or offering to buy your unwanted gold.

“Once you reach the target area, engage the nearest sales rep with extreme prejudice. Complete the transaction as quickly as possible, aim to be in and out in less than five minutes. 

“When the mission objective is completed, the most difficult part of the mission begins: egress. Return to the insertion point for rendez-vous and extraction. Expect to encounter similar amount of resistance on egress. There may be a mobile phone kiosk which also contains pushy sales reps and do not allow yourself to be tempted by delicious looking pictures of chocolate sundaes promising ‘real Belgian chocolate’.

“Upon reaching the rendez-vous point, enter the extraction vehicles. The drivers have been instructed not to wait for stragglers so time will be of the essence. Once extraction has begun, there should be limited resistance although we may run into conflict with additional traffic around the conflict zone so keep your heads on a swivel.

“Any questions gentlemen?”

“Yes commander, what will we be having for dinner after the mission?”

When exactly did we have to plan our Christmas shopping expeditions like a special forces mission?

Since the weather has improved markedly, I’ve been using the barbecue quite a bit recently and last week made a bit of a delicious mistake. Now I quite like smokey flavours and have a real taste for Masterfood’s smokey barbecue seasoning, which goes really well with chicken.

In an attempt to make it even more delicious, I decided to put a little lemon and lime juice on the chicken before seasoning it. After adding a little oil, I reached for my barbecue seasoning but somehow failed to notice I’d picked up the wrong bottle from my spice rack. In my defense, they do have the same colour lid.

One shake and I immediately noticed the colour was wrong but I’d put too much on to salvage it. Checking the bottle I discovered I’d actually used garlic and herb salt. Does garlic and herb salt go with lemon and lime juice, I asked myself. Only one way to find out, I decided.

After barbecuing it, I discovered that the flavours go together very well, and so barbecue accident chicken was born. I tried it again tonight, this time well aware I was using garlic and herb salt, and it turns out this was no fluke.

The history of mankind is full of accidental discoveries: Post-it notes, microwave ovens, penicillin and now barbecue accident chicken.