Earthquake Prediction
Internet Research Findings
Nick Drake
9-May-00
Information found on the internet cannot be verified and guaranteed for its reliability.
This is the first point worth mentioning, as seen in the Internet Detective tutorial, no matter the design and appearance of an internet site, the reliability of the information cannot be guaranteed.
Five of the twelve sites included in the appendix at the end of this report, have a distinct ‘web-page’ design with incorporated graphics, photographs and in one site, the option of an animation to assist with the understanding of the topic.
The remaining seven sites had no links to additional pages, home page links or possible contact information by an internal email generator.
The topics of earthquake prediction explored by all the sites include the following techniques:
Precursors including:
Earthquake prediction may be an un-economical action because earthquakes may be simply unable to accurately predict in the long term with enough time to successfully evacuate a town or settlement; therefore research should switch from prediction to the possibility of earthquake prevention within the urban areas, through the alteration of the building code and safer houses.
The appearance of the site can determine the level to which people may trust a site, for instance when dealing with complex scientific methods, a simple format of text and understandable graphs makes the information more easily accessible.
Internet information can come from any source. This has tremendous implications for the research of a scientific based problem with no apparent definite answer. E.g. An engineering company may have a web site declaring how their products could help to predict earthquakes and another site claiming that earthquakes are controlled by the syzygy of the earth and the planets. Although each site attempts to answer the question in a different manor with precursors, statistics, evidence of celestial alignment etc one common theme in many of the sites is the acceptance of accurate Earthquake prediction being at best, a dream.
Researching from a library and the internet is different, effective use of the internet can yield a wealth of information from many different sources, each with their own bias and point of view. In a library the information contained is all of a guaranteed quality, has been through many levels, spelled checked, numbers calculated and checked, etc. The factor which distinguishes libraries in terms of size, is the number of books on the shelves; equally the number of web pages there are, the bigger the internet becomes and these pages or ‘books on the shelves’ contains information exactly as the owner wants you to see it. Bias web pages exist because naturally some people express information in a different way to others but if the reliability of a web site is always called into question then the internet material can be used to back-up one’s notes, or add an up to date perspective on the issue, not complete coverage through the internet, just taking advantage of the three golden rules of the internet:
The sites found may be divided into those with primary or secondary data. The presentation of data and information is the most defining characteristic between sites. No URL can be verified, although one’s interpretation of the site, and the way in which this site is presented will instil a feeling of either confidence or doubt.
One of the main problems with the internet comes when an exact address is not known and information has to be found from search engines. Although Yahoo! was the most popular hit on the internet in 1999 and following a recent television media drive by the US based search engine company Lycos, both of these search engines give unsatisfactory responses many times with completely unrelated articles. Another search engine named Ask.com is ‘better’ because to use it, a question should be asked. If done accurately with great attention paid to grammar, then this search engine can be very accurate and return many related websites. Also another advantage of this site is that whilst it checks it’s database for links, it also checks another five sites including Altavista, Excite, Webcrawler and About.com
The ability for each of the sites to answer the question of whether earthquake prediction is possible or not depends on the length and detail explored in their journal. For instance, precursors are mentioned in many sites and are explored to a varying level of detail including a very detailed account by Chris Gay – Engineering Mechanics Dpt. At the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Celestial alignment and syzygy topics are not explained in such depth and so using these sources as an effective way to answer the question is not possible.
Using the Internet incorrectly can yield results similar to those outlined in the ‘Quality of information on the internet’ page of the Internet Detective. http://www.netskills.ac.uk/TonicNG/cgi/sesame?detective
One of the best ways to gain greater experience with the internet is simply through increasing the amount of time that you spend online. Many pages will be of great use but perhaps not at that time, if however the page is bookmarked or remembered then when you next need to order some flowers you may choose to use interflora.co.uk rather than having to find the yellow pages and waste time.
From one position, in one place, I can order food, clothes, anything from anywhere in the world. The Internet starts to become a more integral part of your lifestyle, you use it more frequently for more reasons, more experience gained from extensive surfing along with a greater knowledge, growing dependency on the Internet for answers and solutions.
For example:
If a search engine such as Yahoo is used, the full web address and a short description of the site, contents, gallery, links etc is produced after searching. With the results of a search on screen, one must assess validity in terms of ‘what follows’ the dot, is it .org .com .co.uk, can this site be trusted?, the short description of the site should be looked at to check its in English, important themes or keywords may be mentioned here , It is easy to be sent to a wrong address; however if done correctly then linking to an unrelated website doesn’t happen often. This means that time can be saved which allows you time to surf a different site and learn more.
Even though an incorrect link from a search engine may connect you to a wrong site, you will have learnt that this search engine has problems and cannot be trusted 100%. Also navigation of another web page will be learnt including leaving the site, either through the use of the command keys: Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop, Home
or from buttons and links within the web page.
Although many claim that internet sites may contain un-official statements and inaccurate data, well known and increasingly less well known organisations exist on their web-sites containing the most accurate information available detailing their views on an issue or topic.
Until the Internet can be organised and most importantly search engines become more efficient, using the internet for research should be done, but with scepticism because no information can be verified.
Word count 1,050
NTD.