A Global Tectonic Experiment
April 26, 2010
A scientist tempts fate
(h/t: Isis)I think a quote from the organizer Jen McCreight says it best.
“I’m a firm believer that when someone says something so stupid and hateful, serious discourse isn’t going to accomplish anything – sometimes light-hearted mockery is worthwhile.”
Me too. But it is even more delicious that this is an opportunity to test an interesting hypothesis on a global scale. Some Iranian cleric has expressed a thought not dissimilar to ones coming from the direction of US TeeVee ministers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. Earthquakes, dude. Earthquakes.
“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.
Oh yes, there will be science. More from McCreight:
don’t worry, I fully plan on doing some statistics after the event. I know many earthquakes happen on a daily basis, so we’re looking to see if Boobquake significantly increases the number or severity of earthquakes. Or if an earthquake strikes West Lafayette, IN and only kills me, that may be good evidence of God’s wrath as well
For fuller background see the post by Anne Jefferson at Highly Allochthonous. Context, see Stephanie Zvan’s thoughts at sexinthepublicsquare.org. To follow along the Twitt stream today use the #boobquake hashtag.
And keep your eye on the US Geological Survey Earthquake page…
DrugMonkey 
April 26, 2010 at 11:24 am
I, for one, fully support empirical research on the boobquakes.
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April 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa,
No wonder you were born in The Feelgood Family!
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April 26, 2010 at 2:30 pm
The sample is too small. Increase the N, please.
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April 26, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Boobquake by itself isn’t going to test the Imam’s hypothesis. It’s the leading young men astray and corrupting their chastity that actually causes the earthquakes. So what we need for a fully scientific investigation would be for lots of women to go out and have sex with men they aren’t married to.
I for one am willing to help these ladies out as best I can. All in the interest of science, of course. 😉
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April 26, 2010 at 3:58 pm
**we need for a fully scientific investigation would be for lots of women to go out and have sex with men they aren’t married to**
D.C.,
IMO, that is total nonsense. What we need, rather, is lots of women having lots of sex with their husbands/significant others. Adultery exists because people get bored and boring with their too busy/important professional/laboral schedules and are not imaginative in the privacy of their homes.
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April 26, 2010 at 4:05 pm
D.C. notes problem #1. I want to see some adultryquake- that would be courage of conviction. But then, I’m sympathetic to the view that in our society heteronormative monogamy functions to support the systematic oppression of women via encouraging the “women as property” meme, every bit as much as the mocked conservative religious dogma of the Iranian cleric encourages the Iranian version of the meme.
Also, *insert obligatory comment about how by dressing for attention one can’t exactly escape the paradigm of “women as visual decoration” oppression so rampant in our society.*
Also, *insert the other obligatory comment about those who live in glass houses of oppression shouldn’t walk around naked unless they want to attract attention… That is, there’s cultural insensitivity as well as hypocrisy in the Western-centrism required for the fundamentally flawed view of Islam that leads to this kind of judgment. *
Which, leads to problem #2: assuming I have been correctly informed, Western women don’t have modesty to lose (in the “Hajib” sense). So it doesn’t matter what they do, at least in the same sense.
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April 26, 2010 at 6:30 pm
I don’t think the mechanisms is well defined. Is it exposure of breasts or do men have to see them? Kind of like a tree falling in the woods. Heh wood.
Anyhoo, if the planet was filled with breast exposed women, would the quakes still occur if no man was there to see them.
Is it the breasts or the arousal? If it’s the arousal then young men could be extremely dangerous for quakes. Small breezes might result in arousal of young men……Perhaps we should reduce breezes as well reduce to quakes
I feel a grant coming on! Heh coming.
Doc F.
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April 27, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I am quite disappointed that no catastrophic earthquake occurred yesterday. I was kind of hoping that my breasts had superpowers.
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