Solar Eclipse and the Haiti Earthquake

On the day of solar eclipse on 15th Jan, there was a debate in Bangalore specific English news channel. As usual, a scientist who believes in nothing other than science, an astrologer who has a mixed belief system, a rationalist who neither believes in science nor astrology and a moderator who gave an impression that he never listened to anything other than his own voice were assembled in the studio.

It was a live program and so many persons participated in the program asking silly questions most of the time and occasionally sensible ones too. One caller wanted to know whether there could be any connection between the Haiti earth quake and the solar eclipse. As usual the scientist gave an emphatic NO and when asked to explain by the astrologer, he explained Haiti was nowhere on the path of solar eclipse.

It appeared to me that the scientist was arrogant, in the sense that brushing aside anything without an open mind and scientific study is unscientific. Unlike the religion which has strict rituals which cannot be questioned, whereas the question is the essence behind scientific discoveries, if brushed aside could become counterproductive to the very science. Answers to certain questions gave us electricity, anti-biotics etc. If those right questions were not asked by the right people, science at large and we in particular would have been the losers.

When scientists confess that earth quakes cannot be predicted, I understand that it cannot be predicted 'today', with the present knowledge and gadgets in our possession. Our met department has created a model, collating all the details for the past 50 years or so on the monsoon pattern and try to predict the future monsoon with such limited details of half a century, resulting in widely off the mark prediction of monsoon every year. What is wrong in collating the details of past eclipses and earthquakes? Most of the discoveries in the past were serendipities and who knows yet another could be waiting in what scientists brush aside as coincidence.