Predicting earthquakes the easy way: the what, not the when

Natural disasters are among the most unpredictable drivers of the future. If you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger (you never know), governing a state whose economic powerhouses sit along and around the San Andreas fault, you can make as much economic policy as you want, and it won’t matter much if an earthquake or an eruption knocks San Francisco off the map and Los Angeles into the sea. There is a science to measuring and predicting this sort of thing, but it’s not good enough yet to provide reliable early warnings. For now, natural disasters can still take us by surprise.

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Why fakecharities.org is wrong about charities

Two-sentence version: Fakecharities.org thinks government funding makes charities mouthpieces of the state. It is wrong.

Long version…

Bad Science author Ben Goldacre brought the website fakecharities.org to the attention of a fairly wide readership the other day when he wrote this Twitter post:

FakeCharities.org: fun idea, nicely run site http://rly.cc/8qVXn

The link is to a blog post on the website of the free-market think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, who describe fakecharities.org as ‘excellent’.

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