Boobquake Update

April 26th has come and gone. Did the explosion of immodestly Jen McCreight inspired cause the earth to shake?

No. Jen’s mockery of an Iranian cleric has gotten a lot of great press; when Stephen Colbert picks up your story, you know you’ve made it. I also loved hearing Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! interview Dr. Peggy Helwig, a research seismologist at the Berkely Seismology Lab in Berkeley, CA, who helpfully explained: “I am an expert in earthquakes because I study them, and I’m an expert in clevage because I have it.”

Unfortunately, a lot of the reporting, including Colbert’s, implied that a large earthquake in Taiwan on the 26th was a embarrassment to the whole project. This is not true. Let’s go to the tape:

That little red dot is Boobquake. McCreight wrote a great article for The Guardian called What I Learned from Boobquake that presents her statistical analysis. Her confidence that cleavage doesn’t have a geological effect was fully justified. “Not only did all of the earthquakes on Boobquake fall within the normal range of magnitudes,” she found, “but the mean magnitude actually decreased slightly! Maybe God actually approves of hot pants.”

The statistics this little jokey experiment uncovered are absolutely fascinating. Did you know there are an average of 134 earthquakes with a magnitude of 6 to 6.9 every year? That’s more than one every three days, and those are serious quakes. And there are over one thousand earthquakes with a magnitude of 5 to 5.9 every year: many more than one per day.

Many thanks to The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe for (as always) providing entertaining and enlightening coverage of the Boobquake conversation. Since the internet is magic, actual Iranians have responded to Jen’s proposal; she’s collected a wonderful sampling of these comments here. I’m fully on board with the pact with Iranians that the Skeptic’s Guide crew proposed: we won’t judge you on your your wacko crazies if you don’t judge us on Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell.

Rebecca Watson of the Guide (and Skepchick) followed up with this great YouTube video: Iranian reactions & further discussion one minute in.

I’m with her. What is up with European countries banning articles of clothing recently? It’s unsettling to watch a continent that prides itself on tolerance and progress justify such stupid, illiberal laws. We’ve all got a way to go.

Boobquake

You may have heard that Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi blamed recent seismic activity on “women who do not dress modestly.” In an effort to test this claim, there will be a small experiment conducted Monday. Jen McCreight, and tens of thousands of fans, will wear revealing clothes and see if the earth moves.

Jen announced her intentions on her blog less than a week ago, inviting women to “join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty.” Today the Facebook event is enormous and Boobquake has made it to CNN.com. There are t-shirts. Proceeds benefit charity. And the best part? In the photo of her that’s been appearing on all the news sites, Jen is wearing the XKCD shirt that reads, “Stand back, I’m going to try SCIENCE!”

Just a heads up.