Ken Ring (aka the Moon Man) cast himself into the media spotlight at the end of 2011 with his claims that he could predict the occurrence of earthquakes based on the phases of the moon. Reading through his web site, it becomes very clear that Ring is neither a scientist nor capable of constraining himself to a rational argument.
But never the less, at the start of the year he posted his predictions entitled "Earthquake Timings 2011", and being more than halfway through the year, I thought it an opportune time to see how his predictions are stacking up.
Note that Ring's predictions are global predictions, based on UTC time and with a tolerance of plus or minus 1 day. I've downloaded data for global earthquakes with a magnitude of 5 or greater for the 2011 year through to July from the Advanced National Seismic System's (ANSS) global earthquake database for analysis.
Magnitude 5+ Earthquakes
The database lists 1,770 5+ earthquakes between the 1st of January and the 31st of July 2011. That's an average of around 8.5 earthquakes per day. The maximum number of 5+ earthquakes in a day was 280, which was the date of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami on the 11th of March.
More importantly, in terms of Ring's predictions, is that there were only two days (February 27 and June 6) where a 5+ earthquake didn't occur somewhere on the planet. It's evident therefore, that predicting the occurrence of 5+ earthquakes is pointless. Based on the data, Ring could have picked any random (or even every) day and had a 100% chance of being right (with a plus or minus one day prediction window).
Magnitude 6+ Earthquakes
Of the days between the 1st of January and the 31st of July, at least one 6+ earthquake occurred on 90 of the 212 total days. Adding the plus or minus one day prediction window gives 165 days where a correct prediction could have been made. That means a random pick had a 78% chance of being correct.
Ring predicted 15 6+ quakes and got 13 of them within his prediction window (giving an 87% strike rate) where he made a prediction, but he missed 75 days (or 83%) of the 6+ earthquakes.
Magnitude 7+ Earthquakes
There were 10 days that had a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake. Adding the prediction window gives 27 days where a correct prediction could be made, and a 12% chance of a random pick being correct.
Ring predicted 16 7+ quakes, and only got one within his prediction window (7.0 off the coast of Japan on the 10th of July) giving him a paltry 6% strike rate.
What's the Point?
Based on the data to hand it would appear that Ring is well off the mark in terms of accurately predicting the occurrence of global earthquakes.
One really has to ask the question, even if he could accurately predict dates, what use would it be unless he could also pin-point a location? The only point I can see in Ring's predictions are to gain more "believers" and ultimately sell more books..