It's a BOOBQUAKE!!! (Or not.)

[mijan]

As some of you know, the Boobquake on Monday was the inadvertent brainchild of a college student from Indiana who responded with delightful tongue-in-cheek humor to that Iranian cleric who said that promiscuous women cause earthquakes.  So the natural, scientific way to test that assertion was to dress provocatively and then check the earthquake frequency at the time of the experiment. 

Well, the RESULTS are in!  And as you can probably guess, these ladies' lovely cleavage did not shake the earth.  It might have shaken other wonderful things, but the tectonic response was neutral.  Besides, if that was the case, we would see massive earthquake activity on Mardi Gras, Cinqo de Mayo, Halloween, and Pride Days.  Who wants to bet that there's no correlation there, either?

Now, this cleric isn't alone in his assertions.  Religious nuts of all persuasions and creeds have been making claims like this for thousands of years.  That's nothing new.  In fact, back in 1998, Janis Walworth wrote an article about Pat Robertson's claims that gays were incurring God's wrath in the form of natural disasters: Do Gays Cause Hurricanes?  Read it.  It's a lovely bit of statistical satire that really proves its point.  It also proves that religious fundamentalists of all creeds tend to make crass, judgmental statements that have no basis in reality.  In the "highly amusing irony" category, you should also note that Pat Robertson made those comments in 1998. The first hurricane to make landfall in the United States in 1998, after Robertson's comments, was Hurricane Bonnie.  Bonnie landed in North Carolina  and caused a great deal of havoc and millions of dollars of damage to the Hampton Roads/VA Beach area of VA. And... VA Beach is the HQ of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network.

So... in conclusion, wear what makes you comfortable!  Have a wet t-shirt contest!  Wear a bikini!  Wear a corset!  Wear fishnet stockings and stilettos!  Your attire will NOT cause an earthquake!  It may cause your parents to have a heart attack, but you will not cause the earth to crack open and swallow cities whole while fire and brimstone rain down upon the earth.   Likewise, modest attire will not prevent these things from happening either.  Sometimes... an earthquake is just an earthquake.

Comments

Don't Laugh...

[sgt-majorette.livejournal.com]

Mine might register some seismic activity. I'm a 42-H and I once caught them leaning on the spacebar, trying to type.

Could be I just don't know how to operate a fat body, though. I'm more than double the weight I was in high school.

Re: Don't Laugh...

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Oh my, that's a lot! Although I did meet a woman once who was a 42-K. I didn't realize they MADE that size!

[sphynxle.livejournal.com]

I thought there was an earthquake in Taiwan on Monday? o.O

I found the whole Boobquake thing insanely hysterical xD I was tempted, but really. No one wants to see my cleavage - It might cause some people to pass out xD

[triad-serpent.livejournal.com]

There was. 6.9, if I remember correctly... I felt almost guilty, with my short-shorts and low-cut shirt, because I used to live in Taipei....lol! ^..^

[anruiukimi.livejournal.com]

Heck, I did it for two days, just to accommodate for the time difference...and if I didn't get seismically unstable Japan rocking, nothing will. ;)

_{I was told to wear this outfit to work: http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs191.snc1/6413_150915215434_576945434_3951527_1718728_n.jpg (Jeebuz this is a horrible picture) But I said I wanted to keep my job. ;)}


Pat Robertson makes/made my head hurt. He was blaming the gays for 9/11 at one point, I'm pretty sure. :|

[probing-grays.livejournal.com]

Man, part of me wishes promiscuous women really did cause earthquakes. HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE? If I wasn't getting my way, I could just be like "DON'T MAKE ME PULL THIS SHIRT DOWN" and everyone would be all "O noes, I don't want an earthquake!"

How would that not be awesome? :P

[annulvapore.livejournal.com]

There actually was a 6.9 earthquake in Taiwan as of like 12:30 AM on boobquake day. Technically, if we are to believe this garbage, the cleric was "correct" =\

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Actually, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake is common enough that it was statistically insignificant. As a scientific experiment, evaluated by standard rules of statistics, the "Boobquake" experiment disproved the cleric's postulate. Additionally, the Taiwan earthquake was on the other side of the planet from Indiana. Now, if there had been a significant earthquake along the New Madrid fault line (which could impact Indiana), then there might be some correlation between promiscuously dressed women and earthquake frequency and magnitude. However, the New Madrid fault was fairly quiet that day, and earthquake frequency and magnitude around the rest of the world was incredibly normal.

So... no dice.

[corvidae9.livejournal.com]

Oof. I was SO EXCITED about flaunting the natural order of things and taking control of the mighty tectonic plates with merely the power of my mammaries, but now that the danger of possibly causing a tsunami or something is gone, it's lost a little something. *sigh*

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, flaunting your natural assets will still cause other powerful movements in the order of things. *wink*

[mijan.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting, but it wouldn't be good, really. And it would also be completely irrational for a correlation like that to actually have a causal relationship.

Instead, I think boobs should just be used to make men and gay women quiver in our pants. That's enough of a way to shake the earth, methinks! :D

[mijan.livejournal.com]

You're a dedicated experimenter! But alas, we merely proved that the boobquake myth can be relegated to the same category as stepping on a crack to break your mother's back.

And yeah, Pat Robertson takes stupid religious propaganda to a whole new level of hate and bigotry.

Re: Don't Laugh...

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

Then you met me. 44-II just last year. Of course, I'm down to a 40-E atm.

Re: Don't Laugh...

[mijan.livejournal.com]

That's still somewhat enormous. A person could die in there. But die happy, indeed!