Science vs God! Input your theories...

[atei_rik]

Well guys, I have been brought up with this "coincidence". And I refuse to believe it is mere coincidence. Over the past year, I have devoted to finding a logical reason rather than attributing it to God/chance.

 

 

 

Last Sunday at 1:16:10 AM (Puerto Rico time) or 5:16:10 AM (Universal Time) ocurred Puerto Rico's biggest earthquake since 1918.

 

Coincidently, last Sunday's date was 05/16/2010.

 

How can we explain this??

[Double K]

Interestingly enough, break it down into numbers descrying letters of the alphabet and you get jepepj, which when I googled it pointed me to Boethius

 

Also in 520, Boethius was working to revitalize the relationship between the Church in Rome and the Church in Constantinople.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boethius

[mooeypoo]

There are dozens of Earthquakes a day. Considering that fact, coincidences aren't all that unlikely. That said, here is a list for recent earthquakes in Puerto Rico (UTC = Universal Time):

• Monday, May 17, 2010 at 17:19:44 UTC Magnitude 2.7
  
• Monday, May 17, 2010 at 08:04:15 UTC Magnitude 3.2
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 21:03:53 UTC Magnitude 3.5
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 20:10:03 UTC Magnitude 2.5
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 19:49:53 UTC Magnitude 3.0
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 14:56:09 UTC Magnitude 2.8
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 14:30:16 UTC Magnitude 2.7
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 14:24:43 UTC Magnitude 2.7
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 14:19:43 UTC Magnitude 2.8
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 13:41:33 UTC Magnitude 2.9
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 13:22:34 UTC Magnitude 2.9
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 13:19:26 UTC Magnitude 2.6
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 12:55:42 UTC Magnitude 3.0
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 07:45:22 UTC Magnitude 2.7
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 05:47:14 UTC Magnitude 3.0
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 05:33:46 UTC Magnitude 3.2
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 05:16:10 UTC Magnitude 5.8
  
• Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 01:34:44 UTC Magnitude 2.7
  

These are only the past two days. As you can see, there are MANY earthquakes in that region (and in the world). This is something that's called the 'rule of big numbers'. The odds for this type of coincidence is small. But even small odds eventually happen when the number of instances is so large, as in this case.

 

It is an interesting coincidence, though.

 

What do you think it is, if not a coincidence?

 

~moo

[Double K]

Just further on Boethius, just to further on the coincidence level...

 

He was one of the early ones to postulate on the problem of universals:

 

The problem of universals is about their status; as to whether universals exist independently of the individuals of whom they can be predicated or if they are merely convenient ways of talking about and finding similarity among particular things that are radically different. This has led philosophers to raise questions like, if they exist, do they exist in the individuals or only in people's minds or in some separate metaphysical domain? Questions like these arise from attempts to account for the phenomenon of similarity or attribute agreement among things.[3] For example, living grass and some apples are similar, namely in having the attribute of greenness. The issue, however, is how to account for this and related facts.

 

The problem was introduced to the medieval world by Boethius, by his translation of Porphyry's Isagoge. It begins:

 

For the moment, I shall naturally decline to say, concerning genera and species, whether they subsist, whether they are bare, pure isolated conceptions, whether, if subsistent, they are corporeal or incorporeal, or whether they are separated from or in sensible objects and other related matters. This sort of problem is of the very deepest and requires more extensive investigation

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals#Medieval_nominalism

[atei_rik]

Well, the only reasonable explanation other than coincidence is the hand of man. Or maybe the hand of extraterrestrial life. Who knows.

 

I completely refuse God's hand (or else I wouldn't be here).

 

But yeah, it is right to say that if you hit a nail with a hammer all day, you will have a chance of hitting it such that time = date.

 

Much more of a chance if it happens every day.

 

I just needed someone else's input in this matter, because I am tired of seeing things in FB and other forums "it is God and hes sending us a message" or "Jesus is coming you better read your bible".

 

We could also say that people will use this event to support what they believe in. Which is why I wanted to see if someone could come up with a logical answer.

 

I.E: Christians will say it was God.

Astrologers will say it was the perfect alignment of the stars/planets.

Conspiracy People will say it was a weapon and that we are all doomed.

 

 

Thanks for your replies guys.

[Sisyphus]

Coincidence is not at all far-fetched. There are probably a million events, from tiny to majorly significant, that happen to you every day. So you can expect a 1 in a million occurrence daily. You don't notice all the things that don't seem like big coincidences, so it seems like too many things are lining up too perfectly.

 

As mooeypoo showed, there were 12 earthquakes just in Puerto Rico that day. What about all the other days when there were no such coincidences? What about all the other events that, if they matched up, would seem like big coincidences (death of a relative or famous person, meeting someone significant, anything)? What about all the earthquakes and billions, trillions of events in the rest of the world? What about other times this particular earthquake might have occurred that would have seemed significant in some way?

 

Things that seem too unlikely to be coincidences are guaranteed to occur on a frequent basis, based on probability and our cognitive biases for noticing them. There is no other explanation necessary.

[iNow]

98OTsYfTt-c