Question

You hear an astronomer on the evening news, pointing out a coming alignment of planets and predicting thatthe extra gravitational attraction is sure to trigger a huge earthquake in California during the few hours ofalignment. Based on what you learned in class, a reasonable approach is to:

A.Go to California with your camera to take pictures of the buildings falling down during the alignment so youcan sell the pictures for lots of money.

B.Ignore it; although gravitational forces such as tides and planetary pulls might possibly exert a very smalleffect on earthquakes, no one has successfully predicted the where-and-when of earthquakes.

C.Invest in the Pepsi Corporation; Pepsi stocks always go up after earthquakes, and an earthquake is highlylikely at the time and place predicted.

D.Take it seriously; maybe the quake isn’t certain, but a big quake is much more likely than not during thosefew hours.

E.Stay the heck out of California, because if you go, you will be trampled to death by all the scientists runningto California to observe the quake

Answer 1

Option B is correct.

Step-by-step explanation:

At the moment, earthquakes cannot be predicted. To successfully predict one, experts would have to find a precursor, an event that could be found before every major earthquake, and so far this event (if exists) has not been detected.

Earthquakes do occur in predictable locations known as faulty zones but are currently impossible to predict exactly when one will occur.

Therefore, the best course of action would be ignoring the astronomer, as his prediction, it's most likely a baseless claim.