Review of Predicting Disasters: Earthquakes, Scientists, and Uncertainty
Predicting Disasters provides a comprehensive history of attempts by Japanese seismologists to identify regions likely to experience major earthquakes. Depending on one’s perspective, earthquake prediction can be considered a noble cause or a fool’s errand. Smith’s narrative represents both perspectives, as Japanese scientists discovered repeated cycles of earthquakes in certain locations, used technological advances to monitor and identify potential precursory seismic activity that, in some cases, preceded major earthquakes, and felt compelled to disclose these observations publicly. Against the backdrop of confidence that short-term earthquake prediction might be possible are the skeptics, who to date consider seismological understandings of the earthquake rupture process to be either inadequate to support accurate predictions or impossible due to the inherent uncertainties of nature. According to Smith, Japanese earthquake prediction efforts began at the dawn of the 20th...