THE VAN EARTHQUAKE PREDICTIONS

Assessment of the proposed VAN method for predicting earthquakes in Gr eece remains inconclusive. Authors who have attempted to evaluate the method have had to make their own subjective decisions about some feat ures of the hypothesis, and to propose their own algorithms for testin g against a null hypothesis. Different treatments of the inhomogeneity in space and time have lead to widely different conclusions. The bino mial distribution has been misused in considering whether predictions may have been satisfied ''by chance.'' Objective tests on the performa nce of the method, using independent data, cannot begin until the VAN hypothesis and the proposed null hypothesis have been fully formulated .