Of course I agree with your comment about blithely dismissing someone without knowing anything about them. And I don't believe that I blithely dismissed anyone. I was just commenting in a joking fashion about the fact that, in this particular instance, there does not seem to have been a prediction. What is there to dismiss?
I'll check out the New Yorker article.
I have no idea why millions of Italians were convinced that today was "the day", but it came from somewhere, despite the statement from that Foundation.
Personally, I don't know what to make of this guy. What I do know is that the odds of predicting the time & place of an earthquake are astronomical. Doing it once is noteworthy, but to do it again? Yeah, and maybe he was just incredibly lucky.
