“Boobquake” doesn’t spark off earthquake! (Re-issue)

MELBOURNE - Cleavages don’t make the earth move - literally.

That’s the claim of a blogger, who called on women around the world to test the premise of an Iranian cleric who suggested that immodest women were to be blamed for earthquakes.

“Women who do not dress modestly…lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases (consequently) earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi had said.

Dubbed Boobquake, Jen McCreight encouraged women around the world to flaunt their breasts and their cleavage to prove the Iranian cleric wrong.

“Our provocative dress didn’t really seem to effect the frequency of earthquakes,” News.com.au quoted McCreight as writing on the Blag Hag blog.

She added: “There were 47 earthquakes on the 26th, which falls well within the 95 per cent confidence interval for number of earthquakes (about 0 to 148).”

An earthquake that occurred in Taiwan was considered in the study, but it wasn’t enough to affect the results.

McCreight said: “That single earthquake wasn’t significant. Earthquakes between 6.0 and 6.9 magnitude happen, on average, 134 times a year.

“That means we had about a 37 per cent probability of an earthquake of that magnitude happening on boobquake just due to chance alone.”

McCreight admitted that the experiment was more of a “humorous exercise” than a rigorous study.

She said: “Maybe God really was pissed, but he couldn’t increase earthquakes for us because that would provide proof for his existence. Or of course, maybe God is just biding his time.

“If you hear a news report in the next couple weeks saying a bizarre Indiana earthquake killed a science blogger, well then maybe we’ll have to rethink our conclusions a bit.”

McCreight believes humour can often work against sexist attitude.

She said: “I think people were fed up with ridiculous anti-science and anti-women claims like the one made by Sedighi, and sometimes light-hearted mockery is the best solution.” (ANI)