Boobquake

Every now and then, I come across something in the news that is so outrageous, yet so completely on target, that it just brings a smile to my face. The other day, I had the privilege of such an experience. It was called Boobquake.

For those of you who are completely oblivious to the lighter goings-on in the world today, I will provide a brief summary of this feminist science experiment which reached seismic proportions.

Last week, an Iranian cleric named Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi made a public statement saying, “Many women who do not dress modestly…lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes.”

Yes, I know, the preposterousness of this statement alone is laughable. It irks me in ways I can’t describe and fuels my deep-seated hatred for all organized religion (yes, fundamentalists of all religions, not just Islam, make equally asinine statements all the time – my Hebrew brethren included).

Fortunately, this Iranian mad man’s message reached the right person to show the world how utterly silly his statement really is. Purdue University senior Jennifer McCreight decided to conduct a science experiment to test the validity of this claim, and what started out as somewhat of a joke grew into a worldwide event boasting more than 200,000 participants.

McCreight’s response to Sedighi’s comments was an event called Boobquake, which encouraged women to dress immodestly for a day to see if seismic activity increased as a result. She originally created a Facebook page for the event and invited about 30 of her friends to participate.

But we all know how social media works – you invite 30 friends, they each invite 30 friends, and the next thing you know, there are more than 200,000 people across the globe responding on Facebook that they plan to attend Boobquake. This is grass roots activism at its finest. There were even participants in Sedighi’s home country of Iran.

Men and women alike rallied around the cause. There were no official dress requirements for the event. McCreight’s blog, which discusses the event in great detail, made it clear that women should feel free to dress as immodestly as they are comfortable doing. This rather loose dress code ranged from scantily clad women showing massive amounts of cleavage to those who just showed a little more leg than normal.

Boobquake quickly became an international phenomenon, garnering media coverage on CNN, BBC, CBC, ABC, FOX, and the Colbert Report.

After a 24-hour worldwide celebration of boobs and cleavage (yes, I’m sure there were many a breast augmentation patient ecstatic to have this opportunity to show off her breast implants as well), the seismic activity around the world was measured…

…And there was a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan during Boobquake. I kid you not. But before Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi and his followers shoot guns in the air and shake their burqas like they just don’t care, it should be noted that the Taiwan quake does not lend credibility to the notion that immodestly dressed women contribute to these natural disasters.

According to McCreight, earthquakes between 6.0 and 6.9 on the Richter scale occur approximately 134 times a year. This meant there was a 37% chance of such an earthquake happening during Boobquake, regardless of the number of scantily clad women shaking their boobs and booties all day long. With those odds, it is pretty hard to attribute the Taiwan earthquake to the wrath of God.

But just so we are clear, McCreight did record some data during Boobquake in order to scientifically prove beyond a doubt that Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi is full of crap. There were 47 earthquakes on Boobquake (April 26^th), while the statistically normal range of earthquakes occurring on any given day is between 0 and 148. Boobquake fell well within this normal range.

Here is her graph showing the overall distribution of earthquake magnitudes on Boobquake compared to those experienced since February:

As you can see, the average magnitude of earthquakes around the world on Boobquake was actually slightly lower than normal. Score one for McCreight, science, and immodestly dressed women. I’ll bet the prophet Mohammed is rolling over in his grave over this one.

Of course, even the most thorough science experiment is not perfect, and Boobquake is no exception. Here is McCreight’s analysis of her methods:

“Obviously this study had its flaws. We didn’t have a large sample size, and we didn’t have a control planet where women were only wearing burkas. We didn’t have a good way to quantify how much we increased immodesty (what’s the unit of immodesty anyway? Intensity of red on blushing nuns?). Maybe women did dress immodestly, but we didn’t lead men astray enough. Maybe God really was pissed, but he couldn’t increase earthquakes for us because that would provide proof for his existence (or maybe it’s his existence that’s the problem).

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.”

I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Maybe I will try to recruit her to be a guest blogger for the Cosmetic Surgery Directory. I’d love to hear her take on some of the crazy scenarios I blog about here.

To all of the people who participated in Boobquake earlier this week, I salute you. It was a noble cause, and I’m sure you had a hell of a time. For those of you who didn’t participate, don’t fret. I have a feeling there will be a Boobquake 2 somewhere down the road. Maybe next time we can get enough women involved to rock a 7.0 earthquake in Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi’s mosque. Wouldn’t that be ironic.