Comment by R. M. W Musson on “Comparison between probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and flood frequency analysis”

It must be a rare occurrence to see, in the same scientific newspaper in the space of a little over a year, the same errors repeated by the same authors in two different articles, despite the fact that those errors had been refuted in that newspaper in the interim. I pointed out [Musson, 2004] the fallacies in a paper by Wang et al. [2003]. These errors are now repeated by Wang and Ormsbee [2005], who refer back to Wang et al. [2003] but not to Musson [2004].

This raises questions about scientific method: We expect that science proceeds in some sort of forward direction and that errors are not repeated when identified. To see such a repetition as this raises at least the question of how Wang and Ormsbee [2005] were reviewed.