Recent earthquakes, particularly the 2008 Wenchuan (China), 2009 L’Aquila (Italy), 2010 Haiti, 2011 Christchurch (New Zealand), and 2011 Tohoku (Japan), events, have renewed debate among scientists (e.g., Jordan et al. , 2011; Stein et al. , 2011; Peresan et al. , 2012; Stirling, 2012; Jordan, 2013; Jordan et al. , 2014; Wang and Rogers, 2014) on predicting or forecasting earthquakes and their resulting ground‐motion hazards. The main reason for this debate is societal demand for predicting or forecasting. In other words, scientists, seismologists in particular, feel compelled to provide predictions or forecasts to society. The initial sentencing of six years in prison for six Italian scientists following the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake demonstrates this. However, it is well understood that earthquakes and their resulting ground‐motion hazards cannot be predicted or forecasted reliably. Thus, the statement by Jordan et al. (2014, p. 959), “though communicating OEF (operational earthquake forecast) and its uncertainties is a difficult issue, not communicating is hardly an option,” illustrates the dilemma. > Scientists, seismologists in particular, feel compelled to provide earthquake predictions or forecasts to society. The differences between predicting and forecasting have to do with how they quantify and communicate uncertainty. Location, magnitude, and recurrence interval of earthquakes have large uncertainty. For example, the estimated magnitudes for earthquakes in the New Madrid Seismic Zone range from M 6.6 to M 8.0, and estimates of the recurrence interval range from 500 to 50,000 years (Petersen et al. , 2014). Uncertainties of this scale indicate that earthquakes cannot be predicted or forecasted reliably. One such example is Iben Browning’s forecast: a 50% chance of a major earthquake with a magnitude of about 7 in the New Madrid Seismic Zone within a few days of 3 December 1990 (Stein, 2010). Even though the 1975 Haicheng, China, earthquake has been claimed as …