Editor's note: When we attempt to inject a little humor into our science content, sometimes it's overlooked. So be forewarned: humorous, not-entirely-serious science coverage ahead:

On Monday, a mass display of indecency by women who were indignant at a comment made by an Iranian cleric rocked the planet with earthquakes. Or did it? The number of earthquakes on Monday, particularly a 6.5-magnitude quake in Taiwan, might suggest that the tarting-up movement had some effect, but the boobquake founder's data breakdown says different. None of the analyses of the event thus far have met the rigorous statistical standards we require here at Ars, so we'll take a look at the shortcomings and draw up some numbers of our own.

A recent spate of earthquakes prompted an Iranian cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, to state that "many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes." In response, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag suggested that women should dress their sluttiest on April 26 to test Segidhi's theory, and christened the event "Boobquake." She also promised to run the numbers on earthquakes that day and see how it compared to the world's normal behavior.

According to her interpretation of data, there were neither a greater number nor a greater severity of earthquakes on Monday; actually, the Monday earthquakes were less intense than normal. Her conclusion was that all of the low-cut tops and booty shorts seemed to have no effect on earthquakes, and may have even gentled them down a bit. The New York Post and Vanity Fair, on the other hand, proclaimed the Boobquake a resounding success because of one 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan.

Clearly a matter of this importance deserves some inspection. First, we must understand that McCreight's analysis appears to take into account every earthquake that happens the world over—including ones of tiny magnitudes, deep in the ocean, deep underground, and so on. As for the Post, there are four 5+ magnitude earthquakes every day, and 6+ quakes occur every two or three days. We feel we can do the Boobquake more statistical justice than this. We present here our own analysis, starting with some assumptions to more closely tie human behavior and earthquake-related punishments:

Assumption #1: The earthquake arbiter has good aim. What good would an earthquake punishing us for indecency be if it couldn't a) be felt in a populated area, and b) kill someone? Therefore, we only count earthquakes of a magnitude of 5 or more that have a death toll of at least 1 person. If looks can kill, then they should.

Assumption #2: The earthquake arbiter would not be cagey about the cause-and-effect process. A punishment system that doesn't allow us to target and correct transgressions would reflect poor management skills, so we will consider only earthquakes on the same day as the Boobquake to be possible punishments.

Based on data taken from the Utsu database for the years 1990 through 2008, there is an average of 19 deadly earthquakes per year. This means the odds of a deadly earthquake happening on any given day is about one in 20, or a little more than a 5 percent chance. If you're willing to accept a sample of one, you're right at the standard measure of statistical significance. If there were a deadly earthquake the same day as the Boobquake, you could say with reasonable certanity that all the cleavage worked, since the odds against it are high.

It turned out that there were four earthquakes with a 5.0 or greater magnitude on Monday, which is an average number, and none of them were lethal. That is to say, the Boobquake claimed no lives. And since the pure chance of a deadly earthquake was low anyway, this style of analysis casts the effects of cleavage, exposed ankles, and elaborately coiffed hair on earthquakes as inconclusive at best. By these standards, the Boobquake was a disappointing scientific, as well as geological, failure.

But maybe this is just an issue with this particular perspective. For another take, let's strike the first two assumptions and reverse them for a kinder, gentler entity who considers even smaller earthquakes to be sufficient punishment. We'll also add a third assumption:

Assumption #3. The earthquake arbiter would not be random. If a women in a certain area are being offensive with their assets, they would be the ones to receive punishment, not some other unaware, chaste region.

Since the Boobquake movement originated online in the United States, it would be fair to assume that most of the activity, as it were, was located there, though there were surely smaller sets of participants in other areas like Western Europe.

In 2009, there were 11,739 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or more in the entire world, and 16 percent of them were in the United States. On April 26, there were 22 such earthquakes total, and 12 of them, or 55 percent, occurred in the US. By this measure, Americans paid a hefty tectonic price for every v-neck-shirted woman that walks down the street. What we haven't accounted for here, though, are misattribution errors—at least one Internet user insists that a rise in earthquakes is due to the newly operating LHC.

But then, perhaps to take the Booquake seriously at all is to take it too seriously. Maybe instead of refreshing the United States Geological Survey's website, we should have been enjoying the view, or participating, as the case may be. As we have statistically triumphed, so have we socially failed.