Mini-skirts are the new butterflies

Tehran's 12 million inhabitants live precariously atop more than 100 fault lines, including one that stretches for about 50 miles. Unsurprisingly, seismologists predicted long ago that a major, potentially devastating earthquake is likely to hit Tehran at some point, and, as the BBC reported last year, the government has been considering for some time the idea of moving the capital to a safer area by 2025. So far, so scientific.

However, following president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent statement about the need to relocate ideally the whole capital to a seismically less active location, a senior Iranian cleric named Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who claims he has been tipped by a divine authority, confidently attributed the danger of earthquakes to women dressing too scantily for strict Muslim standards. "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," the cleric has been quoted to assert, according to the Guardian.

Well, if a butterfly beating its wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas - the senior Iranian cleric must have thought - surely a mini skirt could cause the earth to move in Tehran? Exit the Butterfly Effect, enter the Mini-Skirt Effect. Edward Lorenz, eat your hat (though you might be blamed for the next Icelandic volcano eruption).

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