Scientists Who Failed to Warn of Quake Found Guilty of Manslaughter 459
An anonymous reader notes that the BBC reports "Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L'Aquila. A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter. Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defence maintained there was no way to predict major quakes. The 6.3 magnitude quake devastated the city and killed 309 people." The scientists were first charged more than two years ago.
Next up: Meteorologists, Astrologers, (Score:5, Insightful)
Palm readers, Farmer's Almanac, anyone who publishes a book about Nostradamus, etc ...
This is beyond ridiculous. It's just stupid.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
This still causes chilling effects.
Now scientists studying earthquakes will become like the various environuts who say the world is going to end at midnight, every night, because of X, Y, and Z. If they don't, they could end up in jail.
Considering how few listen to the environuts, we are in for a world of hurt if this decision permeates all science.
Same difference (Score:5, Insightful)
The government asked for their assessment, and they gave the best prediction they could given the data they had. Nearly every other seismologist in the world would have given the same assessment. They are being sentenced to prison because they did not predict the quake, pure and simple. The lesson here is that if the Italian government ever asks your assessment on anything, the only valid response is "fuck off and die".
Re:Bad Precedent (Score:4, Insightful)
Now put the politicians on trial (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Misleading summary (Score:2, Insightful)
The lesson here is don't be a geologist in Italy.
No. The lesson here is that if you make forecasts, don't lie to people about the reliability of those forecasts. They had no scientific basis for them telling people not to worry.
No, the people had no more reason to worry than usual, that was the message. It's not the scientists fault if they weren't worried enough already.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:3, Insightful)
I did some reading, and the charges have more to do with creating a perception that the earthquake risk was remote and being negligent in their duty to keep the people educated about earthquake preparation and vigilance.
The problem is, the fact that the earthquake happened doesn't mean that their assessment of the risk was incorrect. Just because an event is unlikely doesn't mean it won't or can't happen.
--Jeremy
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
They have been telling stories about "the big one" for many years and it finally happened last year.
Anecdotal evidence, confirmation bias...what other problems can you find in that sentence?
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it hard to believe a country like Italy would convict based on not having the ability to predict an earthquake.
Really? You find it hard to believe that politicians would abuse the justice system for political points in Italy? In Italy? Really? That's hard to believe?
I did some reading, and the charges have more to do with creating a perception that the earthquake risk was remote and being negligent in their duty to keep the people educated about earthquake preparation and vigilance.
If the earthquake risk was in fact remote, then how does this amount to anything other than convicting them for not predicting the quake? Just because it happened doesn't mean it was likely to happen. Long shots do occur.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
No you cannot prove a negative assertion. The burden of proof is on the original earthquake prediction. No scientific evidence came forward at the time, so the professional scientists announced their dismissal of the prediction.
The failure here is the lack of basic science education in the basic population and in the legal system's utter ignorance. Justice is not only blind, but it's spastic as well.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
You're so fucking ignorant you don't know how this is a bad thing.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, MY GOD. That isn't even a charge, or a crime.
Here's what the folks in L'Aquila have just earned: a rapid defection of scientists on the public payroll because they are now afraid to say, or not say, anything. Because an event that can't actually be predicted under any interpretation happened when they didn't expect it.
These IDIOTS have done a serious amount of damage to people who were trying to help them. FUCK EM ALL, seriously. Fucking MORONS.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:3, Insightful)
There was an earthquake swarm [wikipedia.org] going on for months when they said there weren't risks. In many Italian towns you cannot drive trucks, and oftentimes even cars, to the center of the city because vehicles produced vibrations can damage old buildings (and that's true), yet after months of strong vibrations they just reassured the population without considering a check-up of the many old buildings of the area, nor of the important buildings (e.g. hospitals, offices) that should work 100% in case of disasters.
If I, as an engineer, certify that a plant is safe when it may be not, I can be jailed. I can't see why the same can't apply to this case.
The lesson for peons (Score:5, Insightful)
When you lie for your bosses, save the evidence to make sure they fall with you, because bosses have no loyalty and they LOVE to send you to face the music.
The "scientists" in question seem to have massaged the figures, they weren't lying, they just weren't telling the absolute truth, someone hinted that someone would be pleased if their report said X, they said X and then Y happened and gosh, their bosses dropped them like the flunkies they were.
Life isn't a movie, if it was, this would have been a disaster movie and the boss would have died in some horrible way just seconds after claiming that what is obviously happening isn't happening.
But in real life, the underling takes the blame and the boss gets a promotion for finding the culprit and seeing that justice is done.
r.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the whole story either. If you read your own link carefully, it points out that Giuliani predicted the quakes using a method that has never been proven scientifically and has had no peer reviewed papers published. In other words, he's a crackpot who just happened to get lucky; there was no actual reason to believe that there would be a risk of earthquakes greater than normal. The scientists who said that this guy is wrong were basically correct; they just got unlucky.
To use a car analogy, a guy is sitting at an intersection reading tea leaves. At one point his tea leaves tell him that if you go through the intersection you'll crash. The scientists say that this is nonsense and that you shouldn't worry about crashing. You go through the intersection and you crash into a car going 100 mph through a red light. that neither you, the scientists, nor the tea leaf reader could have seen or predicted. You die.
And then the scientists are put in jail for manslaughter for telling you to ignore the tea leaf reader.
At worst, the scientists didn't properly communicate "the chance of crashing/earthquakes isn't greater than normal" as opposed to "the chance is zero", and given how the media and politicians ignore such nuances, the scientists shouldn't be held responsible for that.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The area resident was still a quack, The scientists still did the right thing in saying he had no scientific basis for his alarmism.
There are enough random people predicting quakes (on the basis of nothing scientific) that for any given day, if a quake happens, someone will have predicted it. Stock market crashes are the same way. Without any scientific basis for the prediction, it's noise, and it's right to say it's noise.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
If I, as an engineer, certify that a plant is safe when it may be not, I can be jailed.
Not the same thing. This is more like having an engineer inspect an old building that has parts collapse from time to time, asking him if it's safe, and having him tell you "Well, it's no less safe than usual..."
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Well – Italy is hardly the only country where that is so.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't elevate scientists to godlike status. All they can do is look at the evidence. Earthquakes are rare. Because of this, statistical data can be misleading. If the scientist discovers that a previous theory was flawed (and they all are, to various degrees), then they use the new data to make the theory better, or find a better theory to fit the data. The only reason we should blame the scientists is if they lied about the danger. They can't be held liable for espousing an opinion based on their best understanding of the data at the time.
they were discrediting an area resident who had been claiming that a large earthquake was going to hit soon.
Just because a broken clock is right twice a day, should we set our watches by it?
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
But the point is, the occurrence of an earthquake was very improbable. This fact is not changed even by the occurrence of an earthquake shortly after.
What the scientists were asked to do is effectively the same as predicting who would win the lottery. This is just not possible - even if somebody still wins it every few weeks...
The scientists were on government appointed risk assessment committee. They said there was no danger in an earthquake prone town full of ancient fragile buildings. They weren't expected to predict an earthquake, they were expected to assess and relay the risk of the area. Instead, they focused on silencing what many view as the village idiot. This article [nature.com] puts it best:
Moreover, it did not issue any specific recommendations for community preparedness, according to Picuti, thereby failing in its legal obligation "to avoid death, injury and damage, or at least to minimize them".
The only thing they minimized was public safety, and considering the gravity of their position, I can't disagree with them being held responsible.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:3, Insightful)
If I, as an engineer, certify that a plant is safe when it may be not, I can be jailed. I can't see why the same can't apply to this case.
That would be because are not among those who replaced the term "God" with "Science". It's amusing how many on Slashdot scorn the "backwards bible-thumpers" who blindly stick to their faith, yet employ that same blindness because someone happens to be a diploma-carrying scientist. In essence, they have become that which they hate.
To clarify, the problem isn't "God" or "Science", the problem is willful blindness.
Yes, but people that believe in "God" tend to be blind on purpose. Easy to get them to believe in the unreal since they already have blind faith in something.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The best analogy I can think of is medical malpractice.
If you are a professional, and lives are riding on your advice, you shouldn't expect to screw up and get away with it.
No one "expects to screw up". Medicine and surgery, like all practical skills, are inexact. A doctor or a surgeon studies the patient, and makes his best attempt at a diagnosis. Then he makes his best attempt at treatment. If he is good, he will usually be right. Unless he is God, he will sometimes be wrong.
The attitude that I think I see in the quoted text - "you shouldn't expect to screw up and get away with it" - seems to me to combine unwarranted vengefulness with lack of foresight. Isn't it true that medical services in the USA, for instance, are made far more expensive than they have to be - partly because of the massive insurance all medical professionals need to take out in case they are sued?
Re:Misleading summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically A predicted a quake would strike based on multiple measurements...
A's prediction was pseudo-science. A's prediction was based on observations of radon gas emissions. He was an amateur seismologist, i.e., his science credentials are of the same integrity as that of ghost hunters or doctors who practice homeopathy. His crock "prediction" was bad for tourism, and though I believe that he should have the freedom to say whatever he believes, his statement was pseudo-science bollocks.
And for the record, the scientists who were charged for manslaughter were charged for a very specific statement. There had been many tremors leading up to the mainshock. The Civil Protection department stated, "minor shocks did not raise the risk of a major one. ...The scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy." [nature.com]
The first sentence is not technically correct: "...minor shocks did not raise the risk of a major one." The simple answer is seismologists don't know when, if, or where a mainshock will occur. We can only guess. And the notion of anomalies in the background seismicity--anomalously low or high--has been tried for over a century. It doesn't work. Hindsight is 20/20, and some large events are preceeded by either more or less minor earthquakes, but we simply do not know of a reliable way to predict major earthquakes based on minor earthquakes. Some major earthquakes happen with no precursors. Some happen after minor earthquake swarms. Some happen after a period of low seismicity--i.e., the fault is "stuck" and building pressure. In other words, we cannot rule out that the increase in minor earthquakes is a precursor to a larger event, but we also cannot say with any certainty that it does foreshadow a major event. We can say very little based on earthquake swarms, and we certainly don't have time to study them in the six months that they occurred before the mainshock.
The second sentence is not correct: "The scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy." Of course, the occurrence of an earthquake means that stress fault was released as energy. However, we cannot conclusively say anything about whether or not that expenditure of energy increases or decreases danger. Those minor quakes could load some section of a fault, they could indicate that a fault that was previously "stuck" is now moving, they could indicate that a dormant fault has been reactivated... they could indicate any number of things. If we are talking purely in terms of energy, though--which is what I assume that the Italian Civil Protection department was saying when he was talking about a discharge of energy--his statement is pretty silly. The moment magnitude scale is logarithmic. Every one step in magnitude is approximately 32 times the energy. Two steps is exactly 1000 times the energy. The earthquake that struck Italy was a magnitude 6.3. It would take 1000 magnitude 4.3 earthquakes to expend the energy of the magnitude 6.3. Of course, one could make the argument that the fault was right on the point of slip and just a little bit of stress release could relax it enough to not slip, but there is simply no evidence that I am aware of, anywhere, that minor earthquakes and reduce the load on a fault enough to prevent a major earthquake. In fact, Japanese scientists in the past looked into manufacturing small earthquakes by drilling holes into faults and lubricating them in the hope to release the built-up stress as many minor quakes instead of one larger one. They abandoned that idea.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
She didn't confess, and her supposed false accusation of someone else was based on deceptive leading questions from interrogators. You know the sort of thing. The police ask people something like "help us figure" it out and to "imagine" how the crime might have happened, and suggest scenarios for them to fill in the blanks. Then they turn it around and call it a confession, or an accusation. The cellphone evidence is based on analysis of only call records by a police inspector, not by any sort of telecommunications expert. The inspector concluded that the cell phones were turned off solely because they didn't receive any texts or phone calls during a block of time, surrounding the murder (well into the next day, as a matter of fact). The police also arrested and successfully prosecuted someone else for the same murder. The prosecutor in the case was also convicted of abuse of power in another case. His conviction was eventually overturned and, under italian law, no-one is considered guilty until all appeals are exhausted. By that same principle, Amanda Knox also was never considered guilty under Italian law.
Re:Misleading summary (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing Amanda Knox learnt is that with enough money you can buy your way out of jail in Italy just as well as other people can buy your way in.
Whether she's guilty or not is something that was never really determined to any great extent, because on one side you had a prosecution that was trying every trick in the book to make sure she went to jail over it, and on the other you had a massive American lobbying campaign with many millions of dollars poured into the idea that she was innocent.
There's still a hell of a lot of questions about her actions, but there's still a hell of a lot of questions about the prosecution.
One thing is for sure and that's that justice didn't happen in the Amanda Knox case. If she was guilty she got away with it, if she was innocent then her name has certainly not been cleared in the minds of many millions of people. In the US the lobbying campaign has her painted as a victim, but across much of Europe where the press was much more impartial because of an equal distaste of both the Italian and American actions in the case there still seems a pretty strong belief she's guilty.
The Italians and Americans have extreme opposing views on it because of the massively influential media campaigns, elsewhere people are far from convinced there was any just resolution either way.