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Geologists Might Be Charged For Not Predicting Quake
mmmscience writes "In 2009, a series of small earthquakes shook the region of L'Aquila, Italy. Seismologists investigated the tremors, but concluded that there was no direct indication of a big quake on the horizon. Less than a month later, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake killed more than 300 people. Now, the chief prosecutor of L'Aquila is
looking to charge the scientists with gross negligent manslaughter for not predicting the quake."
science out of your country.
No indications means they didn't detect any indication. That could be due to poor technology, or perhaps because there were no indications.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course if the scientist predicted a huge quake and none occurred, then he would be targeted for that as well.
Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
I'll go along with that argument, as long as we can throw politicians in jail any time there is some economic disturbance that impacts the population. After all, they should be able to accurately predict and prevent such things.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
I thought the USA was the sue-happy country. Don't we have a patent on it or something? Italy better start preparing for a lawsuit from the U.S.
That way you can never be charged for failing to predict it. Of course everyone will start ignoring your predictions, even if you really do have evidence a big quake is about to hit, and lots of people may die, but your ass will be covered.
dumbassery run amok. How about arresting police for not catching bank robbers too. Schmuck.
If they are complete a$$hats then why do you keep electing these jokers to office?!?!
Get the figureheads out; get the wiser, council-seeking, in-depth folks in.
Until then, civilization will continue its slide to self-destruction.
Given their stellar investigation and handling of the Knox trial- I'd expect a conviction with a 20-30 year sentence.
I worked this one job where the boss would routinely ignore my planning advice, get some outside incompetent guy to do things, get me to clean it up when things went horribly wrong, and then complain to me that I wasn't getting enough progress on my own initiatives. What I'm getting at here is that I would *love* to be able to hold people accountable for ignoring good, substantiated advice and planning.
I forget the specifics, but a local technically minded person had predicted this earthquake, largely based on gas venting. He gave a date and it didn't happen, so the local politicians went about prosecuting him for the equivalent of yelling "fire!". But then the earthquake hit the next day. I assume this is a continuing effort on the part of the local politicians and prosecutor to lay the blame anywhere but on themselves.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
It appears the statement that the precursor data did not indicate a following quake was taken to mean that there would be no following quake.
This appears to be a science to english translation problem on the nature of causality and dependency.
who actually know something about earthquakes as opposed to the fuckwits who want to sue. Earthquake intensity is notoriously hard to predict - in fact if my memory serves me correctly it has only happened a couple of times in the last couple of decades despite billions being spent on research and monitoring.
the human race is too stupid to live
where's that goddamn asteroid...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
the world has gone insane and has been for a good long while. But to even consider the notion to file legal charges against the fellas for failing to predict an "Act of ", well that about tops it all.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Does this mean that we can send meteorologists to jail for getting the 5-day forecast wrong?
Science is generally in a much more nascent stage than most scientists are willing to admit. Perhaps with very real repercussions from providing analyses that cannot reveal useful predictions they may alter their conclusions to reflect the true state of their knowledge.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Scientist Forced To Remove Earthquake Prediction
... seismologists and senior members of Italy’s Civil Protection Department and the National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute — are being investigated based on their statements to the Major Risks Committee on March 31, 2009, that a series of small earthquakes (none over magnitude 4.0) over the previous six months did not mean that a large earthquake was imminent.
So the question is if a series of small earthquakes is a definitive indicator of an upcoming large earthquake. According to the seismologists it wasn't.
So, is it? I don't know. Probably not.
But, assuming it is, can you realistically charge someone with manslaughter for deaths caused by a natural disaster?
Isn't being stupid punishment enough for these poort scientists?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
jail shit, they're to be drawn and quartered at dawn, we got crops to consider!!!
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
^_^
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Next Headline: Family of man killed in accident sues weatherman for failing to predict a heavy snowstorm.
Even if the scientists correctly predicted a quake, what were they planning on doing about it?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The Chinese did this thousands of years ago with their astronomers. If they failed to predict a solar or lunar eclipse, they'd be executed.
Citation
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Al Roker's ass is toast.
Do they sue the weatherman?
Good to see the chief prosecuter's extensive geological research has established earthquake prediction to such a finely tuned science that not acting on it is tantamount to murder.
Next up, doctors will be arrested for not predicting your cancer.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Shouldn't the church be banned, for not praying hard enough to prevent this?
The italian translation is uncorrect. Geologists said that "the risk is zero", that is very different from "we don't know, it could happen or not".
in Italy, they may have been burned as witches.
all this is nonsense, everyone now knows earthquakes are caused by women dressing indecently.
Ok, maybe you need to know something about the Italian judiciary system. In Italy there is something called "obligatory penal action", which means that if there is even the simple suspect of a crime being committed, then an investigation must be started.
In the quake case, the investigation started because the people responsible for monitoring the situation explicitly reassured the population by telling them that there would be no big quake. Any responsible scientist, given the continuous small shakes that were ongoing, would have at least said something on the line "We believe there will be no major quake, but please do not lower your guard".
And that is why there was an investigation that ended with them being charged for negligence.
Must be Italy. Sounds like something Caligula would have done.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The scientists' counter argument should be that the prosecutor is responsible for the earthquake because he did not walk around with a banana in his ear. It's just as sound as the argument being used against them; he failed to keep the earthquakes away.
If they had modern building codes, a 6.3 wouldn't have done nearly so much damage and loss of life would be minimal(the random heart attack and whatnot).
Someone toss that goddamn politician and his colleagues in jail for negligence.
1632 called and wants their anti-science stance back.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm preaching to the choir here I know. But honestly, if they investigated and didn't see any signs that is one thing. If however they investigated, found possible signs and didn't report them for fear of a mass panic, then that is a whole other story. This reminds me of the whole, "We're overdue for the big one!", that we keep seeing in the media. It seems everyday the news reports some "big one" we're overdue for, when the fact is nothing on earth is truly cyclical. We're overdue for a large meteor/comet strike! Oh really? Is there someone out there lobbing these things at us? If there is, is it possible, maybe he/she ran out of ammo? We're overdue for Yellowstone to blow, sending us all to kingdom come! Truly, yes that is a hot spot, but we really, don't know the exact depth & composition of that part of the earths crust. If it's identical to previous eruptions, which is doubtful then yes, we should see something / should have seen something by now. We also have no clue whats causing that portion of the earths mantle to be a hot spot, maybe it's cooling off a bit, maybe it's getting hotter. The fact is we don't know, and there are too many variables. Anyone working in a field of analysis needs to be careful to make predictions. The future is not certain and frankly, we aren't even that sure of the past. I work in Systems Analysis, I'm supposed to find root cause for failure and take steps to prevent failures in the future. I've come to the conclusion that people read what they want to read & hear what they want to hear. As people of the scientific disciplines, it is not our job at all, to be prognosticators. Our job is only to gather data, analyze it and present it in a form that is understandable to our intended audience. We should never be chicken littles, claiming that the sky is falling, and we should never try to hide the fact that the sky is in fact falling, but that should only be if it's a fact, not an opinion. We can only say we have observed current conditions and determined the statistical probably that certain similar events, were preceded by certain similar circumstances. We cannot predict the future, therefore we should never incite anything whether fear or calm by attempting to.
Success is not the lack of failure, it's the lack of fear. http://theonlyhabit.blogspot.com/
So basically anyone on the losing side of a hypothesis test now gets prosecuted.
If P > 0.10, go directly to jail. Awesome!
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
First they came for the Geologists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Geologists...
Things haven't changed much since Galileo, have they? Are they going to throw meteorologists off of buildings or burn them at the stake now?
What absolute ignorance.
For the fact that there is still crime in his area? I mean after he took office wasn't it his responsibility to lock up all crime committing people thereby leaving the area crime free?
Someone forgot to leave the briefcase behind the billboard, and Guido the Prosecutor, he don't like being dissed, capice, Paisan?
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Ever hear of a guy named Johnny Cochran?
They've jailed and worse scientists before - why not start again!
Jail those bankers and those economists who don't warn us before our shares start dropping or have us lose any of the money we've invested for that matter! [/sarcasm]
Prop 66 warning: This land is known to the State of California to move and cause destruction.
This warning has now to be on display for all real property in California.
Seriously, we should warn everybody living on earth that they should get out because they might be struck by an earthquake, a tsunami, a volcano eruption, a tornado,...
And so is technology.
We've gone well past the point where, to the majority of the population, science is distinguishable from magic.
This ranges from the meta-arguments on the internets regarding science vs religion to the everyday, "Mom/Dad, it's not like I just wave a magic wand to fix your broken computer" to everyone complaining about how there's an article in the news about how some study says this is good for you health one day another bad for you the next (no, you're just not reading the boundary conditions of the study properly.)
Or maybe the majority of humanity is just always one step behind the science/magic curve, I dunno know, but most science to most people most of the time is just plain fucking magic.
One from many seasons ago - when a giant comet was going to impact and presumably destroy Springfield. When it didn't happen (because it burned up in the atmosphere to the size of a Chihuahua's head), the townsfolk then shouted: "Let's go burn down the observatory so this never happens again!"
File under: Truth is stranger than fiction....
http://www.northlandcc.net
And while we're at it, let's sue anti-virus vendors for not predicting major pieces of malware. It's clearly their fault that it happened.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
Cool. Do they also sue the weathermen for being wrong 50%of the time. Where can I get in on the class action?
At first I was tempted to think "well, the seismologists will just drop their instruments and find a different line of work, tough cookies idiot prosecutor", but that isn't quite how it works.
Suppose you're feeling not very well and you go to a doctor. He tells you it's nothing over numerous visits. Turns out he's wrong, you end up with permanent damage or perhaps dead, and maybe others are affected too as the illness was highly contagious or something.
If it can be shown that according to the information the medico had (or could have had, like test results, and had clear indications to do the darn tests already), then he's culpable. If not criminally, at least here the guild of medicos will slap his wrists or even kick'im out the profession. Since he's trained for perhaps a half a decade to be a doctor, or for specialists sometimes far more, that does hurt.
If the prosecutor can show that according to the data the scientists had at the time their conclusion was obviously wrong, then yes, the scientists can be shown negligent. Whether there is a law against general negligence in Italy I don't know, but there are countries where similar rules do exist.
For example, the title "engineer with diploma" in Germany means that you're allowed to sign off on designs for all sorts of engineering works according to what you've trained for, but that if, say, you're an ee and an apparatus of your design electrocutes someone and it can be shown that was due design faults you signed off on, you're personally liable for damages. So best be careful what you sign off on. So why do people still want to such a "dipl. ing."? Well, companies have to have someone sign off on what they sell, so there's a living to be made out of being the chief engineer signing off on stuff.
All in all, I'm not at all certain the prosecutor has a case, but he's welcome to try. By the same token, the seismology scientific community will want to keep a close eye on what he's claiming and whether it's scientifically sound or more like liberal application of the Malleus Maleficarum. Because in the latter case, boy, do we then have a problem.
Scientists could, however, accurately predict half-life.
There is no way known to predict for a earthquake in the long term with great assurance. There might be prediction some areas might be ready for a earthquake. But it is close to impossible to predict when and where that earthquake might happen in the short term.
This charge is baseless and shows just how stupid things can get when people don't have the know how on this.
All their lawyer has to do is present the science.
The prosecutor will look like an utter fool.
That's exactly what happened to healthcare in the USA in the last 30 years.
When any doctor can be sued for not detecting a disease you can bet there will be plenty of unneeded medical tests prescribed for everyone and costs will skyrocket.
Should have just said there's about a 50-50 chance of an earthquake. In fact, that's my advice to all scientists when dealing with the general public via news, politicians, whatever. Regardless of what the real answer is or could be or if they even know, whenever asked what the chances of such-and-such happening are, just say 50-50.
Will there be an earthquake?
50-50
Is the hurricane going to hit?
50-50
Will it stop the oil?
50-50
Are sea levels going to rise?
50-50
Are there aliens?
50-50
This will accomplish two things. If things work out, scientists can claim credit, saying they just didn't want to appear too optimistic. If it goes the other way, nobody is really surprised because people usually expect the worst out of a 50-50 chance. Then maybe they can stop being harassed with mind-bogglingly insipid crap like this and get some work done.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
When dealing with insurance companies or other situations where the environment is taken into account where damage and loss of life are concerned, the words "act of God" are used to describe that which is outside of human control and predictability. An earthquake falls neatly within that scope of definition. And with this happening in Italy of all places, I find it shocking that they do not appreciate the notion of such events being an act of God.
This is not simply shocking, I see it as a government assault on scientists, scientific research and science in general. They are essentially charging scientists for not knowing everything about everything.
You know that this would get you acquitted in any reasonably democratic country in the world, right?
The civilized norm is that you must be sure in order to convict anyone of a crime.
The prosecutors and lawyers, not the geologists. There is no established science that can *reliably* predict an earthquake. The best you can do, with a *lot* of instrumentation and historical study, is to assess the relative risks in one region versus another, or along particular fault segments. Sometimes you can make a prediction of "a magnitude X quake has a % probability of occurring in the next 20 years", but that's about it. *Sometimes* there are hints of precursor indications (e.g., realtime strain readings, changes in groundwater, and increases in radon gas release due to deformation of the rocks), but they are poorly understood and fault systems are very complicated. These methods aren't reliable. Furthermore, there isn't a location in Italy *anywhere* that has a low risk of earthquakes. It's a tectonically active area. The Alps are still building, volcanoes are still erupting in historical times (Hello? Stromboli? Etna? Vesuvius?), and you can directly measure the plate motion and deformation of Italy using high-precision GPS and other systems, so, any geologist who said there is no chance of a significant earthquake happening somewhere in Italy would be an idiot.
Of course, that isn't what they said, apparently. A statement like "no direct indication of a big 'quake on the horizon" simply means "no particular reason to predict an earthquake, even though the relatively high risk of a damaging earthquake in Italy remains when compared to more tectonically stable parts of the world."
What, if a geologist does say there's a significant risk of an earthquake in the next year and one doesn't happen, will they also be sued?
You may as well sue weather forecasters for incorrectly predicting the weather 6 months in advance for your wedding day when it rains.
The result if this case is heard, let alone if it sticks: geologists will stop offering any predictions at all and probably move out of the country in droves. Which would be just what a country like Italy doesn't need, given that it is a rather geologically active part of the world with plenty of related hazards.
I am Italian and I followed the news of those days. Basically, the only /unfair/ statements have been those given by Civil Protection when the many small quakes were happening: they said: "It's OK, no quake is going to happen".
I would sue them (and not the scientists) for spreading false information, since you can't predict a earthquake event but neither its absence in a highly seismical zone.
The more correct statement would have been: "We have no data to conclude that a earthquake is going to happen, but Abruzzo is a rank 2 seismical zone so if your house is built correctly you can sleep well". But nobody would have said this because the rank was decreased to 3 a few years before (rumors say to favour building companies, which did no more need to build expensive antiseismical buildings) and for money, because most houses were not correctly built (as the earthquake quickly verified by killing thousands) - and panic is never a good business (unless you can exploit it).
Regarding Giampaolo Giuliani: he should go to Japan and prove his theories, one single event can be a lucky strike. I personally don't know if his theory was enough validated before the main quake event
title says it all.
Be seeing you...
I live in upstate NY.
So no matter what their forecast is, it will definitely happen at some point in the day.
All he should have to do is go before the judge/jury and present one sentance and be cleared: "Guido Bertolaso, head of Italy's Civil Protection Agency, was quoted as saying. 'Everyone knows that you can't predict earthquakes:
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
The difference between "a science" and "an art" is reproducibility and the state of predicability of events. If you want to call seismology "a science" then you better be prepared to produce results on demand.
Obviously, chemistry is "a science" and psychology is "an art" today and I don't think many would disagree. Seismology, as a branch of geology, isn't quite there yet. As is about to be proven in court. Having to prove this in court is a nuisance, but it isn't that unreasonable. Using proper terminology from the beginning might have clarified this a bit in the general public's mind.
Science is not some fucking magic thing that can predict natural disasters.
Would that include such things as AGW?
The thing about AGW is that the A stands for "anthropogenic", which is a fancy word for that means "caused by human beings". So, by definition, "AGW" is not natural.
But considering you're a climate-change denier, I guess we shouldn't really expect you to understand or be supportive of any type of science.
Faggots must die!
you have a lot to answer for. the Minister will not be pleased.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Are you suggesting that we're not natural? I'd say that we're a part of nature, certainly not alien or above it in some way.
That said, anthropogenic is pretty straight-forward. I'm not trying to wade into the debate about AGW. I just firmly believe that we will make better decisions about our actions if we remember that, regardless of what we do, we are a part of nature, nothing more, nothing less.
The Italian Authorities actually threatened another man (Gioacchino Giuliani) with arrest for predicting this earthquake! And now they have the temerity to threaten scientists for not stepping forward with a warning? Well, with the incentives that you've put in place for the scientists, why should they put their necks out?! http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Italy_quake_kills_92_devastates_historic_0406.html
Pretend I said something meaningful or insightful here.
For not curing cancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34v2t1xUFM ;-)
You're arguing semantics. What does natural mean? Does it mean that something has occured without human interaction (most peoples definition), or does it mean everything that has occured in the universe (your definition, for this part of the thread). In any case, some natural disasters are easier to predict than others, and earthquakes fall under that category of currently not predictable.
Burn 'em all at the stake!
I find your Kafkaesque story so similar to the global warming saga and the comet or Sun induced pending Armageddon.
Wouldn't also climatologists and astronomers be liable if they failed to predict a major disasters as temperature rise or massive Sun flares?
Frequentist statisticians should certainly be sued. They claim to estimate probabilities based not only on the frequency of single events (logically absurd), but also on the frequency of negligible events happening every day (crying wolf).
"Shit happens" is usually considered as the definition of the failure of science or technology to predict "some shit". In other words, a warning that some improbable possibilities should not be left to either scientists or engineers.
If you browse any science laboratory manual, you'll see there's a lot of statistics (the "science" of data treatment) and also a lot of Security-Related Precautions and Safe Practices. This very fact reflects two things: First, that Safety is a science too, but not modeled after deterministic cause-effect classic science (this is why "shit that can happen, will almost certainly happen"). Second, you cannot model human stupidity or ignorance or willingness to become a hero.
In many countries, this happens all the time. Let me describe the situation in mine (a third-world underdeveloped country, soon to exit the eurozone):
- Seismologists (academics and in research institutes) are to send their predictions in the form of top secret reports over secure lines directly to the government and to not disclose any of said predictions to the media, "to avoid mass hysteria".
- After a minor event, mass media speculate on the existence of such reports and try endlessly to get clues by interviewing seismologists.
- After a medium event, the media are furious because they were not allowed to see said reports and be credited for warning people for an imminent danger.
- After a major event, the media go berserk and accuse the government of hiding information that would have saved people's lives.
- Scientists having developed novel prediction methods (often recognised by peer-reviewed international journals in the field) are shunned by the local "orthodox" scientific community, often lose their academic positions and almost certainly their freedom of speech (not even mass media will deal with them).
- Inevitably, there are as many opinions about the imminence of a major event as there are universities in the country. Mass media always strive to bring opposite views into hot debate.
It's a complex world we are living in... and reason, science, common sense or the Law have very little to do with it.
This is not funny but very insightful.
In order to understand statistical predictions, the audience must have specific probabilistic reasoning skills. Unfortunately, humans are by nature very poor probabilistic reasoners (the '70s studies by Kahneman & Tversky have established this) and probably they will never learn (pupils are especially resistant to relevant remedial teaching).
In addition, "scientists" are notoriously bad at explaining their own findings in plain english, precisely because english (or any other language) and science are incompatible. Therefore, you need either a government, a mass medium or a self-proclaimed science populariser to 'translate' science into 'plain english', which almost always leads to an epic fail.
Alas, precision, accuracy and truth will always remain lost in translation.
They are not accused for not knowing, they are accused for speaking (and now for not speaking) publicly about their knowledge (or lack of it).
IANAL, but in theory, you can sue anyone you like for anything you like (even God Himself, have you seen the 2001 excellent movie 'The Man Who Sued God'?).
They remind me that thinking in absolutes is not wise.
You see, every so often I see some news from Britain, where some public servant does or mandates something really mind-bogglingly stupid. Epic stupid. And I think to myself "There's absolutely no way anyone could do something more stupid than that. They're achieved the absolute pinnacle of stupidity."
Then some Italian goes and shows me how wrong I was.
I was in L'Aquila at the time and i'd like to stress these lines from TFA: seismologists [...] are being investigated based on their statements to the Major Risks Committee [...] that a series of small earthquakes (none over magnitude 4.0) over the previous six months did not mean that a large earthquake was imminent.
Too many people where wrongly reassured. How can you say there will be NO major earthquake if you cannot predict them? Luckily I did not trust them or else i won't be writing these words.
The problem is more complex: there were some geologist that come out with a serious warning about the early tremors and analyzing the xeon and other gas escape from the ground predicted the earthquake. Then a panel of scientist debunked all the findings basically saying that there were not danger at all (and sued the geologist gianpaolo luciani for unjustified alarm). ...then the earthquake and the deaths. The panel is still in place and (fortunately) the charges against gianpaolo luciani fell. but the population then sued the geologist panel because followed the governement order to keep everyone quiet and not to mention risks at all instead to dig into the problem as a scientist should do. n
No, the grand grand parent was arguing semantics. I just jumped in to suggest that the AGW debate isn't really served by natural vs. anthropogenic, as those aren't really opposites. Once we start down that road, it shuts the door on climate change mitigation until we've determined whether or not we were the cause. Can't we just decide to turn the thermostat down, whether we changed things or not?
On earthquakes being not predictable, chaos and causality junkes (myself included) would refine that by saying that they are predictable, but they are very difficult to predict given the measurements that we currently have.
What about a wicked lightning storm that brews up due to air currents and someone dies from a lightning strike....I'm sorry, but nature is nature. Scientist are making assessments based on the facet they think they know and the little knowledge they really have about the world we live in. If we could predict things to that level of accuracy, then we would understand precisely our level of impact on the world as a whole. Geologist can no more predict an earthquake than the weatherman can tell you where a hurrican will go when it forms off the coast of Africa. If you live in an area that will someday be hit by a hurricane, then all I can say, is Buyer Beware. This logic is no different for those individual who live in flood plains, or live below sea level (New Orleans), or on or near a fault line (San Andreas Fault example). Come on people, if you buy a house near a volcano, you can't honestly think it will never errupt. It's the earth.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
The story is true, the details aren't.
They are prosecuting the very high levels of Civil Protection Department management, already charged with bribes allegation with government and Catholic Church.
The prosecutor opened a compulsory investigation (they are required to do so) and found evidence of more than just "it may happen". Some of the building have been kept open even if not safe, just because the very same governement cached back a bunch of money with a tax for declaring out of law buildings (condono edilizio).
They also had evidence of high risk, and kept saying it was safe with public announcement, while the responsible persone were alerted about the risk, and went away with their families.
A very good movie from Sabrina Guzzanti "Draquila" (available only in italian) tells as the story went.
The italian government and his mafia chief Berlusconi regained public approval after managing (in a very bad way) the aftermath post earthquake. They denied civil rights inside the tents camps for the civilian people.
They put the army inside the city and in the camps, the ruled out almost every single, basic right (like the right to inform and to receive support from other civilian).
They built - saying it was in record time - some accomodation with poor costruction tecniques and matters, with huge amount of money and stored the people inside with no public assignment, and without ownership (the goverment still owns the houses, the people is just guest inside).
Meanwhile they prohibited access to the city, even in the safe zones and still standing houses with no damages, saying "it's dangerous".
This is simply an italian history of mafia and bad behaviour. Nobody could actually understand it without learning about the mafia ruling our parliament and all the stuff we're facing day by day by this criminal politics.
Have a closer look, no scientist will ever be charged for this kind of investigation. THEY ACTUALLY WARNED AND ASKED FOR MORE INSTRUMENT TO TEST IT OUT AND SAFETY RULES. THEY WERE DENIED AND SILENCED. THERE'S EVIDENCE OF IT!
Instead, a big bunch of the managers of the Civil Protection department and government will be charged and probably condemned after years for manslaughter, and they will NOT go in jail because of the new laws of this parliament about the "Fast prosecution" (that's actually a never prosecution for some kind of crimes...).
All of this has to be stopped, since this is a virus. Our politician are showing a way to get full, unlimited power and no prosecution. A way like fascism in the last century, we're really near that.
And we're influencing other country's politician system. Nobody resign a public role in Italy after an investigation, even if the crime is shown real. And somebody else is doing the same in other european countries.
I hope we do not need another world war to be freed from these nazi-fascist politics.
Obama, leave afghanistan, send freedom to italy. Last time was a real success. This time is a real democratic emergency.
Ciao
When asked if a earthquake will hit, the geologists will say: "We don't fucking know!"
First things first, death-boy -- now spread those cheeks, 'cause I gotta piss.....
if the Italians find him guilty, there all the remaining Italian geologists will leave the country, and who would be left to measure their politician's brain masses.
This is the entire problem with the AGW believers. Anyone who questions anything must be a denier or they are paid off by big oil. This guy just gave a well reasoned statement that included backing statements you can look up yourself. But no, he mustn't be intelligent, he's just a denier. It is people who act this way who give science a bad name. AGW is a theory, it is not proven or dis-proven, and everyone who tries to use data to disprove it, no matter how correctly they do so, they must be a denier. You sound like a religious zealot, get off your damn high horse.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
If I remember correctly the predictions for Katrina didn't quite shape up right. Let's sue every meteorologist into the ground so that they understand that a statistical educated guess has to be 100% accurate when lives are on the line. Then we can offer a tax credit to anyone who donates to BP to clean up the oil spill.
Man... sometimes innovation comes from the most unlikely places. If any country was going to find an exactly ass backwards way of finding accountability for a natural event, I'd have expected it to be the US.
"...And who wants to make buttprints in the sands of time?" ~Bob Moawad
Its nearly universally believed among earth scientists that quakes are yet unpredictable.
... you might get in trouble as well... I don't remember the whole story but Giampaolo Giuliani predicted the quake and got in trouble for it http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/earthquake-warning-was-removed-from-internet/
I say charge the prosecutor for being a moron.
Science is nothing more than best guess, which probably chaps the guy's ass but so be it.
TFA is misleading as well, but the italian article it refers to actually says that those under investigation are members of the Major Risks Committee itself.
What transpired is that the Committee was pressured by the government to give false reassurance *in spite of* indication of serious danger.
The documentary Draquila gives a good account of these events.
This just in: meteorologists charged in fires started by lightning strikes; more after our story regarding farmers being charged for not providing food to starving countries.
Almost... Veneto's governor, Luca Zaia, says that meteorologists are affecting tourism:
http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2010/06/17/news/zaia_metro-4910395/
Google translate:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2010/06/17/news/zaia_metro-4910395/&sl=it&tl=en
They're being rightfully charged. They didn't say "we don't know", they said "there's nothing to worry about"
Speaking as an Earth Scientist, I'm perfectly confident that earthquakes are predictable enough for my purposes : anywhere within 50 miles of a magnitude 4.0 or higher quake in instrumental history has a significant chance (P>0.05) of receiving a comparably-sized quake in the next century.
Oh, you wanted a more precise prediction? Ask someone else - that's as precise as I'm going to go. Earthquake prediction isn't reliably any better than that. Yet.
And to be honest, except in a few very unusual circumstances, I don't see any progress that would lead to moving the precision of prediction to a decadal scale instead of a centennial scale. (One of the small number of exceptions would be the busted predictions at Parkfield, California ; the busting of that prediction hasn't been terribly surprising.)
Here is an important, but probably unhelpful prediction : of the next hundred million people killed by earthquakes in the world (including by consequent famine), under 10% of the victims will live in the developed world. Here is a slightly more useful prediction (based on historical seismicity only, so likely as reliable as the Parkfield prediction) : more than half of the next hundred million victims will die in India.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"