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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.
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.
"ue-happy country"
A myth spread by insurance companies.
While there are issues, and always will be, it's a reasonable system overall.
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This is not suing someone, this is criminal prosecution. They're very different things.
Basically, they're saying that, due to incompetence, the scientists caused the deaths of those people by not giving sufficient warning -- which, as you point out, so far can't be accurately predicted with any reliability.
Criminal charges for this demonstrates that the prosecutor doesn't understand science, and is looking for a scapegoat.
Although, from the linked article on The Independent, this seem to be coming from pressure from citizens. I'm sure if the warning had been raised, and it didn't happen, they'd be looking to sue for that too.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
You know, most scientists will actually give you a pretty clear idea of where their knowledge ends and where guesswork begins. The good ones will refuse to give solid predictions based on the fact that they can't, and they'll tell you as much. Most people seem to think that scientists can predict damned near anything, and if they can't, the bitching starts about that.
Heck, the one in question said "no reason to suppose a sequence of small earthquakes could be the prelude to strong event". Likely because they've seen a series of small earthquakes that have not been followed up by a bigger one. And, they've probably seen just as many larger quakes that came out of nowhere, and weren't presaged by smaller quakes. People like to think the planet plays by nice easy rules that say "every time this is going to happen, that will come a a warning sign" -- it's way more complex.
I feel sorry for any scientist who has to try to explain such things to politicians and the general public in a 10 second sound-bite..
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Of course the difference is that there are millenia of people practicing medicine, and a couple centuries of people doing it well. How much history is there of people predicting earthquakes with any accuracy in a reliable manner? None. There's almost no way that this could be interpreted as negligence.
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.
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.
But of course, since it's impossible to prove a negative, obligatory penal action must in practice come down to a judgment call by the prosecutor.
Otherwise I could say "the prosecutor is a murderer," and because they cannot prove otherwise, an investigation must be started. Any defense to why the prosecutor is not going to be investigated for murder is probably also a defense for why you shouldn't prosecute people for doing science.
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.