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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.
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.
Does this mean that we can send meteorologists to jail for getting the 5-day forecast wrong?
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.
Human intelligence is generally in a much more nascent stage than most people are willing to admit.
FTFY
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
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.
Science is generally in a much more nascent stage than most scientists are willing to admit
If you actually bother to talk to any scientists, they will freely and enthusiastically discuss the limits of their field of study. Knowing what you don't know is the most important part of being a scientist.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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]
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.
Italian Prosecutors are appointed and not elected http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Italy
No, it's not. It's actually an indication that a big earthquake is less likely. Consider this grossly oversimplified model: earthquakes happen because there's potential energy between two chunks of rock; one chunk of rock wants to move North, the other chunk wants to move South, but they're stuck on each other. The pressure between the two keeps on growing and growing until something breaks, and you get an earthquake. If you have lots of small earthquakes, that means that the potential energy between the two chunks of rock is being depleted; this lower potential means that things are less likely to snap in the first place, and if they do ever snap the total energy released (in other words, the magnitude of the earthquake) will be lower.
It's like the difference between boiling water in a pot with a lid versus boiling water in a sealed pressure cooker; the pot with the lid will bubble and burp and move around a little, but the pressure cooker will eventually explode if you're not careful.
Actually Italy already has a history of suing scientist who predicted an earth quake which didn't happen (well not on that day, it happened a few days later).
In any case, I predict there won't be any geologist in Italy in the near future.
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.
They didn't do ANYTHING wrong in the Knox case. Sollecito and Knox were known to be practitioners of dangerous sex acts. ("Foxy Knoxy", wtf?) They tried to get Kercher involved and when she wanted them to stop, they took it too far. The morning after the murder they were coming back into the apartment to clean up the mess. They lied to the police repeatedly. (Knox even did cartwheels at the police station.)
Their blood was found on the victim's clothing EVEN after their shoddy work trying to clean up the scene. Knox's DNA was even found in the sink in the victim's bathroom, ffs!
But ignore all that for a moment. The fact is that you and I and your CSI-loving friend Alice didn't see all the evidence. A jury in Italy did. For a whole fuckin YEAR. They heard ALL the arguments for and against. ALL the evidence. ALL the explanations. ALL the fine points of law. They are as bright as you and me. And when they had all the facts in front of them, they found Knox and Sollecito guilty, guilty, guilty. No question about it.
Don't you think we should be deferring to them? You know?
Oh, and: if you post a link to a pro-Knox site, you instantly fail. There's a reason they're called "friends", it's because they lie for you.
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.
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.