US Seismologist Testifies Against Scientists In Quake-Prediction Case

ananyo writes with this snippet from Nature (for which this earlier Nature article is also background): "'The courthouse in L'Aquila, Italy, yesterday hosted a highly anticipated hearing in the trial of six seismologists and one government official indicted for manslaughter over their reassurances to the public ahead of a deadly earthquake in 2009. .... During the hearing, the former head of the Italian Department of Civil Protection turned from key witness into defendant, and a seismologist from California criticized Italy's top earthquake experts.' Lalliana Mualchin, former chief seismologist for the Department of Transportation in California, criticized the Italian analysis, which he says was based on a poor model. If the court agrees with Mualchin, the defendants could face up to 12 years in jail."

Comments

Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[Anonymous Coward]

This trial is a farce.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[jdastrup]

300 people did not die because of their improper assurances. If they did "properly" assure them, they would have been called quacks, or they would have been sued for causing a hype if nothing happened and still could have faced fines or jail time. And even if people took precautions, just as many could have died. People died because of a natural disaster, which cannot be predicted or foretold. I don't care who with what authority says it can or cannot happen, no person is at fault for deaths as a result of earthquakes, hurricanes, avalanches, tornadoes, etc.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[scot4875]

So the mechanic should go to jail because they made a mistake? Should mechanics need to have malpractice insurance?

Shit like this is exactly why we have a CYA attitude in every organization, everywhere.

--Jeremy

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[Volante3192]

The flip side is telling everyone they're in danger and then be charged with inciting a panic!

Catch-22 situation, best as I can see it.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[LilGuy]

The case should be decided upon whether a professional opinion, or even one that is concurrent with a majority of professional opinions, can be held to be liable in the case of non-precaution. In that case it would be prudent to always err on the side of safety and give the population the choice to adhere or ignore the advice, but hold no liability for the warning. But to err on the side of catastrophe because you have to due to liability is not going to help anyone. It will only cause mass panics frequently.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[bill_mcgonigle]

The flip side is telling everyone they're in danger and then be charged with inciting a panic!

Or being honest - "our models do not currently show a risk of significant earthquake, but our models may be wrong. You should always be prepared."

Sounds to me like they were dumbing it down for people who find science "too hard".

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[CanHasDIY]

So the mechanic should go to jail because they made a mistake?

If a court can prove that the mechanic was negligent in their actions, then Yes, he should and will

Amazing that some folks think certain groups are exempt from certain laws...

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[DanTheStone]

As I said in November: The crime is (apparently) that they failed to provide sufficient and consistent information for everyone to ignore.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[Grishnakh]

No, it's not a fraud, it's just like predicting the weather, only probably less accurate with today's knowledge. You can't expect 100% accuracy, or probably even close. It's a good tool to use (because it's better than nothing), but if you get mad at the forecasters/seismologists when the prediction doesn't pan out, or they fail to predict something bad, then you're using the tool wrong and your expectations are too high.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[Grishnakh]

I think the end result of this is that there won't be anyone willing to work as a seismologist in Italy any more, so any more earthquakes (which do happen, they're in an active seismic zone there) will simply be a big surprise.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[houghi]

"You should always be prepared."

WOLF!

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[CanHasDIY]

Where I live (the Midwest), it's hard to take meteorologists seriously; the weather is just too damn unpredictable.

So really, I guess it all comes down to the specific situation; if the seismologists had data that, as experts, they should have known was indicating that a major event was forthcoming, but decided to withhold said data from the public (or outright lie about it), then they should be held liable. If they had no such data and were caught as unawares as the rest of the populace, then they should be exonerated. Now if only there were some sort of legal setting in which guilt and innocence could be proven through the presentation of supporting evidence... /sarc

My problem is with the folks who claim these men should remain blameless without even going over the evidence.

I surmise those are the same people who vote along party lines.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[mbkennel]

"1) You can't be put in jail for losing a civil case. Ask O.J."

In countries with English-style law. In others, not necessarily.

I have an in-law who lives in a South American country. He and his wife are facing (entirely bogus) criminal penalties from a private contract lawsuit. It's been dismissed and laughtd out of court every time it comes up before a non-crony-of-plaintiff judge but it gets revived and reallocated. The system is so corrupt that being sentenced to hard time is a possibility from a business collaboration gone bad.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[demonbug]

Where I live (the Midwest), it's hard to take meteorologists seriously; the weather is just too damn unpredictable.

So really, I guess it all comes down to the specific situation; if the seismologists had data that, as experts, they should have known was indicating that a major event was forthcoming, but decided to withhold said data from the public (or outright lie about it), then they should be held liable. If they had no such data and were caught as unawares as the rest of the populace, then they should be exonerated.

It sounds like they are accused of a third possibility; there was no way to know whether a larger event was coming or not, but they reassured the public that there was nothing to worry about. Actually from reading the article, it sounds like the former Director of Public Safety is the one that said that; the guilt or innocence of the scientists depends (or should depend, at any rate) on whether that was their advice to him.

The former Caltrans seismologist has a point, but I'm not sure it really pertains to this case. Earthquake frequency analysis is a great tool for determining something like insurance rates, where you are trying to figure out how likely it is for an earthquake of x magnitude to occur in y period of time. From a public safety standpoint, the primary concern should be the maximum expected earthquake magnitude, because this is what you need to design your infrastructure to. Frequency analysis does come into play here, as it might not make economic sense to design to the largest earthquake ever recorded (or that there is evidence for), but it offers absolutely no guarantees - just because the largest expected quake is a 6.5, you just had a 6.5 three years ago so on average another shouldn't occur for another three thousand years, doesn't mean that another 6.5 won't occur next year.

The only reassurance the scientists should have offered is that the string of minor earthquakes did not necessarily mean a larger event was on the way, which I realize isn't very reassuring. They had absolutely no way of knowing whether something larger was coming, or whether the string of minor earthquakes was it. If they actually claimed otherwise, then they are guilty.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[CanHasDIY]

italy, not spain. where did you get spain from?

... not re-reading the summary before clicking 'Post'.

same thing anyway, right? :D

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[wisty]

I'm not a seismologist, but I've worked with them.

The general consensus is, predicting earthquakes is impossible. Even if you think a "big one" is coming, you don't know if it's minutes or decades away. The timing is impossible to predict. *Sometimes* they get lucky, but it's just that - luck.

The only thing you can do is predict the risk of quakes, and encourage local planners to enforce earthquake proof buildings. In earthquake-prone areas, wooden houses are a good idea, and unreinforced masonry is a death-trap. In hurricane-prone areas, masonry is better, and living below the flood-lines is a death-trap.

The bad decision was to let people live in unreinforced masonry death traps, in a quake-prone area.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[nonsequitor]

The case against them is based on negligence. By not considering the worst case scenario and preparing for it, they've been failing the public trust. The expert is testifying that post earthquake 2009, the building codes still are inadequate since they do not consider the worst case scenario if it is an infrequent event. The fact the model they are currently using, was developed in California, and is now recognized by the scientific community as a whole as flawed, to the point where it is no longer taught to students, could be considered negligence.

I am not an Italian lawyer, nor any other type of lawyer for that matter.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[tragedy]

When an empirical scientist makes a statement like "there is no danger", they mean something like "the level of danger is below threshold X to within margin of error Y". No seismologist would ever seriously say that there's no chance of a serious earthquake even five minutes from now, no matter what all their gathered instrument data and statistics tell them. Statements like "there is no danger" are for public consumption because the public, on the whole, doesn't really have a clue what these people actually do.

This court case is like prosecuting sports commentators for manslaughter because they predicted a victory for the local team, but the local team lost and the crowd rioted and people were killed. Predicting earthquakes that acutely simply isn't their job. Whether they did a good job or not, this trial is a farce. It's just a mob lynching taking place in a courthouse. Some of the heavily publicized (internationally publicized anyway) court cases in Italy recently (such as the Amanda Knox case) seem to fall along those lines. All politics and little real concern for justice, the victims, or the accused.

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[Rockoon]

300 people did not die because of their improper assurances. If they did "properly" assure them, they would have been called quacks, or they would have been sued for causing a hype if nothing happened and still could have faced fines or jail time.

False dichotomy.

The problem is that they spoke with authority saying that there would not be a big quake, when they knew full well that their knowledge didn't go to those lengths. They weren't honest about it. Its really that simple.

This isnt an either/or situation. It wasn't just "no there wont" or "yes there will." The truth was neither, but they chose to say "no there wont."

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[TFAFalcon]

So they should give an urgent warning whenever there is even a possibility of a quake?

And what happens after they predict a quake a few times and no quake happens, or the quakes are minor? Do you think the public is going to listen to them when they give the next warning?

Re:Scientists Charged For Not Being Psychic

[tragedy]

It's my understanding that "no danger" is a translated and possibly paraphrased version of what a mouthpiece said to the press and that what the mouthpiece said was a paraphrased version of what the scientists said. If someone can show a well-translated transcript of exactly what was said in their meetings, I might feel differently, but until then, it looks a lot like they're being lynched for nothing. The people of Aquila are just making a human sacrifice to the earthquake gods.

I've now read the article you linked to after writing the previous paragraph and one bit stands out to me: "others see the case as an indictment of the obfuscating, probabilistic language with which scientists characterize the uncertain potential of natural disasters." So, essentially, the seismologists are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They can either explain the risk factors in clear probabilistic terms which the public considers to be "obfuscating", or thy can say things like "no danger", which was not actually a direct statement from the scientists anyway, and was said after multiple tremors a day for months on end and before the 3.9 hit a few hours before the big one. When the 3.9 hit, the seismologists were almost certainly already working on a new assessment of the situation.

It looks like the sorts of things the scientists actually said were:

"It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, but the possibility cannot be totally excluded."

and:

"If you live in L'Aquila, even if there's no swarm, you can never say, 'No problem.' You can never say that in a high-risk region."

It looks like the "no danger" statements were coming from Bernardo De Bernardinis, who is a hydraulic engineer by training, not a seismologist, and was the Vice Director of the Department of Civil Protection. Clearly the "no danger" statement shouldn't have been taken at face value since the area was known to be dangerous and the buildings were known to be deathtraps in an earthquake. Clearly the recent events didn't somehow make the area safer, so the statement should have been something more like "there's no extraordinary new danger".

Sounds Like Infighting

[eldavojohn]

The problem is in part a scientific one, Mualchin said. The Italian scientists based their analysis on the frequency of earthquakes in the area. This is known as the probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (PSHA), a method that is state of the art in many countries, but that, in Mualchin’s view, systematically underestimates seismic hazard because it does not consider extreme and rare events.

"Frequency is not important, what really matters is the largest earthquake we can expect, the strongest one that has happened in the past. Risk prevention should be based on that," he said. This is the philosophy behind deterministic seismic-hazard analysis, a method that Mualchin says has been mostly abandoned by the scientific community, to the point that younger seismologists do not even learn about it.

So they were using what is commonly considered a "state of the art" model? I'm guessing the prosecutors happened to find a guy in the United States that apparently even admits to adhering to models that are less commonly accepted than the model that the scientists used. I wonder if he's got an ax to grind now that his preferred model is no longer taught? I don't know anything about these two models but this sounds like infighting and I'm sure it's really easy for Mualchin to step in after the fact and show that his "abandoned" model would have worked better in this particular case. Any seismologists here that can speak to the current research in earthquake prediction and the actual effectiveness of these two models?

I sure am glad I'm not a seismologist, this would angry up my blood.

Re:Sounds Like Infighting

[canajin56]

According to TFA, the scientists (in their defense) claim to have told the official that there was no increased or decreased risk because they cannot make a definite prediction. The official is the one who turned that into "no risk at all because little quakes release energy and prevent big ones, drink some wine and relax!" Maybe they're lying now to cover their asses. But the big news in TFA is that this official and his boss arranged this press conference to "reassure the public there is no risk" before they even consulted the accused scientists, so I'd tend to believe the scientists that this official twisted their words or outright lied.

Ob. Moe

[Rik Rohl]

Let's burn down the observatory so this can never happen again!

Re:Ob. Moe

[Desler]

Or don't make broad statements that you can't guarantee are correct and when being wrong can cost lives?

Re:Ob. Moe

[WrongSizeGlass]

Or don't make broad statements that you can't guarantee are correct and when being wrong can cost lives?

There is no way to guarantee that it is safe. Unfortunately the only safe response for the scientists and seismologists would be "Yes, there is always a risk of a deadly earthquake", which would result in no one ever believing them when it was true.

Good Job, Italian Government

[tmosley]

Watch now as all your scientists flee to avoid being the next to be targeted for being wrong.

Sure, maybe they should lose their jobs, or government grants even, but PRISON!?

In totally unrelated news...

[RightSaidFred99]

Students pursuing seismology as a profession saw a sharp decline.

Why would anyone pursue a career where it's so easy to make a simple mistake and be liable for penalties like this for something that is out of your control?

Re:In totally unrelated news...

[couchslug]

Never predict and stick to research.

What is important to realize here

[I Read Good]

is that saying "We do not have reason to believe that there will be a catastrophic earthquake" or "It is not likely that there will be a catastrophic earthquake" is NOT the same as saying "There is no danger of a catastrophic earthquake".

What happened was the scientists came to the former consensus in the meeting, then the politician interpreted it as the latter, and then the politician relayed his version to the people.

IMHO, blaming the scientists is fucking absurd. I think that of the people indicted in this mess, the only one who is at fault is the politician. The most guilty people in this are the idiots who took action concerning their own safety based on their interpretation of what a politician said and against their better instincts.

Re:What is important to realize here

[jklovanc]

What got the scientists in hot water was that, upon hearing the politician's interpretation of their findings, they did not correct him. Had they spoken up the misinformation would have been corrected and the people would not have the false sence of security.

Re:Should've become business analysts

[CanHasDIY]

Nobody has even been tried for involvement in the 2008 crash.

Only because they're still in power.

Think about it; if Hitler had won WWII, would there have been Nuremberg Trials?

Scientists Charged For not being scientific.

[Bobfrankly1]

Those people broke with their regular routine of sleeping outside in their car after multiple small tremors, based on the assurances of the seismologists on trial. Those seismologist called that open session to discredit a laboratory tech who was claiming the likelihood of a larger earthquake. The seismologists basically told the people that there was no danger, go drink some wine. If they hadn't called that meeting and gave that direction, those people wouldn't have broken routine, and many of them would have had a much better chance at survival.

This has been discussed on slashdot before, catch-up on some of the details.

What truly scientific mind would say that that it is safe to ignore the tremors that had been happening in the area? Why didn't they say "we have no conclusive evidence of a forthcoming earthquake, but here are some general safety tips". Most likely, they were more interested in discrediting and shaming the laboratory tech who had been warning of a big earthquake. When those who are entrusted with public safety choose ego over public safety, and it causes changes that lead to death, I agree that they should be held accountable.

Read the Nature article. Get the perspective from both sides.

Re:Scientists Charged For not being scientific.

[tomhath]

From the Nature article:

Its most recent seismic tragedy began in October 2008, when dozens of low-magnitude tremors began to hit the city...these tremors continued intermittently over the first three months of 2009...a resident named Giampaolo Giuliani began to make unofficial earthquake predictions on the basis of measurements of radon gas levels...their use as a reliable short-term predictor of earthquakes has never been scientifically proved or accepted...On 30 March, Giuliani says, national civil-protection officials cited him for procurato allarme — essentially instigating public alarm or panic — and forbade him from making any public pronouncements

Six months of tremors. Some guy running around telling everyone there was about to be a big earthquake. Do they ignore him? Kind of sounds like they went too far in saying there was no risk, but I could understand them trying to calm things down.

Earthquakes don't kill people

[helixcode123]

Things falling on people kill people. From the photos in TFA it looks like the're using unreinforced masonry. This is deadly in earthquake zones, but this situation has more to do with local building codes and enforcement than seismic potential.

In the current state of earthquake prediction, the actual prediction of *when* an earthquake will occur is not all that reliable. However the prediction of how much ground acceleration can be expected from potential seismic activity is reliable and building codes can be created accordingly.

Re:Earthquakes don't kill people

[Uberbah]

It's quite common in Europe to live in a house that was built before the US or Australia were even found by Europeans.

This. What's that saying - "in America, something 100 years old is old, and in Europe 100 miles is a long way". Something built in 1912 is a new building by European standards.

Re:Psychics charged for not knowing science

[TiggertheMad]

You didn't answer my question. If a seismologist makes any sort of clam about future earthquakes, why would you believe him?

When has a seismologist EVER been able to accurately predict a earthquake of any real magnitude?