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Scientists Who Failed to Warn of Quake Found Guilty of Manslaughter
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.
They were found guilty not primarily for failing to predict the earthquake, but for releasing a statement saying there was probably not going to be one. They are accused of giving people a false sense of security resulting in them not taking necessary precautions.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The moral is: don't work for (the Italian) Government as a scientist.
If falsely re-assuring people that a disaster won't happen is actionable, then a lot of politicians and government employees are in big trouble.
On top of that, did they establish that the scientists did not believe their own statements?
Now, at least in Italy, you can expect any expert of any hard (or impossible) to predict field to start spouting worst case scenarios for every question just to avoid liability.
Real dumb move Italy. Just because you wanted a scapegoat, you've screwed yourself over for real issues.
Quick google result here
See? Now you got me karmawhoring!
*ticks 'Post Anonymously'*
The problem is that too many people are giving opinions on subjects that affect other people's lives and have zero accountability. this trial is a precursor to what may eventually become the norm.
You seem to be conflating science with engineering. Now I have news for you: there's a reason why we have two different words for these things (and no, it's not so that poets can have a richer vocabulary for writing odes).
Ezekiel 23:20
A large and devastating earthquake is imminent somewhere on earth 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
I heard the Italian Court consultant Thomas Jordan head of the Southern Calfornia Earthquake Center talk on this topic. Look at slides 15 & 16 about the difference between prediction and forecasting. The current methodology is to give a probabalistic forecast, like in weather, and not a yes/no prediction. The Italian scientists did not follow current methodology and gave a less useful prediction. The court convicted these scientists of negligence for not being current enough and might have cost some lives. Nearly the entire seismologic community including Dr. Jordan thinks the court decision was wrong.
That is pretty much what they did say. Their conclusion was that the recent small earthquakes did not make it more likely that a larger earthquake was about to happen, however, this is an earthquake prone area, one could happen an any time. Furthermore, they stated that there were a lot of old unsafe buildings in the area that should be evacuated in the case of any earthquake as they do not provide any protection, and replaced as soon as practical.
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".
According to statements given to the prosecution, two members of the same committee disagreed with the assessment, albeit after the quake:
The suggestion that repeated tremors were favourable because they 'unload', or discharge, seismic stress and reduce the probability of a major quake seems to be scientifically incorrect. Two of the committee members — Selvaggi and Eva — later told prosecutors that they "strongly dissented" from such an assertion, and Jordan later characterized it as "not a correct view of things".
link TFA
I can see how eager you are to support scientists and hate Italy, but these were scientists masquerading as politicians. Reading through the various news reports on this paints the picture quite clearly. They let politics into their science, and people paid the price with their lives.
The real crooks are the cops and civil defense people
Corrupt building inspectors were most likely the biggest issue. Newly constructed buildings were not built to code and came crumbling down. Of course, it's a lot harder to go after those guys than just blaming some scientists who were making reasonable predictions based on the available data.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/europe/08codes.html