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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.
Palm readers, Farmer's Almanac, anyone who publishes a book about Nostradamus, etc ...
This is beyond ridiculous. It's just stupid.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
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".
I find it hard to believe a country like Italy would convict based on not having the ability to predict an earthquake.
Really? You find it hard to believe that politicians would abuse the justice system for political points in Italy? In Italy? Really? That's hard to believe?
I did some reading, and the charges have more to do with creating a perception that the earthquake risk was remote and being negligent in their duty to keep the people educated about earthquake preparation and vigilance.
If the earthquake risk was in fact remote, then how does this amount to anything other than convicting them for not predicting the quake? Just because it happened doesn't mean it was likely to happen. Long shots do occur.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
No you cannot prove a negative assertion. The burden of proof is on the original earthquake prediction. No scientific evidence came forward at the time, so the professional scientists announced their dismissal of the prediction.
The failure here is the lack of basic science education in the basic population and in the legal system's utter ignorance. Justice is not only blind, but it's spastic as well.
Oh, MY GOD. That isn't even a charge, or a crime.
Here's what the folks in L'Aquila have just earned: a rapid defection of scientists on the public payroll because they are now afraid to say, or not say, anything. Because an event that can't actually be predicted under any interpretation happened when they didn't expect it.
These IDIOTS have done a serious amount of damage to people who were trying to help them. FUCK EM ALL, seriously. Fucking MORONS.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
That's not the whole story either. If you read your own link carefully, it points out that Giuliani predicted the quakes using a method that has never been proven scientifically and has had no peer reviewed papers published. In other words, he's a crackpot who just happened to get lucky; there was no actual reason to believe that there would be a risk of earthquakes greater than normal. The scientists who said that this guy is wrong were basically correct; they just got unlucky.
To use a car analogy, a guy is sitting at an intersection reading tea leaves. At one point his tea leaves tell him that if you go through the intersection you'll crash. The scientists say that this is nonsense and that you shouldn't worry about crashing. You go through the intersection and you crash into a car going 100 mph through a red light. that neither you, the scientists, nor the tea leaf reader could have seen or predicted. You die.
And then the scientists are put in jail for manslaughter for telling you to ignore the tea leaf reader.
At worst, the scientists didn't properly communicate "the chance of crashing/earthquakes isn't greater than normal" as opposed to "the chance is zero", and given how the media and politicians ignore such nuances, the scientists shouldn't be held responsible for that.