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Manslaughter Conviction Overturned For Scientists Who Didn't Predict Earthquake

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-their-crystal-ball-has-been-confiscated dept.

Jason Koebler writes: Geologists who didn't warn a town about an impending earthquake are not murderers, an Italian appeals court ruled today. A 2012 decision that rocked the scientific world has been overturned, according to Italy's Repubblica newspapers and confirmed by other Italian outlets. In that decision, six prominent geologists and one government worker were convicted of manslaughter for failing to notify the town of L'Aquila of a 2009 earthquake that killed at least 309 people. The scientists were originally sentenced to six years in prison and were to pay more than $10 million in damages.

4 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by lesincompetent · · Score: 5, Informative

    Will you ever get it right? Will you ever get the fucking title right?
    They did not fail to predict.
    They said we (yes, i was there at the time) could stay home since the likelihood of a strong earthquake was not heightened by the preceeding MONTHS-long swarm.

    1. Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "could stay home since the likelihood of a strong earthquake was not heightened by the preceeding MONTHS-long swarm."

      And that was, and still is, the correct scientific conclusion. A conclusion supported by thousands of scientists world-wide: the occurrence of the earthquake swarm neither increased, nor decreased, the probability of a major earthquake. What part of "we can't predict the timing of major earthquakes" are you failing to understand?

      If anyone was at fault it was municipal authorities who let people continue to live in centuries-old substandard buildings when they knew that someday, eventually, a major quake would happen just as it had happened previously in L'Aquila over the centuries. The earthquake swarm was irrelevant to that risk, which was still there as always. When the scientists told people to go home, it was go home to the same non-zero risk of a major quake that you face every day you live there.

  2. Re:Amanda Knox? by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not if you hire Cheney's lawyers.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Re: Welcome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's important to understand; and you have to spend serious time with Google translate or reading the Italian to get this; they weren't charged for failing to predict. They were charged for predicting there wouldn't be an earthquake. They said that there was no special likelihood of it even though several signs pointed to a raised probability.

    The conviction may be wrong, however it's nowhere near as stupid as people are making out.