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Uncategorized Thursday, May 26th 2011 at 9:48 am

Italian Scientists Indicted on Manslaughter Charges for Not Predicting Earthquake

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After a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit L’Aquila, Italy in April of 2009, ravaging the city and killing 308 people, local authorities took the questionable step of prosecuting researchers on a scientific committee for failing to predict the earthquake. In March of 2009, after smaller quakes had hit the region, the committee president had concluded that “just because a small series of quakes has been observed” did not mean that a large quake would necessarily occur, and that the near occurrence of one was “improbable, although not impossible.” Infamously, the one government official on the committee appeared on television and said that “The scientific community tells me there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favorable,” and some residents “quoted those statements as the reason they did not take precautionary measures, such as fleeing their homes.”

After the earthquake struck, prosecutors took these statements to mean that the committee had been downplaying the risk of a seismic occurrence, and charged the six seismologists and one government official on the committee with manslaughter, their reasoning being that the seismologists had indirectly caused the deaths of L’Aquila residents by not properly informing them about the risks of an earthquake. The seismologists have argued, with the strong support of the scientific community, that it is impossible for current science to predict future earthquakes. Today, an Italian judge with the choice between dismissing the case or proceeding with it has allowed the case to go to trial.

Hacker News reader gacba sums up why this course of events is so scary to a person with a scientific background:

As a former science major, this kind of stuff is scary…

1) Scientists, with a crapton of data, interpret results to the best of their ability.

2) Scientists report results, with caveats, to Country.

3) Country reported results to Public, (possibly without caveats) in an effort to “look good”.

4) Public ignored caveats (if given), took Scientists words as absolute proof.

5) Public ignored Common Sense during what must have been a major seismic event, and instead of blaming themselves, blame the Scientists.

Oh, what a demon Science hath wrought.

The trial is scheduled to begin on September 20th of this year.

(via Boston Globe, Nature)

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  • Anonymous

    When  is it  when spelling is more important than content.

    In  Italy the scientist said,” go home drink red wine-no earthquake is coming.”

    Thats manslaughter?

    If they said white wine would that be different?

    The Itallian President should invite the judge to have a glass of wine with him and explain that the lives of 306 people killed -crushed by the buildings that were not earthquake proof.
    Maybe the contractors of the thick stone walls of the buildings should be on trial? 

  • Anonymous

    My spelling stinks-I did not like following rules and since I am 73 years old and on a slippery slope please excuse mybad spelling.

    Lets talk about solving a problem by going backwards through the maze of 248 million years of geologic evolution of Planet Earth.

    The last mountains-”The Alps” of Europe.
    The age of the mountains- 2 million years old and maybe as old as 9 million years old.
    Go backwards- The Appennines are a “footprint”, a footprint of “rebounding ocean ridges that happen to be above sea level.
    Oh- You do not believe me-think about an ocean ridge and the transform faults that cross it.
    O.K. Now what do you think created the front part of the boot- the part kicking Sicly?
    Thats a transform fault -”above sea level.” In the last 100 years 60,000 Italians died in earthquakes in this area.

    Now before we continue -lets shine a flashlite through the crystal globe and see the image on a dardened surface.  “Wa-laa- Two boots- standing side by side as if the hunter just removed them and placed them in the corner. What is this ? What is this other boot shaped country “antipodal” opposite Italy?

    Write me If you can not figure it out.

    Oh that front part of the boot – the transform fault that  killed 60,000 people in the last century is not a good location to build a bridge to Messina in sisaly- very active volcanic island..
    Another Transform fault- the southern peninsula of “Haiti” had an earthquake  last year and killed 277,000 people.

    Going backwards through the Mediterranian Sea Cyprus has been scrapped to its bedrock -the earhs mantle. That part of Cyprus sits the top part sits on the  weat side of Italy- Its the Island of Sardinia.They never had an earthquake.

    To be continued.

  • Anonymous

    My spelling stinks-I did not like following rules and since I am 73 years old and on a slippery slope please excuse mybad spelling.

    Lets talk about solving a problem by going backwards through the maze of 248 million years of geologic evolution of Planet Earth.

    The last mountains-”The Alps” of Europe.
    The age of the mountains- 2 million years old and maybe as old as 9 million years old.
    Go backwards- The Appennines are a “footprint”, a footprint of “rebounding ocean ridges that happen to be above sea level.
    Oh- You do not believe me-think about an ocean ridge and the transform faults that cross it.
    O.K. Now what do you think created the front part of the boot- the part kicking Sicly?
    Thats a transform fault -”above sea level.” In the last 100 years 60,000 Italians died in earthquakes in this area.

    Now before we continue -lets shine a flashlite through the crystal globe and see the image on a dardened surface.  “Wa-laa- Two boots- standing side by side as if the hunter just removed them and placed them in the corner. What is this ? What is this other boot shaped country “antipodal” opposite Italy?

    Write me If you can not figure it out.

    Oh that front part of the boot – the transform fault that  killed 60,000 people in the last century is not a good location to build a bridge to Messina in sisaly- very active volcanic island..
    Another Transform fault- the southern peninsula of “Haiti” had an earthquake  last year and killed 277,000 people.

    Going backwards through the Mediterranian Sea Cyprus has been scrapped to its bedrock -the earhs mantle. That part of Cyprus sits the top part sits on the  weat side of Italy- Its the Island of Sardinia.They never had an earthquake.

    To be continued.

  • Anonymous

    Before we continue on our backward tracing over geologic time lets spend some time with the Appenines mountains and its simalarities with mid-Ocean ridges.
    All the earthquakes are from a magma source that is 6 miles [10 killometers] deep under the Appenines. They the earthquakes have an identical sequence of events as all ocean trenches.
    They rise -vertical , they emit radon, they remind me of a million years old Pizza dough rising and the gas ,the carbon dioxide -the yeast process gas growing and being emitted.

    Soft lime stone in the south – Marble in the North. The Push was from the south to the North. The Chinese fan display of french alps ,swiss alps italian alps, crotian alps is impressive and the push north made waves of mountins as you fly over them.

    The Dolimites- the geologic era of mountain building was slow, 6 inches per year, the mountain building may have been going on for 9 million years and covered 900 miles in the push from the south. This gave the tropical seas in front of the ice shell time  to lay down all the sea shells and bones of everything swimming onto the sea floor so that we now see these fossils up high in the rock face we call the Dollimite Mountains.
    Two things- that are to be physical laws from now on:
    1] All mountains -folded complicated curved strata fancy overturned sedimentart rock were formed on the “EQUATOR” at the time of formation.
    2] The Delano Constant- The maximum distance  a continnental ice shell floe 6 miles deep into the crust and upper mantle at the ice front and 3,000 miles wide can only move the earth crust at the rate of 6 inches per year for the past 248 million years.

  • Anonymous

    Going backwards in Geologic time. Italy and the Alps to the North are the youngest mountains on this side of the world. The Pacific Ocean side has  young mountains but they were created by an opposit rotating crust and upper mantle than the mountains that moved south from Italy -through the Mediterranian sea -through the Red Sea and down the Indian Ocean.
    The Hiamlyian mountains are in section only 10 million years old and to the south 55 million years old.

    Italy we must leave because I can not say anything more about the volcanoes erupting in the middle part of the ocen ridge above sea-level we call the Appenines Mountains.

  • Anonymous

    Going backwards in Geologic time. Italy and the Alps to the North are the youngest mountains on this side of the world. The Pacific Ocean side has  young mountains but they were created by an opposit rotating crust and upper mantle than the mountains that moved south from Italy -through the Mediterranian sea -through the Red Sea and down the Indian Ocean.
    The Hiamlyian mountains are in section only 10 million years old and to the south 55 million years old.

    Italy we must leave because I can not say anything more about the volcanoes erupting in the middle part of the ocen ridge above sea-level we call the Appenines Mountains.

  • What the…!

    The Italians are C-R-A-Z-Y!!
    Hey…they imprisoned Galileo for saying the earth is round!
    Now they want you all to predict the future, or else

  • Diana Gorates

    WHEN DID MEN BECOME GOD? GOD WILL JUDGE EVERYONE WITH THE SAME JUDGMENT THAT THE JUDGE OTHERS! HOW CAN MEN PREDICT THE WRATH OF GOD?
    THOSE SCIENTIST ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DESTINY OF MEN, CAN A MAN PREDICT THE TIME OR THE HOUR THEY ARE GOING TO DIE, IF WE COULD, THEN WE WOULD USE EVERY MEASURE POSSIBLE TO PREVENT IT, THEREFORE WHEN A PERSON DIES, ITS THEIR TIME TO DIE, NOT ANOTHER PERSONS FAULT, EVEN IF SOMEONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT PERSONS DEATH, IT COULD NOT BE PREVENTED BECAUSE OF A PERSON’S DESTINY IN LIFE.