Italian scientists get sentenced 6 years for failing to predict earthquake???

[xBiffx]

In other news, mass panic has broken out in the psychic/fortune telling community.

Old news, they saw it coming.

 

[PokerGuy]

It's more than failing to predict as I understand it, it's that they made statements concerning public safety that they arguably did not have the data to support. I could be wrong here as I only briefly read this story.

Even if the scientists said "it is extremely unlikely....", extremely unlikely is not the same as "not possible". Blaming the scientists (and even possibly jailing them) places Italy on the map as one of the most backwards stupid nations on earth. Congrats Italy.

 

[Nintendesert]

In this case he definitely failed to be careful when expressing his opinion on the subject. The point is not trying your best. The point is that if you have no way whatsoever to know something you should not say that you do have a probabilistic knowledge of the phenomenon, which is implied by saying the odds of it happening are very low. He had no reason to make people think he knew another earthquake was unlikely in the next few days.

I'm not sure how that changes things, though there's a translation issue here and I don't read Italian.

At any given moment the odds of an earthquake ARE very low. However had he stated there was without doubt no chance of an earthquake and everyone go home that's different..

The real issue though is still with shitty Italian architecture and not with earthquake prediction and reporting, this guy still seems like a scapegoat.

 

[Paratus]

That has to be one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Absolutely insane. If I were someone involved with any kind of science in Italy I'd like asap, they've gone mad.

Except for any scientist studying climate or evolution then they better take heed that prison awaits their lies.

Amirite?

 

[Tango]

I'm not sure how that changes things, though there's a translation issue here and I don't read Italian.

At any given moment the odds of an earthquake ARE very low. However had he stated there was without doubt no chance of an earthquake and everyone go home that's different..

Some of these guys had been preaching for an extended period of time that the seismic swarm they had been experiencing was not the kind that should be linked with major earthquakes, in the words of one of them "a constant release of energy more than a sudden, violent one".

One of them declared on a press conference that there was no need to keep people away from their homes, encouraging them to do so.

Just to be clear: I personally know nothing of earthquakes.

The real issue though is still with shitty Italian architecture and not with earthquake prediction and reporting, this guy still seems like a scapegoat.

This part is just bizzarre. Unless you expect 14th-16th century architecture to put resistance to earthquakes high on the priority list. Or maybe you suggest they just tear it down and replace it with something else...

 

[Nintendesert]

Some of these guys had been preaching for an extended period of time that the seismic swarm they had been experiencing was not the kind that should be linked with major earthquakes, in the words of one of them "a constant release of energy more than a sudden, violent one".

One of them declared on a press conference that there was no need to keep people away from their homes, encouraging them to do so.

Just to be clear: I personally know nothing of earthquakes.



This part is just bizzarre. Unless you expect 14th-16th century architecture to put resistance to earthquakes high on the priority list. Or maybe you suggest they just tear it down and replace it with something else...

No, but people living in such structures then have to accept a certain level of risk associated with not being earthquake proof.

 

[Tango]

No, but people living in such structures then have to accept a certain level of risk associated with not being earthquake proof.

Sure. Nobody is faulting anybody for the collapse of the buildings.

Here the problem is that if you say "there's no reason why people can't go home" you can't then hide behind the argument "nobody could predict anything". You should have abstained earlier for precisely that reason.

In my opinion some of these guys were probably trying to show off in a real world environment their academic models and get some media spotlights. But they caused very real damage.

 

[Infohawk]

Here the problem is that if you say "there's no reason why people can't go home" you can't then hide behind the argument "nobody could predict anything". You should have abstained earlier for precisely that reason.

In my opinion some of these guys were probably trying to show off in a real world environment their academic models and get some media spotlights. But they caused very real damage.

Scientists should be able to make predictions and be wrong without being penalized. Scientific progress is based on trial and error.

These guys are not medical doctors or engineers serving specific patients/clients. That is a different situation.

 

[Tango]

Scientists should be able to make predictions and be wrong without being penalized. Scientific progress is based on trial and error.

These guys are not medical doctors or engineers serving specific patients/clients. That is a different situation.

The moment you say there is no reason people should be kept out of their homes you are stepping out of the pure science field and into the public policy one.

 

[Infohawk]

The moment you say there is no reason people should not be kept out of their homes you are stepping out of the purely science field and into the public policy one.

All citizens should be able to give public policy opinions, even if they end up being wrong.

 

[monovillage]

Scientists should be able to make predictions and be wrong without being penalized. Scientific progress is based on trial and error.

These guys are not medical doctors or engineers serving specific patients/clients. That is a different situation.

An interesting paper on science/policy questions.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0031824

Abstract Top

The need for policy makers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognised. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. We suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field. To identify these questions, a collaborative procedure was employed with 52 participants selected to cover a wide range of experience in both science and policy, including people from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and industry. These participants consulted with colleagues and submitted 239 questions. An initial round of voting was followed by a workshop in which 40 of the most important questions were identified by further discussion and voting. The resulting list includes questions about the effectiveness of science-based decision-making structures; the nature and legitimacy of expertise; the consequences of changes such as increasing transparency; choices among different sources of evidence; the implications of new means of characterising and representing uncertainties; and ways in which policy and political processes affect what counts as authoritative evidence. We expect this exercise to identify important theoretical questions and to help improve the mutual understanding and effectiveness of those working at the interface of science and policy.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

All citizens should be able to give public policy opinions, even if they end up being wrong.

It sounds if they were indeed stating their opinion as fact due to the innate authority of their position as scientists when spoke to policy makers and the public at large. Which means that they should have erred on the side of caution when speaking to the public and policy makers and told them there was not a 100% chance of there not being a major earthquake.

 

[dmcowen674]

Italian scientists get sentenced 6 years for failing to predict earthquake???

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121022/DA22ORU00.html


WTF? Manslaughter?

This court case has been going for a while.

No more Earthquake predictions from me.

 

[Tango]

“I’m not crazy,” Picuti says. “I know they can’t predict earthquakes.
The basis of the charges is not that they didn’t predict the earthquake.
As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to
evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L’Aquila.” ” Part
of that risk assessment, he says, should have included the density of the
urban population and the known fragility of many ancient buildings
in the city centre. “They were obligated to evaluate the degree of risk
given all these factors,” he says, “and they did not.”

Picuti is one of the people who originally filed the lawsuit.

 

[iGas]

On the attack. Fabio Picuti makes the case for the prosecution as the trial continues.
Credit: Edwin Cartlidge

Four-Year Prison Terms Sought for Italian Earthquake Experts

"Today, Picuti's colleague Roberta D'Avolio argued how specific victims of the 2009 earthquake were persuaded by the statements of the commission, which were relayed to the public via press reports, to stay inside on the night of the quake. The next few weeks will see lawyers presenting civil claims, followed by closing arguments from defense lawyers. Judge Marco Billi is due to reach a verdict by 23 October."

"One of the indicted, Bernardo De Bernardinis, who was in 2009 deputy chief of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, reacts during a session of the court in charge of the trial of six Italian scientists and a government official charged with manslaughter for underestimating the risks of a killer earthquake in 2009 on October 22, 2012 in L’Aquila. The court will deliver the verdict later in the day in a case that has provoked outrage in the international scientific community, with some commentators warning that any convictions would dissuade other experts from sharing their expertise for fear of legal retribution. – Photo by AFP"

"This is going to be a historic verdict. I hope they will be found guilty. They held a position of responsibility and it would make sure scientists pay more attention in the future to their advice,” said lawyer Wania della Vigna.

“They were not expected to predict the earthquake but they were expected to alert people to the risks,” said Vigna, who represents 11 plaintiffs, including an Israeli student who died when a student residence collapsed.

Aldo Scimia, whose mother was killed, said he hoped “the state will do its duty. Their main duty is to provide security and they failed."

Ortense, who did not want to give her full name, said her sister had died because “she was reassured by the experts and slept at home that night.”

In his summing up, Picuti said the experts had provided “an incomplete, inept, unsuitable and criminally mistaken” analysis, which reassured locals and meant many stayed indoors when the first tremors hit."

http://dawn.com/2012/10/22/verdict-expected-in-italy-quake-scientists-trial/

 

[1prophet]

Except for any scientist studying climate or evolution then they better take heed that prison awaits their lies.

Amirite?

Nah they will now just make you sign a EULA before you get to see or hear their predictions, abdicating all responsibility like the software companies now do,

or better yet put it into some vague political type speech that's open to interpretation, just ask Mitt Romney, he is an expert at it.

 

[yottabit]

Italian trials are largely a public affair. So the popular decision has a lot of weight. Look at the captain who abandoned the sinking cruise ship, he's probably going to jail too. Or Amanda Knox.

That being said, I don't think it's wrong to hold professionals a little more accountable in a society. Everything these days is plausible deniability...

 

[Tango]

Italian trials are largely a public affair. So the popular decision has a lot of weight. Look at the captain who abandoned the sinking cruise ship, he's probably going to jail too. Or Amanda Knox.

That being said, I don't think it's wrong to hold professionals a little more accountable in a society. Everything these days is plausible deniability...

On the Knox case the way the American media presented the trial literally looked like paid advertising by the defendants. And if you think the captain of the Costa Concordia should not serve time (and by the way, he will not) my guess is also on those facts they did not report how deep and on how many aspects of his duty his negligence was.

 

[Ns1]

This is probably a case of someone dumb at the AP running with an article from the Onion or something similar.

except it wasn't.

5 Italian officials quit in protest over convictions tied to quake warning
ROME -- A government official and four experts from an agency that advises Italian authorities in emergencies resigned Tuesday in protest after a court convicted seven experts for failing to give sufficient warning before a devastating earthquake struck in 2009, Italian news agencies reported.

Luciano Maiani, a physicist at the head of the Major Risks Commission, said that Monday's verdict that found six scientists and a public administrator guilty of manslaughter would make it impossible for professionals to offer impartial and specialized opinions in both the prevention and handling of dangerous situations.

Maiani quit along with three other panel members, citing “the impossibility that the Major Risks Commission can work in serenity and offer highly scientific analyses to the state in these complex conditions.” An official with the government’s Department of Civil Protection also resigned, news agencies said.

The seven convicted men, including six members of the commission and the deputy director of the Department of Civil Protection, were sentenced to six years in prison each by the panel of judges in the city of L'Aquila. The decision has been met with harsh criticism by scientists who say it is impossible to predict an earthquake.

More than 300 people were killed in L’Aquila in the early-morning temblor on April 6, 2009. The area around the central Italian city had been disturbed by tremors for months before the big quake hit.

The Major Risks Commission, which advises the Department of Civil Protection, did not adequately warn L’Aquila’s residents about the risk of a possible earthquake, the prosecution argued, saying the commission gave “inexact, incomplete and erroneous information.”

Officials of the Department of Civil Protection told Italian media that they feared the verdict would erase years of progress and expertise in disaster prevention and that the agency would return to its old job of providing relief and rescue only after the fact.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/10/italy-officials-resign-quake-convictions.html

 

[Thump553]

Personally I'd be very wary of doing business in Italy or even visiting there. Their legal system yet again proves that it is a laughingstock and justice is only an incidental value there.

 

[Exterous]

Repost/Merged

Fern
Super Moderator

Earthquake experts worldwide expressed shock at the manslaughter convictions of six Italian scientists who failed to predict the deadly L'Aquila quake, warning that the decision could severely harm future research.

Two scientists resigned their posts with the government's disaster preparedness agency Tuesday after a court in L'Aquila sentenced six scientists and a government official to six years in prison. The court ruled Monday that the scientists failed to accurately communicate the risk of the 2009 quake, which killed more than 300 people.

Luciano Maiani, the physicist who led the National Commission for the Prediction and Prevention of Major Risks, resigned in protest of the verdict Tuesday afternoon, Italy's Civil Protection Agency announced.

"The situation created by the sentencing yesterday on the facts from L'Aquila is incompatible with a clear and effective performance of the functions of the commission and its role as a consulting bodies for the state," Maiani said in a statement released by the agency.

In addition, Mauro Dolce quit as director of the office that monitors volcano and earthquake threats, the agency said. Dolce will be given another post, it said.

Seismologists were aghast at the court's decision, noting that earthquakes remain impossible to forecast with any kind of accuracy.

"To predict a large quake on the basis of a relatively commonplace sequence of small earthquakes and to advise the local population to flee" would constitute "both bad science and bad public policy," said David Oglesby, an associate professor in the Earth sciences faculty of the University of California, Riverside.

"If scientists can be held personally and legally responsible for situations where predictions don't pan out, then it will be very hard to find scientists to stick their necks out in the future," Oglesby said in a statement.

Prosecutors argued that the scientists gave "inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory information about the dangers" facing L'Aquila at a meeting a week before the magnitude-6.3 quake. The experts determined that it was "unlikely" but not impossible that a major quake would take place, despite concern among the city's residents over recent seismic activity.

The court agreed, finding the six scientists from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology and a member of the Civil Protection Agency guilty and ordering Italian authorities to pay 7.8 million euros ($10 million) in damages.

"It's chilling that people can be jailed for giving a scientific opinion in the line of their work," Roger Musson, the head of seismic hazard and archives at the British Geological Survey, wrote in a comment published on the organization's Twitter feed.

Comments from one of the defendants -- Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology -- suggested that the scientists were shell-shocked by their conviction.

"I'm dejected, despairing. I still don't understand what I'm accused of," Boschi said after the ruling, according to ANSA, Italy's official news agency.
Boschi and the six others convicted Monday will remain free during the appeal process.

The Italian geophysics institute expressed "regret and concern" about the verdict in a statement Monday. It said the ruling "threatens to undermine one of the cornerstones of scientific research: that of freedom of investigation, of open and transparent discussion and sharing of results."

Some experts have argued that the issue was a failure of communications, not calculations. Domenico Giardini, who held Boschi's old job at the institute for several months, said last year that the trial was about "the number of weak points in the communication chain."

"We all have to work on new, and more clear, protocols, on the transfer of information," said Giardini, who now conducts research in Switzerland.
Survivors of the 2009 quake, some of whom who lost relatives or property in the disaster, have voiced anger at the officials who downplayed the risks despite the worries expressed by residents.

"I can understand the grief of people who lost loved ones and the frustration that people feel when terrible events happen, especially ones outside their control," Oglesby said. "Convicting honest scientists of manslaughter does nothing to help this situation and may well put a chill on exactly the kind of science that could save lives in the future."

The ruling may well change the way experts disclose their opinions, according to David Spiegelhalter, a professor specializing in the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in Britain.

"L'Aquila trial shows public scientists need to take media communication very seriously," he wrote on his Twitter account. "And get indemnity."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-quake-scientists-guilty/index.html

A very concerning ruling. According to the WSJ the scientists said a strong earthquake was "improbable" in the short terms but that it was "important to remain alert without panicking". Just because something is improbable that doesn't mean you are responsible for the consequences if it does actually happen.

Good luck getting anyone willing to predict anything in Italy any time soon

 

[Albatross]

Get the astrologers also while they`re at it.

 

[Fern]

I was hesitant to believe this story yesterday. It's shocking to be sure, but there must something I don't understand.

Why would a scientist responsible for studying and analyzing quakes also be responsible for public safety? To me it seems the scientists should respond to requests from Public Safety officials for information. The decision, based upon all factors including the age/weakness of the structures etc., should be in the hands of those Public Safety officials, not scientists studying quakes. Those two functions are so completely different they should not be confused.

Fern

 

[Exterous]

Repost/Merged

Fern
Super Moderator

Opps...

I was hesitant to believe this story yesterday. It's shocking to be sure, but there must something I don't understand.

Why would a scientist responsible for studying and analyzing quakes also be responsible for public safety? To me it seems the scientists should respond to requests from Public Safety officials for information. The decision, based upon all factors including the age/weakness of the structures etc., should be in the hands of those Public Safety officials, not scientists studying quakes. Those two functions are so completely different they should not be confused.

Fern

It sounds to me like their committee was just responsible for reporting potential risks to certain areas - not tasked with the responses needed to be taken given those reports

 

[Nemesis 1]

I was hesitant to believe this story yesterday. It's shocking to be sure, but there must something I don't understand.

Why would a scientist responsible for studying and analyzing quakes also be responsible for public safety? To me it seems the scientists should respond to requests from Public Safety officials for information. The decision, based upon all factors including the age/weakness of the structures etc., should be in the hands of those Public Safety officials, not scientists studying quakes. Those two functions are so completely different they should not be confused.

Fern

Go back to topic we had orginally on this topic, when it occurred. Answer for You may lay there in.