L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists found guilty of manslaughter
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
But beyond that, it seems the scientists offered no such assurances at the meeting in question. To quote the Nature article (perhaps biased in favor of the scientists):
The minutes of the 31 March meeting, though, reveal that at no point did any of the scientists say that there was "no danger" of a big quake. "A major earthquake in the area is unlikely but cannot be ruled out," Boschi said. Selvaggi is quoted as saying that "in recent times some recent earthquakes have been preceded by minor shocks days or weeks beforehand, but on the other hand many seismic swarms did not result in a major event". Eva added that "because L'Aquila is in a high-risk zone it is impossible to say with certainty that there will be no large earthquake". Summing up the meeting, Barberi said, "there is no reason to believe that a swarm of minor events is a sure predictor of a major shock". All the participants agreed that buildings in the area should be monitored urgently, to assess their capacity to sustain a major shock.
To continue the analogy with medicine, it seems similar to a group of scientists suggesting that a particular course of treatment is likely safe, then receiving blame when the treatment goes awry. But blaming medical researchers, or earthquake scientists, could discourage innovative new treatments.
As one final point, I'd point out that the occurrence of an earthquake does not disprove the scientists: the likelihood of an earthquake given the data could still have been small, just non-zero. If medical researchers were held accountable for every death resulting from heart transplants gone wrong, we'd never have the overall benefit they provide.
With earthquakes, I'd hope that anyone who passed 9th grade science would have laughed this out of court.
Before that meeting, some of the scientists have been "used" by various politicians and high-level civil servant in their public speeches and interviews with the media. There are records of the director of the nation-wide emergency task-force being being interviewed and saying things like "After these afternoon quakes there is nothing to be feared, I can assure you. My fellow colleague and quake researcher can tell you the same", and one of the convicted scientists cues in "Sure, there is nothing to be feared. Indeed, these small earthquakes have released a lot of energy, making a big earthquake impossible". _Impossible_. That is not correct scientific communication, that is being the wingman of a politician being interviewed by national TV.
The same board of scientists have been found legally responsible for other similar statements, for example for not green-lighting the evacuation of the student's campus. The engineering students noticed strange cracks on the walls and notified the emergency task-force who replied: "First, the building is safe, we have had it tested few month ago; second, they said on TV that there are not going to be big earthquakes". The main building of campus collapsed.
The government imposed a "everything is safe, do not worry" view. This was a political decision and the board members let the politicians use their scientific credibility for their political agenda. This is what is being punished here. It is their behaviour and the words they said on TV that is being addressed, not the content of the technical minutes.
Anyway, there is a point of the sentence that is a bit scary. The whole board is being punished, not just the head of the board and the others who spoke before the meeting. The court considers the board a single body, and this is a bit strange and worrisome.
As many of my Italian friends tell me, Italy is an absolutely corrupt shit hole. I remember a scene where they showed recordings of civil protection officials gloating about the disaster on the phone, right after it happened. They talked about the opportunity to make money [2].
The head of the national civil protection service is / was notorious in his blatant abuse of emergency powers to give government contracts (construction) without oversight to his crooked friends.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draquila_%E2%80%93_LItalia_che_...
[2] At the end of the trailer: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/lTyjwBhD9HOI/en/...
Obviously, being Italian doesn't make me an expert in corruption from a legal point of view, but I am pretty positive to know a bit about Italian mentality and facts confirm that corruption is as common in the North as it is in the South (I can cite my sources, if necessary.)
So even if it isn't ironclad evidence it definitely moves the posterior probability towards 'expert'.
Also, I bumped into a lot of Lega Nord people (the secessionist party) while I lived there and generally found them to be little more than racists and fascists. When I had to obtain my Permesso di Soggiorno, a group of us, all english turned up on the same day. We were all given 2 year stamps, except my black friend. They would only give him 6 months. I found the north of Italy to be jaw dropingly racist across the board.
At least, that was my experience. Don't get me wrong, I love Italy, but it's only because I let myself be blissfully ignorant of it's fundamental flaws when I'm there.
I was born and still live in Veneto and the amount of racism against immigrants (lately it's common to blame the Chinese, North Africans and Romanian for everything wrong in society or economics) is depressing.
The current governor of lombardia and the whole council is in a corruption and vote marketing scandal.
The head of the secessionist party for the last twenty years left his role after it was found out he and his son had been using the party as a revolver bank account.
And, noticeably, the Dear Leader Silvio Berlusconi is from milan.
There is a lot to say on the north vs south in italy, but saying "northern italy is not corrupted" is as silly as it gets.
I meant abusive as in "abusive financial practices", a synonim for illegal (per merriam webster), not abusive as in "physical abuse".
Please excuse this non native speaker for making something look worse than it was :)
Perhaps professional incompetence or the like, but it's not as though the town would have done anything different had they said without any provable foundation "a major earthquake is imminent". Seismology is in such infancy that holding people responsible for acts of nature, which state of the art are highly unpredictable, is on the surface, ludicrous. What's next, the meteorologist on trial for getting the forecast wrong about heavy rains which cause floods and damage, etc?
It's reminiscent of the tratment of Galileo.
Just as another data point, lots of countries have corrupt and self-centred politicians. A spin doctor the UK government, on September 11th 2001, between when the towers were hit and when the fell, wrote an email to their staff saying "It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Moore ). You'll always get slimey politicians who will see oppertunity in tragedy.
What it's not is corruption, which is what the OP is talking about.
For what it's worth, I would say Italy does have a perception of being more corrupt than its fellow European counterparts. This may or may not be true - it's obviously a little difficult to objectively measure corruption, but the Corruption Perceptions Index[1] has ranked Italy as one the most corrupt countries of Western Europe.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
whatever the reason, it seems to be quite deep, culturally. anecdotally, i was shocked just a couple of weeks ago when i went to get a picture framed and the people doing the work lied to my face (they said between themselves that they didn't have the material i wanted; when i questioned that they promised they did; the results were not what they promised). that was very odd for chile (sorry, i didn't make it clear above - i live there), but the shop owners were argentinian immigrants... it is normal, culturally, here (speaking in broad terms) to speak "optimistically" of the future (so if you ask whether a shop will have something in stock next month, they will - usually, in my experience - say yes), but not to directly contradict what was said a moment earlier without batting an eyelid (i should perhaps add that i suspect i missed something myself in the exchange in the picture shop - perhaps the expected way i should have behaved was to offer an acceptable compromise instead of directly questioning what was happening - i am aware that cultural distinctions are not absolute judgements).
Their mobile app has recently won an award: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...
(Disclaimer: I've worked directly with several of the people involved.)
While it's corrupt, labelling it a 'shit hole' is going way too far.
For those interested in a detailed book about what's good and bad, and what needs to happen, I'd recommend:
Actually they where enterpreneurs
They have had ample time regain their composure, this happened in 2009.
Who will be the first to defend the scapegoat? There are big disincentives. You risk being grouped with the scapegoat and suffering the same fate. You risk becoming the new scapegoat. You risk reprisals from the folks who are hiding in shadows while the spotlight follows the scapegoat.
And it probably won't even help. Once a person has chosen an opinion, they tend to defend it, and this applies tenfold to a group. (This plays out in social media every day.) Changing a mob's opinion is hard. Time doesn't necessarily help. There are scapegoats that are centuries old.
The social dynamics favor letting the scapegoat take the fall. That's why scapegoating is so common that we have an ancient name for the practice, even though almost everyone would agree that it's immoral.
I assure you that Italy has judges and juries and a modern judicial system. This isn't some teeny tribe of Amazonian warriers here, this is a large country.
The prosecution’s closing arguments [...] made it clear that
the scientists are not accused of failing to predict the
earthquake. “Even six-year old kids know that earthquakes can not be
predicted,” he said. “The goal of the meeting was very different:
the scientists were supposed to evaluate whether the seismic
sequence could be considered a precursor event, to assess what
damages had already happened at that point, to discuss how to
mitigate risks.” Picuti said the panel members did not fulfill these
commitments, and that their risk analysis was “flawed, inadequate,
negligent and deceptive”, resulting in wrong information being given
to citizens.
So the whole thing looks more subtle (and sensible) than many news headlines report...
>"It's too easy to predict an earthquake after the fact and say everyone should have cleared out, but beforehand people, for good reason, thought the risk was low," said John Vidale, a University of Washington seismologist. In fact, Vidale said, the scientists' statements that the quake was unlikely were true. "There was a very small chance of that earthquake," Vidale told LiveScience. "It didn't make sense for people to evacuate."
http://www.livescience.com/24173-laquila-earthquake-manslaug...
This is so often the case...
1. "They were not accused of failing to predict the earthquake" 2. "whether the seismic sequence could be considered a precursor event"
But I'm no expert, so I'll be grateful if someone with the knowledge could clarify.
And in Italy there is a 3-tier system, this was only the first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Italy
At first I assumed that the scientists must have been out drinking, or must have made up the data ... but, no, they simply gave the best prediction they could, as they should.
I guess that forecasters of quakes and weather in Italy now have two alternatives: always claim a disaster is upon them, or move to a country where judges understand statistics.
Where I live now, the local sports talk radio hosts always blast the weather guys when they forecast doom and gloom with an incoming snow storm, regardless of how much snow we get. Maybe it's just the "we're tough" Scandinavian culture, but they really make a mockery of the forecasts as always being overblown and sensationalist before anything happens.
Obviously, I don't know if the accusations are true or false, but, knowing Italy, where "famous" scientists are usually very close to politicians, it would not surprise me at all.
Is there anywhere to find all of the facts? This article doesn't give background info.
It took some digging to find that indeed the scientists had given a reassuring statement, though it had an expected but-we-cant-be-sure admonition, beforehand.
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100622/full/465992a.html
In particular, at least one member of the civil defense bureaucracy went out of his way to say there was a consensus that there was no danger (even though there was not such a strong consensus):
"Immediately after that meeting, De Bernardinis and Barberi, acting president of the committee, held a press conference in L'Aquila, where De Bernardinis told reporters that "the scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favorable". No other members of the committee were at the press conference."
There should be consequences for such grave misrepresentations. I was surprised to see that the whole committee is being punished, though, and not just the official who misrepresented the state of knowledge.
Maybe, as some other commenters have noted, this is part of a ritual of condemnation at the first judicial level and absolution upon appeal to the second or third level.
"Italy puts seismology in the dock" ?
is it meant to be "in the dark" ?
Definition of DOCK
: the place in a criminal court where a prisoner stands or sits during trial
— in the dock
: on trial
Commonly used in British/Commonwealth English, and Nature is based in London. I don't think I've ever heard it used in American English.
Only criminal defendants are in the dock.
Any witness would "on the stand" including a defendant who is called as a witness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_stand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtroom
Bertolaso first tells Stati that they did badly by saying the media that they didn't expect more earthquakes (as they did the day before, after a small shake that did no damage). Bertolaso added that he would fix this error with the media and send the most important scientists he knows to "quiet down" the population, upset by the previous message and by the continuous shakes. The accusation is that scientists didn't actually report what they knew, but they went in front of the media to "quiet" down the population.
Unfortunately, the day after the big earthquake happened and 309 people died.
The way to prevent deaths from earthquakes is to ensure buildings can survive them. Modern buildings collapsed in the quake. I wonder if they were built to standard, or if a few corners were cut?
Personally, I'm not surprised at this stupidity. I also won't be surprised if from now on every single report offered suggests that an earthquake will occur tomorrow, making the entire exercise meaningless and probably costing lives in the future.
As nxswolf points out, it not only will scare off future scientists interested in working in Italy, but any official/expert tasked with preventing tragedies.
The fallout is that, with each possibility, worst-case scenarios will be the norm to avoid culpability over reasoned approach. Not to say that worst-case should not be considered, but dialling up to 11 is never an appropriate public response.
Finally, today it is seismologists, tomorrow it could easily be network security folks, application engineers, CTO/CSO's etc. Basically, any situation where the sum-total parts are so large and multi-faceted that no one person/agency could be seen as the expert.
Terrible tragedy, terrible fallout. The optimist in me hopes that this is dropped at the next appeal.
Ultimately, the failure is on the journalists and news organizations who choose to broadcast the words of the scientists. They have their rapport with the public and have responsibility to uphold their journalistic integrity. What is really at fault here is editorial review of the news organizations. Period. Anyone can say anything, but it is the news corporations that broadcast the message.
Scientists are already loathe to communicate directly with the general public for fear of misunderstanding of carefully chosen words. This kind of farce will cause a rift that will take a long time to heal. If ever.
What's next? Putting the Earth on trial for manslaughter?
This ruling scares me.
Prior to the earthquake on April 6th, 2009, there have been several smaller ones. On March 30th, there was a quake with a magnitude of 4.1. People were really concerned that something was about to happen shortly. So the day after these scientists claimed, that there won't be an earthquake in the near future. This was surely to calm the public. However, they were wrong. And according to the court, they didn't make their point clear enough, that they are basically unable to make such predictions.
Although I don't follow the sentence, I somehow get the judge's point.
More info here [german]: http://podcast-mp3.dradio.de/podcast/2012/10/22/dlf_20121022...
I am Italian. Sense does not understand how things work around here, Poetry does. Galileo could have been jailed 2 years ago. As a fledgling phd entrepreneur, at 28, I am leaving Italy.
Because the other sources say that there were small shocks before and the scientists consciously decided based on what they know that this does not make an earthquake more likely.
> If the scientific community is to be penalised for making predictions that turn out to be incorrect, or for not accurately predicting an event that subsequently occurs, then scientific endeavour will be restricted to certainties only and the benefits that are associated with findings from medicine to physics will be stalled."
May work as a fraud deterrent too. May.
- scientists need to be held accountable in a court of law
- safety must always come first
- evacuation, while seemingly over the top, should be a way of life in an earthquake zone.
Who survived 9/11? Those who evacuated regardless of the risks and advice given at the time.
RAW DATA NOW.
> Charge them for manslaughter
> Suddenly no one wants to be a specialist
> Don't get any predictions good or bad at all anymore