Italy Orders Jail Terms for 7 Who Didn’t Warn of Deadly Earthquake | Hacker News Reader

Italy Orders Jail Terms for 7 Who Didn’t Warn of Deadly Earthquake

nytimes.com

81 pointsjaphyr18 comments

(Mostly an edited repost of a comment I made in yesterday's discussion on the same topic.)

A blog post on Nature.com about a month ago explains better why they were on trial, which is not the misprediction that an earthquake was imminent:

  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.

Source: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/porsecution-asks-for-fo...

If you can read Italian, there are a few online newspapers have comprehensive explanations about the trial matter:

[1]: http://www.giornalettismo.com/archives/548491/terremoto-laqu...

[2]: http://newrassegna.camera.it/chiosco_new/pagweb/getPDFartico...

[3]: http://www.cattivamaestra.it/2012/10/sentenza-processo-aquil...

Discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4683657 (84 comments)

This story actually seems to be more complex than most western media is reporting it, apparently the scientists issued false "everything is ok" messages possibly for political reasons, against what their data actually showed. At least that's what I picked up from the Reddit discussion.

You're right, they held a big conference to reassure people that everything is OK and they should remain in their houses. One week later the big one came and some of those who listened to the scientists died.

Not as outrageous as what the media is reporting, but probably more interesting from the point of view of a scientist's responsibility.

In fairness to the scientists, you know as well as I do that they could have stated the risk of a big earthquake and nobody would have listened. It happens in high-risk disaster areas all the time. Sure, they should be held accountable for making false statements for political or economic gain, but saying "those who listened to the scientists died" isn't fair.

From my long comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4687151

> The minutes of the 31 March meeting

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.

Corruption in Italy? I can't imagine.

So now every scientist is just going to sound the alarm every time. How does that help anything?

Or more likely every scientist is going to be extremely cautious and cover their ass when making public statements. That's a lot different than sounding the alarm every time. I get the feeling that if these scientists had not been so absolute in their vision of safety they would not have been convicted.

If covering ass means saying something like "I predict <5% change of X happening" instead of saying it's not going to happen... why not. Maybe publishing more raw data for others instead of just a 2-word summary would be a good solution in general.

I recall hearing of Italy having a poor legal/justice system. Can anyone comment on this verdict as it relates to Italy? Would these scientists be found guilty in Germany, Spain, Greece, etc.?

Well, the sentence is not really about "earthquake prediction", but about the fact that some hours before the big earthquake alarms from the INGV (the italian institute for earthquake monitoring, one of the best in the world) were ignored.

Of course nobody can predict earthquakes, but in L'Aquila's quake there were strong evidence of "something happening", and they were ignored: that's why they were found guilty.

P.s. I'm from Italy

There were no "big earthquake alarms from the INGV", that's the whole point. If you have sources that say the contrary, I would be interested in reading them.

Isn't US the nation where companies get sued because coffee is too hot?

Yes, but that's civil litigation between 2 people or a person and a corporation.

No one in the U.S. goes to jail for serving hot coffee.

<5 years later> Italy wonders why there are no leading seismic researchers in the country.

So when do we start slapping lawsuits on failing to predict floods and hurricanes?

Why stop there? We just have to look around and find someone knowledgeable about something that just happened and is bad. Then you can sue them for not reporting that it was going to happen.

I think I'm going to promptly forget everything I know about computers before I get sued by a local store for not warning them that a virus is in the wild.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com