Posted on 10/23/2012 1:08:38 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
An Italian court sentenced scientists to jail time for not having a functioning crystal ball ahead of the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila. The arguments of science and reason fell on deaf ears.
Rarely since a Catholic inquisition in Rome condemned Galileo Galilei to spend the remainder of his days under house arrest for the heresy of teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun, has an Italian court been so wrong about science.
Today, a court in the central Italian city of L'Aquila, 380 years after that miscarriage of justice, sentenced six scientists and a government bureaucrat to six years in jail on manslaughter charges for their failure to predict a 2009 earthquake that left more than 300 people dead.
This headline isn't the sort of thing that's generally expected from Italy anymore. The church quietly abandoned its objections to heliocentrism in the early years of the 18th century, and by the early 19th, had fully accepted the scientific facts.
But according to the BBC, a modern Italian secular institution is now the one struggling to grapple with science. The seven convicted men stood accused of "inexact, incomplete, and contradictory" information about the risks posed by tremors in the weeks ahead of the April 6, 2009, earthquake that caused so much destruction.
The seven, all members of the "National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks," were convicted after an apparently emotional trial in which the testimony of people who had lost loved ones was allowed, as if it was relevant to the question of whether current science can predict earthquakes. No grief, no matter how great, can answer that question (which is a resounding "no," by the way).
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with the verdict and I hope that it sets a global precedent. The arrogance of the scientific community led to these scientists implying that they could accurately predict a quake in the first place. In fact, I’d like to see the same consequences in the matter of climate science as a whole.....
If the eco-nazi’s in the EPA had their way, they’d sentence coal producers/power plant users to jail for releasing CO2 and causing a sea level rise, notwithstanding that there is no correlation between the two.
Complete and utter insanity.
Meanwhile the global warming alarmists are continuing to extort hundreds of billions of dollars from the citizens of America.
I and everyone else who retained property in the expectation that the seas would rise and our property would become valuable oceanfront property, should now sue Al Gore for his faulty prediction.
That and I’m suing a certain Chinese fortune company that said I’d soon be rich.
Idiot. NO geologist claims to be able to predict an earthquake. Good luck getting any information in the future on risks of earthquake, or volcanic eruptions in Italy in the future.
I agree with you. They run around as self acclaimed experts, as they suck up tax dollars, yet they hold themselves not responsible for anything. I think, since the world has not collapsed in the 20 plus years of global warming, I think all those scientists and Al the Scam should all be sued for every penny they got paid, extorted from business, or scammed from the government and then tried for fraud.
Good luck getting any information in the future on risks of earthquake, or volcanic eruptions in Italy in the future.
Duh ... couldn’t be any worse than it is currently!
Looks to me like they said that they didn’t think there would be an earthqauke but didn’t rule it out either. This is a completely insane ruling.
Ah, If only the same rules applied to politicians????????I can dream can’t I?
> NO geologist claims to be able to predict an earthquake.
Please see:
Geologist Predicts Major Earthquake for N. America
Saturday, 19 Mar 2011 10:20 AM
Former U.S. Geological Survey geologist Jim Berkland is predicting that a major North American Earthquake is imminent.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/jim-berkland-earthquake-noth/2011/03/19/id/390022
It will set a precedent.
Fewer people and companies will attempt to learn more about earthquakes and other hard to predict events like tornadoes.
The result will be less information and less lived saved.
Do you want Doctor's sued for failing to cure cancer?
Maybe his claims are related to the “Former” description of his title.
I understand the action was brought against the scientists not for failing to predict an earthquake but for insisting that there would be no earthquake. Their defense is that everyone should know there is no way to be sure of that.
Excerpt:
Cavuto asked Berkland if he was implying that “we could be looking at a very imminent event in the United States within the next week or two.”
“Yes,” replied Berkland, who also predicted the 1989 San Francisco quake. “My — what I call a seismic window, this top seismic window in years is developing between the 19th and 26th of this month. And this was 7.0 monster and it says geologist had warned about it. And a week earlier, the they were talking about the tides, not to worry about the really tides coming up. I think there is worry here too.”
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/jim-berkland-earthquake-noth/2011/03/19/id/390022
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