Posted on 11/01/2012 3:16:17 PM PDT by neverdem
L'AQUILA, ITALY—Seven experts tasked with giving advice ahead of the deadly earthquake that struck here in 2009 have been found guilty of manslaughter by a judge in the central Italian town this evening. The four scientists, two engineers, and a government official were accused of having carried out a superficial analysis of seismic risk and of having provided false reassurances to the public ahead of the quake, which killed 309 people. The prosecution had requested prison terms of 4 years for the accused, but Judge Marco Billi has handed each a sentence of 6 years imprisonment. The lawyers of the convicted say they will appeal the verdict.
Alfredo Biondi, the defense lawyer for one of the seven, Claudio Eva, a seismologist at the University of Genova, says the verdict was "extremely mistaken" and that he was "sorry" because he had "great faith in the law and those who apply it." He added: "When someone says how things are, they shouldn't end up in jail for 6 years."
"I think it is truth and justice," says Vincenzo Vittorini, who lost his wife and daughter in the quake. "It wasn't a trial against science; it was a trial against those who didn't know how to evaluate the risk, who didn't know to mitigate the risk. What we have been trying to say for 3 years has been affirmed today in an important way."
"It's incredible that scientists trying to do their job under the direction of a government agency have been convicted for criminal manslaughter," says earth scientist Thomas Jordan of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "We know that the system for communicating risk before the L'Aquila earthquake was flawed, but this verdict will cast a pall over any attempt to improve it. I'm afraid that many scientists are learning to keep their mouths shut. This won't help those of us who are trying to improve risk communication between scientists and the public."
All seven convicted took part in a meeting of Italy's National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks that was held in L'Aquila on 31 March 2009, 6 days before the quake struck. They are: the commission's then-vice-president Franco Barberi, a volcanologist at the University of Rome (Roma Tre); Enzo Boschi, a geophysicist at the University of Bologna and at the time of the earthquake president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV); Gian Michele Calvi, a seismic engineer at the University of Pavia; Eva; Mauro Dolce, a seismic engineer and director of seismic risk at Italy's Civil Protection Department (DPC); Giulio Selvaggi, a seismologist at INGV; and Bernardo De Bernardinis, a hydraulic engineer who in 2009 was deputy head of DPC.
The meeting was convened on 30 March 2009 by then-head of the DPC Guido Bertolaso with the stated aim of providing authoritative information on a seismic "swarm" of small- and medium-sized tremors that had shaken the town over the previous 3 months. The prosecution alleged that the information provided by the experts led to many people staying indoors on the night of 5 to 6 April 2009, rather than seeking safety outside as they had done following earlier tremors, having been trained to do so from a young age. It was that change in behavior, charged the prosecution, which caused the deaths of 30 of the victims.
In his closing arguments on 24 September, public prosecutor Fabio Picuti underlined that the men were not being charged with having failed to predict the exact time, place, and magnitude of the deadly quake, information that he said modern science was not able to provide. Instead, he told the court, the defendants made a series of "banal and self-contradictory" statements during their 2009 meeting, many of which were "at best scientifically useless" or, worse, "misleading."
Among the most controversial statements highlighted by the prosecution were those made by De Bernardinis in a television interview ahead of the meeting. The DPC deputy head said that the ongoing tremors posed "no danger" and that the "the scientific community continues to confirm to me that in fact it is a favorable situation." In fact, he said, the ongoing tremors helped discharge energy. This statement was particularly reassuring, according to a number of court testimonies by friends and relatives of the victims, because it suggested the danger decreased with each tremor.
In responding to the prosecution's charges, Boschi's lawyer Marcello Melandri was keen to distance the statements of De Bernardinis from those of the rest of the commission, telling the court that, according to Picuti's reasoning, "De Bernardinis suddenly becomes a prophet" insofar as he made his comments before and not after the meeting. Francesco Petrelli, meanwhile, said it was "impossible" to regard as reassuring comments on the unpredictability of earthquakes made by his client, then-commission vice-president Barberi, in a press interview after the meeting. De Bernardinis's advocate, Filippo Dinacci, also emphasized the impossibility of predicting earthquakes. "We are asking the conviction of seven Christians just because an event happened," he told the court.
Responding to this point this morning, Picuti argued that the defense failed to distinguish between a natural disaster and the risk of such a disaster. While an earthquake is impossible to predict, he said, its risk can be predicted. That logic, he maintained, is born out in the very name of the commission.
The trial has already run for more than a year, but it may be a while still before the end of the legal process. Now that the judge has announced the verdict, he has up to 90 days to deposit a document explaining his reasoning, and the defense will then have 45 days to lodge an appeal. But with two or even three stages, says civil party lawyer Fabio Alessandroni, the appeals process could last up to 6 years.
Given this fisaco, there should be a way to convict a stupid jidge.
There might be a possibility here.
Imagine the fun if the rumor was started that the court next intends to criminally try scientists who “lied about man made global warming.”
This could work either way, as legal proceedings against advocates of the theory, or against deniers of the theory. In either case the rumor might provoke some hilarious commentary among the gullible. That is, the MMGW advocates.
They would probably be all in favor of it if they thought MMGW deniers were being prosecuted.
No kidding. I read the report the Enzo Boschi released and he even stated that they could not be 100% certain that there would be no quake.
All I know is that if I were a geologist or vulcanologist, I’d be looking or a new line of work or a nation of sane people to work in.
I would bet that most of the 309 deaths were due to sloppy construction methods and safety violations ignored by government building inspectors who drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis.
About that last part, any ideas where I can find one? I might consider moving there myself.
So there is hope for the benghazi gaggle
and if, with the general public knowledge that predicting earthquakea is in its scienttific infancy at best, had the scientific committee said the seismic activity before the earthquake MIGHT MEAN (the only honest way of saying it) a larger earthquake MIGHT (again the only honest term) occur SOMEWHERE (another one of the necessary and honest terms) in the region,
that anyone in the region would have done anything differently before the quake?
no; everyone would have continued to live “business as usual”, but the cultural virus of seeking someone to blame is alive and well in Italy (not just the U.S.)
Expect every earthquake specialist to become the seismic equivalent of Al Gore. They now have strong incentive.
This is such a fiasco.
Had the scientists said that yes, certainly, an earthquake swarm means a big one is on its way and everyone evacuated, and then nothing happened, they would no doubt have been tried for unnecessarily causing a panic and economic destruction.
Instead of blaming the scientists for being unable to predict the future, maybe they should start blaming the inadequate building code and inspectors.
I’d bet that you are right.
It’s no secret that Italy is seismic friendly.
The truth is that geologists don’t know when an earthquake is going to hit. They should just say that. WE DON’T KNOW!
But to put them in prison to acting like know-it-alls and being wrong, is stupid. The people who got tricked by the bs are the ones responsible for their own losses.
Just like if we reorganize our society and economy based on the “science” of global warmist chicken littles, the damage is our own fault.
They spoke as scientists are trained to speak, and that is in probabilities. They told the public what they knew, which is that the chance of a large earthquake was low. There is no way they could have known that this time would be different.
They spoke as scientists are trained to speak, and that is in probabilities. They told the public what they knew, which is that the chance of a large earthquake was low. There is no way they could have known that this time would be different.
I hear modern scientists claiming they know what they don’t know all the time nowadays. Some don’t even show the professional humility between theory and fact. I’ve been around medical science professionally for a long time and today’s science culture is full of itself.
Still, it is not a crime to have a over exercised ego. Not the greatest for scientific professional standards and progress (as has been demonstrated in the Soviet Union), but it is a political/social fad that hopefully will pass. People who fall for know it all BS and destory themselves, are responsible for outcomes.
Well, I know if I was a seismologist in Italy, and I was asked what the probabilty was for an earthquake, my only response — after this — would be: “I’m sorry, but on advice of legal counsel, I must decline to answer.”
LOL!
I believe there is some confusion here about the lay-person's definition of "theory" and the scientific definition. In scientific terms, a theory is a framework that ties together many facts and allows the formulation of testable ideas. Being based in fact, a scientific theory cannot be separated from fact.
Theories are based on a set of facts, true. The facts are stung together and a theory develops to give the facts meaning in a broader context or system than is supported by the known facts.
Some theories are wrong and that is why professionals of western science have treated fact (what we know) and theory (what we suppose we know, based on the facts we know) differently. Real scientists are open to new facts creating new theories. It they were not, science would be stagnant.
I have seen these conversations unfold at my dinner table between the young and old members of the family who have careers in science. I worked at NIH for ten years and work around medical scientists now. I have seen egoic blowhards get slapped down.
The latest complaint of real scientists is fake science creating fake facts which are entering the pipe line due to a lack of respect for science, honor and truth. It’s a product of amoral, self-centered humanism versus the values of Western culture which gave birth to Western science, in my opinion. I think it will get worse as the older scientists and doctors who possess Western standards and values retire.
We can agree to disagree. :)
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php
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