Italian scientists convicted for not warning about deadly 2009 quake

[Anonymous No.5183542]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57537288/italian-scientists-convicted-for-not-warning-about-dead
ly-2009-quake/

Defying assertions that earthquakes cannot be predicted, an Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter Monday for failing to adequately warn residents before a temblor struck central Italy in 2009 and killed more than 300 people.

The court in L'Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years each in prison. All are members of the national Great Risks Commission, and several are prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts.

[Anonymous No.5183555]

Justice is served.

[Anonymous No.5183558]

Oh look it's this thread again

[Anonymous No.5183568]

Well, you gotta blame *someone*. 300 people can't just die without some evildoer being responsible.

[Anonymous No.5183573]

I for one blame the church, they said their god would protect us!

[Anonymous No.5183576]

>six years
Way too low. These scum need to be put in jail for life. Fucking scientists.

[Anonymous No.5183581]

>>5183573
You can't imprison God, though. Scientists are the next best thing.

[Anonymous No.5183582]

Yeah send those racist whitecoaters to jail for being such elitist scum!

[Anonymous No.5183583]

>Scientists had decried the trial as ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting earthquakes
Haha, geology confirmed for shit tier

[Anonymous No.5183584]

>>5183583
Maybe this will make the pseudoscientists stfu.

Next step. Send psychologists to jail for not predicting suicide/murder.

[Anonymous No.5183588]

>>5183583

This. Astrologists can predict eclipses, meteorologists can predict weather for an entire week, physicians can predict the movement of planets enough to launch rockets from one to another, but geographers can't even predict earthquakes. What a shitty science.

[Anonymous No.5183593]

>>5183588
>Astrologists

[Anonymous No.5183594]

Italy confirm for being third world country?

[Anonymous No.5183610]

>>5183588
Scale does not denote complexity.

[Anonymous No.5183613]

>>5183610
if it is complex, then it is not precise/simple enough.
Just like economics.

[Anonymous No.5183615]

>>5183610
>Implying you even know what the word complexity means

[Anonymous No.5183616]

>>5183615
The number and rate of interactions that need to be calculated to produce a reasonably accurate predictive simulation.

[Anonymous No.5183620]

>>5183588 physicians
>>5183588 geographers

Confirmed for jokes

[Anonymous No.5183631]

>>5183583
>>5183584
Does that mean we should all be in prison, because none of us can predict suicides or earthquakes?

[Anonymous No.5183635]

They should lock up all medical scientists for not having found a cure for death yet. That's just gross negligence.

[Anonymous No.5183638]

>>5183631
dont tell me what i cant fucking do.

[ENGH No.5183643]

>>5183616
Are you sure thats not algorithmic entropy?

How about this: never say the word "complexity" ever again, in your life?

You filthy comp.sci scum.

[Anonymous No.5183652]

“The prosecution’s primary complaint is not so much that the government appointed panel of seismologists failed to predict the earthquake, but that they gave a falsely reassuring statement about its potential effects.”

It's complete legitimate, you idiots are being had by idiotic reporters who sensationalize the issue.

[Anonymous No.5183660]

>>5183652
What was that reassuring statement?

[Anonymous No.5183665]

>>5183652
And when you read even further, you notice that their statements were perfectly appropriate and in accordance with what was known to them at the time. There was no reason to cry earthquake.

[Anonymous No.5183669]

''potential effects'', thats pretty much like a doctor reassuring a patient that because he has a cough but no other visible syptoms, he wont die tommorrow, then the patient dies. A series of small earthquakes happening with slightly greater frequency still leaves too many possibilities open for what can happen.

[Anonymous No.5183672]

>>5183665
Guido Bertolaso, former head of the Department of Civil Protection, called a meeting in order to reassure the public that the months of tremors had discharged the stresses on the fault. “After the meeting, Bernardo De Bernardinis, deputy head of the Department of Civil Protection, said to the press: ‘The scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy,’ a statement that most seismologists consider to be scientifically incorrect.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=california-scientist-test&page=2

That's not the impression I got.

[Anonymous No.5183671]

>>5183665
Better cry earthquake all the time so you're not wrong when it matters most

[Anonymous No.5183674]

>inb4 all scientists leave the national Great Risks Commission and nobody wants to join her ever again
>nobody warning italiens about eaerthquakes ever again

[Anonymous No.5183677]

>>5183671
That's fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.5183680]

>>5183677
Why? They can't say you didn't warn them later.

[Anonymous No.5183684]

>>5183672
>a statement that most seismologists consider to be scientifically incorrect.

Any seismologists around to comment on that?

[Anonymous No.5183689]

>>5183684
>Hold my beer, I can do that
HE IS TOTALLY WRONG AND A FAGGOT FOR HAVING A DIFFERENT OPINION
12 years would serve him better
>Am I good italian seismologist?

[Anonymous No.5183694]

Even with warning, it wouldnt have helped much as the fault is just as likely to go off the next day as it is in 2 years time. Its not the seismologists fault, more than its is the city planning staff for not having building regulations suitible for leaving near a fault.

[Anonymous No.5183692]

>>5183672
But that's a statement by a politician, not by any of the involved scientists.

[Anonymous No.5183693]

>prosecuting people for acting in good faith, belief and according to their current knowledge
Italia, what have you done

[Anonymous No.5183698]

>>5183672
>The meeting concluded: "There is no reason to say that a sequence of small-magnitude events can be considered a predictor of a strong event." This statement was scientifically correct.

>At the later press conference, however, DCP vice-president Bernardo De Bernardinis, who is not a seismologist nor a member of the Major Hazards Committee, said: "The scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favourable." This statement was not scientifically correct. Seismic activity continued, and a few days later the main shock occurred. Nearly everyone in L'Aquila, including the prosecutor, lost relatives or friends. De Bernadinis and six scientists were indicted for manslaughter.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128310.200-dont-blame-italian-seismologists-for-quake-deaths
.html

[Anonymous No.5183699]

>>5183693
Even worse, that makes them look almost as bad as if they caused earthquake in the first place.
To the relatives of the dead people it will look like those people killed their family members on purpose.

Even 'more worse', the seismologists probably belive that themselves by now.

[Anonymous No.5183702]

Prime example of how a some peoples lack of science literacy screws everyone else over.

[Anonymous No.5183706]

Tomorrows News: Italy's politicans prosecuted for manslaughter, corruption and child raping.

Does not matter if they raped the children themselves or just failed to warn them.

[Anonymous No.5183710]

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html

A long read, but it gives some levelheaded insights into this mess. It really doesn't sound as if the actual scientists involved had been downplaying the risk at any point. The government officials definitely were too reassuring, but I'm still not sure if this should be equated with manslaughter.

[Anonymous No.5183711]

>>5183594
Yep, and i'm italian.

[Anonymous No.5183715]

>>5183692
The convicted scientists told him that though.

[Anonymous No.5183717]

>>5183715
No, they didn't, as it has been pointed out in this thread several times.

[Anonymous No.5183722]

>>5183715
>The now-famous commission meeting convened on the evening of 31 March in a local government office in L'Aquila. Boschi, who had travelled by car to the city with two other scientists, later called the circumstances "completely out of the ordinary". Commission sessions are usually closed, so Boschi was surprised to see nearly a dozen local government officials and other non-scientists attending the brief, one-hour meeting, in which the six scientists assessed the swarms of tremors that had rattled the local population. When asked during the meeting if the current seismic swarm could be a precursor to a major quake like the one that levelled L'Aquila in 1703, Boschi said, according to the meeting minutes: "It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, but the possibility cannot be totally excluded." The scientific message conveyed at the meeting was anything but reassuring, according to Selvaggi. "If you live in L'Aquila, even if there's no swarm," he says, "you can never say, 'No problem.' You can never say that in a high-risk region."

[Anonymous No.5183755]

>gubmint fails to set up earthquake precautions in an earthquake region
>scientists predict earthquake, albeit not in such magnitude
>gubmint jails scientists for "not warning accurately enough" because the state is even more corrupt than Chicago
I think it's time to blitzkrieg Italy. They have produced nothing but fuckups and supercars in the last century.

[Anonymous No.5183758]

>>5183583
>Astrologists

You're not actually that fucking dense are you?

[Atwill !kelPcGZQlE No.5183763]

More like Shitaly, amirite?

[Anonymous No.5183769]

>>5183755

Godspeed, Bernd... Godspeed.

[Anonymous No.5183775]

>>5183593
That's all you picked up on?
>predicting weather
>physicians and planets
>geographers

[Anonymous No.5183773]

>>5183542
Earthquakes can be "predicted" but only with great precision with 30 seconds in advance of the event. That's not really useful information for the general public, since the time it would take to warn them would be wasted until they got the message when it;s already too late to react.

This information is usually useful for public authorities to stop gas, power and nuclear facilities in the area to prevent systemic damage to the area, besides that from individual homes'.

[Anonymous No.5183777]

>>5183680
"Boy who cried wolf" ring a fucking bell?

[Anonymous No.5184232]

>>5183588
>>5183775
Next up, Italy jails meteorologist for failing to predict meteor.
Seriously, is the troll that much worse than the Italian courts in this? Scapegoating of the worst and most dangerous sort.

[Anonymous No.5184343]

>>5183674
THIS

Also, expensive full city evacuations on every tremor for the next decade. I predict > 300 evacuation related deaths within the next decade, and the geologists will be shaking their heads from their jail cells.

[Anonymous No.5184370]

>>5183652
What is this quote from, please?

[Anonymous No.5184389]

>>5184370
My own question, answered.
Reporter George Dvorsky
I found it at:http://io9.com/5953701/verdict-due-in-trial-of-six-scientists-facing-manslaughter-charges-for-fai
ling-to-predict-earthquake

[Anonymous No.5184404]

>>5183616
>reasonably accurate

well for me nothing needs to be calculated to be considered reasonably accurate so nothing is complex

[Anonymous No.5184529]

>>5184404
either your values for nothing or reasonably accurate differ greatly from mine or...
...Anons we have a deity on the thread. Finaly someone we can hold fully accountable!

Seriously, the more I read about this elsewhere, the more it sounds like the scientist in question were saying, "It's a friggin earthquake zone, it's never 'safe' here." Yet even if this court ruling is overturned, as is apparently common in Italy, these seismologists and vulcanologists are going to have to live with this, and no one seemed to think they'd be convicted-what if it stands?
Do we realy want to live in a world where scientists are ignored then jailed for stating uncomfortable truths?

[Anonymous No.5184593]

Let's take a specific set of laws from a popular science fiction novel, and replace some of the nouns with "Scientist"

1. A scientist may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A scientist must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A scientist must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

There ya go, the three laws of Scientists.

[Anonymous No.5184594]

>>5184404
well for me nothing needs to be calculated to be considered reasonably accurate so nothing is complex
>mfw

[Anonymous No.5185056]

>>5183593
This......I swear, sometimes!