{"id":6654,"date":"2012-10-22T21:39:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T04:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/?p=6654"},"modified":"2012-10-22T21:39:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T04:39:59","slug":"is-science-on-trial-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dabacon.org\/pontiff\/2012\/10\/22\/is-science-on-trial-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is science on trial in Italy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
credit: Reuters\/Alessandro Bianchi<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nBig news from Italy today, where a regional court has ruled that six Italian scientists (and one ex-government official) are guilty of multiple manslaughter<\/a>\u00a0for the deaths of 309 people that were killed in the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009.
\nThe reaction in the English-speaking press seems largely to showcase the angle that the scientists are being persecuted for failing to accurately predict when the earthquake would hit. They are rightly pointing out that there is no currently accepted scientific method for short-term earthquake prediction, and hence there can be no way to fault the scientists for a failure to make an accurate prediction. As the BBC puts it, “The case has alarmed many in the scientific community, who feel science itself has been put on trial.”
\nAnd indeed, reading through the technical report of the “grandi rischi” commission, there does not seem to be anything unreasonable that these scientists say, either\u00a0before<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0after<\/a>\u00a0the earthquake. (Unfortunately the reports are only in Italian… ma non \u00e8 troppo difficile perch\u00e9\u00a0questo<\/a>\u00a0aiuta.) There is no evidence here of either misconduct or manipulation of data.
\nHowever, this is a rather delicate issue, and the above arguments in defense of the scientists may be red herrings. As BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos<\/a>\u00a0reports, the issue which was under deliberation at the trial was rather about whether the scientists (under pressure from the Civil Defense) issued public statements that were overly downplaying the risk. In fact, one official, Guido Bertolaso, was recorded in a tapped telephone conversation<\/a>\u00a0explicitly calling for such action, and I’m sure that charges will be brought against him as well, if they haven’t already. (Strangely, the wiretap was part of a separate investigation and went unnoticed until January of this year, hence the delay.)
\nIn fact, after the aforementioned conversation with Mr. Bertolaso, one of the seven defendants, Mr. de Bernardinis (the ex-official, not one of the scientists)\u00a0told<\/a> a reporter that there was “no danger” posed by the ongoing tremors, and that “the scientific community continues to confirm to me that in fact it is a favorable situation” and that the public should just “relax with a Montepulciano” (a glass of red wine from the region). \u00a0Contrast this with the fact that strong earthquakes do tend to correlate time-wise with an increase in smaller tremors. Thus, although the total probability of a large event remains low, it definitely increases when there are more tremors.
\nThus, the case is not<\/em> just another in the long Italian tradition of show-trials persecuting scientists (c.f. Bruno<\/a>, Galileo<\/a>). It is at the very least a complex and delicate case, and we should resist the knee-jerk reaction to rush to the defense of our fellow scientists without first getting all of the facts. My personal opinion is that I’m reserving judgement on the guilt or innocence of the scientists until I get more information, though Mr. de Bernardinis is not looking so good.
\n(Update:<\/strong>\u00a0as Aram rightly points out in the comments, a manslaughter charge seems very excessive here, and I suppose charges of negligence or maybe wrongful death would seem more appropriate.)
\nBut there is at least one other tragedy here, and that is that these scientists might be essentially the only ones<\/em> who face a trial. There are many other failure points in the chain of responsibility that led to the tragic deaths. For example, it has come to light that many of the buildings were not built according to earthquake safety regulations; the contractors and government officials were cutting corners in very dangerous ways. If those accusations are true, then that is very serious indeed, and it would be a travesty of justice if the guilty parties were to go unpunished.
\nUpdate:<\/strong> Michael Nielsen points<\/a> to\u00a0an outstanding article that I missed (from over a month ago!) that discusses exactly these points. Let me quote extensively from\u00a0the article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Picuti [one of the prosecutors] made it clear that the scientists are not accused of failing to predict the earthquake. \u201cEven six-year old kids know that earthquakes cannot be predicted,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d Picuti said the panel members did not fulfill these commitments, and that their risk analysis was \u201cflawed, inadequate, negligent and deceptive\u201d, resulting in wrong information being given to citizens.
\nPicuti also rejected the point \u2013 made by the scientists\u2019 lawyers \u2013 that De Bernardinis alone should be held responsible for what he told the press. He said that the seismologists failed to give De Bernardinis essential information about earthquake risk. For example, he noted that in 1995 one of the indicted scientists…\u00a0had published a study that suggetsed a magnitude-5.9 earthquake in the L\u2019Aquila area was considered highly probable within 20 years… [and] estimated the probability of a magnitude 5.5 shock in the following decade to be as high as 15%. Such data were not discussed at the meeting, as the minutes show.
\n\u201cHad Civil Protection officials known this, they would probably have acted differently,\u201d said Picuti. \u201cThey were victims of the seismologists\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big news from Italy today, where a regional court has ruled that six Italian scientists (and one ex-government official) are guilty of multiple manslaughter\u00a0for the deaths of 309 people that were killed in the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009. The reaction in the English-speaking press seems largely to showcase the angle that the scientists are being … <\/p>\n

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