AT FAULT: A government building severely damaged by the April 2009 magnitude 6.3 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy.
Image: Courtesy of TheWiz83, via Wikimedia Commons
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Did scientists and public officials encourage residents of L'Aquila to let their guard down prior to a tragic April 2009 earthquake that killed 309 people in that central Italian city? That is what an Italian court will consider Saturday as it resumes an unprecedented manslaughter trial of six Italian geophysicists and one former government official.
The defendants were part of Italy's National Commission for Forecasting and Predicting Great Risks that held a special meeting in L'Aquila the week before the earthquake to address concerns over recent seismic activity but, according to prosecutors, provided "incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information." As a result of this information, communicated largely via a press interviews before and after the meeting, many L'Aquila residents felt no need to abandon their homes, prosecutors allege. The magnitude 6.3 earthquake ended up leveling about 20,000 buildings in and around L'Aquila.
Scientists, more likely to serve as expert witnesses than defendants in court, are still coming to terms with the legal problems facing their Italian colleagues. If convicted, the defendants are looking at up to 15-year prison terms in addition to a civil suit seeking more than $30 million in damages.
"When they were indicted in June 2010, I was surprised," says Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) and professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, where SCEC is headquartered. "When that judicial review was ordered to trial, I was surprised. So I guess I'm getting used to the fact that this thing has legs." Now, he adds, "it looks to me based on what I have heard that there are liable to be some guilty verdicts coming out of this phase of the trial."
A debate has risen as to whether seismology itself is on trial. Whereas prosecutors argue that it is not, an open letter sent last year to Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, and signed by more than 5,000 members of the scientific community claims that the defendants are being persecuted for failing to do the impossible—predict the time, place and magnitude of an earthquake.
Such protestations are "a little off base in that they don't really get at the main issues of the trial," Jordan says. Regardless, the outcome of this case is likely to send tremors throughout the scientific community, particularly among disciplines such as seismology that seek to better understand and forecast natural disasters. "The public is in some ways becoming more demanding," Jordan says, adding that they want fast access to accurate scientific information gathered in as transparent a manner as possible.
Look no further than last year's Gulf oil spill for evidence of this. "People were really very angry, feeling that they were in some sense being deceived by BP and to some degree by the government for not providing information about how bad that disaster really was," Jordan says.
Whereas answers to tough scientific questions such as when and where a major temblor will strike are elusive today, it is not for lack of trying. Jordan chaired the International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting for Civil Protection formed by the Italian government in the aftermath of L'Aquila to assess the scientific knowledge of earthquake predictability and provide guidelines for effectively gathering, updating and disseminating information to the public. The commission, which submitted its findings in May, recommended several measures, including real-time, interagency sharing of seismic data and the development of new earthquake forecasting methods.
The commission also cited efforts already underway to test earthquake forecasting, in particular the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP). CSEP is a network of collaborating laboratories set up near active fault systems in the western U.S. as well as Italy, Japan, New Zealand and elsewhere to perform earthquake prediction experiments and determine how such experiments should be conducted and evaluated. "This type of forecasting apparatus is prospective, meaning the forecasts are fixed and blind and the performance is tested in a rigorous way," Jordan says. "We started the first testing in California in 2007. Italy began testing about five months after the L'Aquila event." (A team of researchers published the results of California's Regional Earthquake Likelihood Models test of quake forecasts last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.) (pdf)
None of this assures earthquake forecasting improvements in the near future, and some scientists worry that public expectations will outpace scientific capabilities. "One of the issues in L'Aquila was how much attention should have been paid to the foreshocks leading up to the earthquake," says Robert Yeats, a professor emeritus in geoscience at Oregon State University in Corvallis and co-author of the article "Hidden Earthquakes" in the June 1989 issue of Scientific American. There are plenty of examples of foreshocks, including those near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State that never lead to temblors, Yeats says.
One of the best remedies is for scientists, and those speaking on their behalf, to choose their words more carefully, Yeats adds. One of the most egregious violations of this tip came when Bernardo De Bernardinis, then vice director of the Department of Civil Protection, spoke at a pre-quake press conference to discuss the commission's meeting. De Bernardinis reportedly downplayed the danger of an imminent earthquake. When a reporter asked whether residents should then relax with a glass of wine, he is quoted as saying "Absolutely, absolutely a Montepulciano doc," referring to a type of red wine. De Bernardinis's lawyers claim he was making a joke, but prosecutors have seized on this statement nonetheless.
Still, scientists are a hearty lot and not easily silenced, Jordan says. "What is important is that we put together systems for gathering and transmitting that information to the public that are better," he adds. "I think the main impact of L'Aquila will be to underline the need for this kind of information transmission and public notification, raising public awareness."
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33 Comments
Add CommentThis boils down to whether the scientists were legally liable to provide reliable information to the extent they could obtain it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a Catch-22 for scientists in general - if the Italian scientists get indicted, it may stifle scientists from voicing their opinions about data that isn't unquestionable but relevant to critical subjects, curbing the conversation and discussion that often precedes concrete consensus.
If the Italian scientists don't get indicted - the public at large gets the message not to take scientists seriously at all, since they appear to put out opinions without fear of consequence.
Hmmm this opens up a pandoras box with regards to
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe global warming debate. There are some questionable
conclusions reached on both sides of this issue based on
the interpretation of the existing data. The liability
for billions in money spent and the societal upheaval based on these predictions far out strips what happened in italy. There is a whole closet industry based on churning out the global warming message , often based
more on politics than science.
I wonder if scientists will begin to accept the unacceptable, and allow for an 'act of God' to provide cover for those places where science isn't the be-all and end-all?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf these guys are found guilty it is a vote for accountability when representing one's self as an expert. This could go a long way in culling the charlatans from psychology and economics but let's not to forget the lawyers and doctors. So many credentialed professionals make pronouncements that affect the lives of people, earn handsome rewards for opinions, but never suffer when their edicts are bogus. As regards global warming, Al Gore has already been found a fraud by a British court. It is time to add jail sentences for being proven incompetent if not a liar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is hardly surprising considering that this country is host to the head of the Catholic church which is anti birth control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWelcome Italy to the 15th Century.
RWG1949; you are off base. The conviction of these scientists would in no way effect or deter the groups you are mentioning. Their conviction would be a travesty. NO ONE can accurately predict the time or place of a true trembler. Foreshocks occur every day throughout the world without an earthquke following. The only valid conviction would be if these men KNEW there was to be an event and covered up the fact. As stated that is patently an impossibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat if it leads to that scientists are reluctant to make a conclusion or make an ambiguous conclusion in order to protect themselves from punishment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the one hand they will tell you that they are presenting you the best science has to offer and you should trust them to do this. On the other, they'll say they don't know everything so you can't blame them for being wrong. See climate debate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is the country where the prime minister is 76 years old and and has a 20 year old girl friend. This is the country where a young woman accused of murder is called an enchanting witch in a courtroom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is Italy in the year of our Lord 2012 (minus 600).
The enlightenment didn't get to many catholic culture countries.
PART 1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy opinion is clarified in the letter reported below (without the two attachments), that I sent to 'Nature' on May 25, 2011, as past president of the Anti-Seismic Systems International Society (ASSISi) and coordinator of its Territorial Section for the Western European countries (but that, if received, so far I know, was not published, although it is well known by several scientists):
"Dear Sirs:
The members of the Italian Major Risks Committee ('Commissione Grandi Rischi') shall soon defend themselves from the charges of the L’Aquila prosecutors related to their behaviour before the Abruzzo earthquake, which struck L’Aquila and other surrounding towns and villages on April 6, 2009.
Thus, I believe that time has come to let the entire international scientific community and public opinion know the truth about the reasons for the indictment of such members after the aforesaid earthquake.
In fact, a false translation into English of the charges mentioned in the indictment act was circulated abroad by colleagues of some of these members. Based on this 'translation', which stated that the charges were 'to have failed to predict the earthquake' (see Attachment 1), almost 4,000 researchers from 100 different countries signed a letter to the Italy’s president, blaming the prosecutors. Even Nature believed this misleading information, as shown by the article of Nicola Nosengo published online in your journal on June 22, 2010 ('Italy puts seismology in the dock – Scientists who assessed earthquake risk at L’Aquila could be indicted on manslaughter charges').
How false is the aforesaid translation can be easily verified by reading the text of the indictment act, which has been published in internet (see, for instance, www.inabruzzo.com/memoriafinale_13_luglio.pdf and Attachment 2 to this letter, containing part of it).
In my opinion, before signing letters or writing articles, it would have been advisable to check the substance of the not very plausible information received: if it had been true, it would have meant that the concerned Italian prosecutors are rather stupid or crazy guys! Maybe, Italy has become such a 'strange' country that people believe that all and some may occur there!
Luckily, not all had such a poorly scientific attitude.
(to be continued in part 2)
PART 2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor a matter of concision, I will restrict myself to the cases of ASSISi and its member associations, which did not promote any “collection” of signatures, and that of the UNESCO offices in Paris, which, on June 23, 2010, circulated the following message of Dr. Takashi Imamura to the members of GTFBC (“Global Task Force on Building Codes”):
“Dear GTFBC colleagues,
I would like to share with you some updates. I apologize for the long message, but for more details, please also refer to the attachment.
… (omissis) …
Part 2: Indicted Italian scientists
<Message from the GTFBC Secretariat>
I assume that many of us, including myself, have already signed the open letter as we simply interpret the fact that the Italian scientists have been indicted for “failing to predict earthquakes.” Everybody must have thought it is ridiculous. It is clearly written in the last paragraph of the proposed letter (in English translation).
However, there is a voice that we, non-Italian scientists, etc., are not correctly informed about the situation in Italy. If the information we received were more precise, our reactions would have been somewhat different.
The Italian High Risk Commission has not been indicted for “failing to predict earthquakes", but for other reasons. It is important to stress that judges did not accuse these members for not having predicted the earthquake! They were accused to have underestimated / not understood the available data and not to have taken the correct measures to minimize the number of victims in case the earthquake had occurred.
More precisely, taking into account the concomitance of at least two seismic alarms for the area or its immediate neighborhoods (including that of the Italian National Research Council - CNR) and of the ongoing earthquake sequence, the Italian "High Risks Commission" (which should represent "the best" of our seismological and seismic engineering community) should not have declared that there was no risk for an immediate violent earthquake. By stating this, they caused the return to L'Aquila of numerous people, including some students who died in the "Students House".
… (omissis) ...”
For your convenience, I am attaching the full text of this message too (Attachment 1).
(TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3)
Somebody, by believing that the information received was correct, talked of “outrage” of the Italian Justice against Science: in this shameful affair, the real outrage is what some persons, taking advantage of their institutional roles, made the foreign experts understand, by providing a false "translation" of the charges, in order to obtain signatures for a misleading letter against the prosecutors to the Italy’s President. Unfortunately, “thanks” to these shameful behaviors (before and after the earthquake), this affair will be certainly detrimental for the credibility of the entire Italian scientific community in the seismological and seismic engineering fields.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest regards,
Alessandro Martelli, PhD
Coordinator of ASSISi-EUWEC
Past-President of ASSISi"
Policy is the relevant word.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists advise, governmental institution act.
Scientists must forever cite probabilities and be attacked regardless of outcome.
This prosecution is clearly involved with avoidance of responsibility to act.
Yes, the shadow of climate change looms over this.
Although I was advised by an instructor within the realm of a social science to make my writing more accessible, I encountered inability which can only be relieved with experience in failure to communicate due to a distaste of the public for enlargement of vocabulary.
Blame itself can be statistically apportioned in a quasi-scientific manner. There is an administrative chain in all scientific bodies, and conclusions from data would be the responsibility of those who compose such conclusion and are charged with delivery to relevant govt agency, and thence to executives (the word means those who execute or act).
The links in that chain are weak through individual misunderstanding. Herein is where the concept of responsibility is misapplied.
If the Vatican's boss doesn't do it anymore, or if he can't be prosecuted, being a gaseous invertebrate, the scapegoats must be found for sacrifice.
To me this is the strangest headline of the epoch, although weak-minded politicians and their abject followers in the US will certainly applaud it; their strategies of hidden (and not-at-all hidden) self-interest will increasingly follow suit.
It becomes tiring reading the comments posted here which seem to ALWAYS end up about global warming. I wish it would be definitively proven one way or another so that I never have to hear about it again. Its like pot heads constantly talking about legalizing pot... Stay on topic please!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFailed communication? No, only the will of the Italian scientific buroucracy to put their politically useful image of tranquilizers for the people first and to believe what fits that image best rather than launching a politically risky false alarm. Weeks before Giampaolo Giuliani, an independent researcher, warned the media that there were allarming signs that a devastating earthquake was due in the next few days. He was taken to court accused of falsely allarming the public by the same people who are now withstanding trial. The night of the earthquake Giuliani, his family, close relatives and supporters camped outdoors and saved their lives. What happened is a living example of the Italian establishent's and of part of the ruling class attitude to power. It is based on middle ages strategies and struggles among guilds, groups, families, individuals . When ordinary people adopt this attutude, trust in everyday's life and social capital vanish and the excellent work magistrate courts do cannot
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCannot substitute for the lack of trust
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a shame you don't understand how science works and how spot-on Al Gore's warning is about global warming, you could be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not sure if your comment was made seriously or in jest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Gore is so scientifically illiterate and willfully ignorant that it's painful. His mockumentary has been discredited and deemed fraudulent in England. His hypocrisy regarding fossil fuel use is unbelievable and his increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling.
Al Gore is .... well... I'm not even sure what he is...
How does or must a scientist-expert communicate with a general public that is scientifically illiterate? The masses, most of whom cannot tolerant anything but absolute certainty (especially as expressed in their respective bibles). Scientists when trying to predict the future can only give statements of probability, not certainty, which to the un/mis-educated is interpreted as ignorance and are ignored. "I don't know" is the perfectly correct answer in most such cases.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny comments relating the problem to Italy's culture is misapplied. In the US we've got warning labels on packages that would make good SNL skits, if it wasn't true. Like: Inhaling smoke into your lungs can be dangerous, avoid sticking these beans up your nose, don't use electrical appliances in the bathtub, etc.
However, the appropriate decision in the case should be very clearly stated. Scientists should simply express what are the probabilities, accurately, including a caveat about the current limited knowledge. It's then up to the individual to take precautions based upon their own tolerance for risk. The statements by Bernardo De Bernardinis, cited above, do seem to violate what I should think is tolerable -- he should be held accountable to the extent it actually caused people to make an uninformed risk assessment.
The general population is responsible for understanding enough of science and probability to make an informed decision. The randomness of natural selection will do the rest.
Now, what do you do with climate scientists and politicians who are bound and determined to drive our economy off a cliff despite overwhelming evidence that Man Made Global Warming is a fraud? I am in favour of jail time for them and charging them with crimes against humanity for wasting resources that should have gone to feeding the starving and healing the sick.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/dr-david-evans-four-fatal-pieces-of-evidence/#more-17260
And SCIAM editors should be charged as propagandists.
Just my opinion.
What might really shock Italy will be for all scientists in in-precise fields, such as the study of earthquakes, weather forecasting, etc. (even medicine), to stop giving any information for fear of prosecution... They should just say "We don't know for sure what will happen, so we can't give any predictions - at all." I wouldn't blame them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs questioned in my previous comment, how should or must a scientist address the masses of people who are scientifically illiterate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is clear that this commentator, Shoshin, is and will remain within the population of those who are scientifically illiterate. Willful ignorance is a disease which no scientist can address.
As for his URL reference to David Evans. This is just plain silly. Evans has a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He admits he is not a climate specialist nor climate modeler. No one who is not immersed and expert in a field and has become an expert in it is qualified to have a substantive opinion. And, from what I can tell, he has not published in any scientific journal, even non-referreed. And his conspiracy theory language is quite typical of such people -- both on the left and right of the political spectrum.
Paraphrasing Richard Feynman: A scientist looking at a problems outside his field is just as dumb as the next guy.
As a retort, another URL that addresses the arguments presented by Evans is www.skepticalscience.com/david-evans-understanding-goes-cold.html. However, like my rejection of Evans as any authority of climate change, the URL I've included is by a person who is responds as dana1981 and who also seems not to be an expert on the issues.
Neither I nor Shoshin is qualified to argue these points. And it turns out, neither is Evans, nor dana1981.
The Scientists in this trial are really experts, and also most probably competent. What they are being charged with is not also being magician's which is not really illegal. Since (using current technology) it is physically impossible for them to accomplish what they are being punished for not doing, they might as well be on trial for not flying to the moon on a magic carpet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may or may not believe the science around global warming. That is a matter of personal opinion. However, one might also note that as the volume of the deniers indignation escalates, so does the data supporting massive sustained damage to the earth from increasing temperatures.
Yates spoke wise words: scientist must carefully choose their words because people depend on their (far from flawless) research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a fascinating story and the implications of the case are enormous. I wonder who could be indicted for failing to predict the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. It looks like the trial lawyers expect people to be fortune tellers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake medical malpractice insurance, a major cost for most doctors. This is what accounts for all of the expensive but usually unnecessary medical tests when a person shows up at the emergency room: no hospital or doctor one wants to be sued for failing to detect something. Don't wonder why Medicare is going broke.
Expect a huge number of future false positives in our increasingly risk-aversive society, including tornado predictions. Dangerous tornados are relatively rare but when they hit they have an enormous media presence and emotional impact. One of the issues that came out of the Joplin, MO, tornado was the threshhold for setting off the tornado sirens. If you do it too readily and there's no tornado people will tend to dismiss them after a time. Too much safety, it seems, can kill people.
And then there's 9/11. Nobody has been found to have been responsible for not preventing 9/11, in spite of the fact that the terrorists left tracks everywhere. There were all kinds of signs and reports that something was up and no one kept the terrorists from getting on a plane. Not a single person charged with any kind of malfeasance, no politician called to account, no security officials dismissed.
Instead, we now have the TSA and probably the longest consecutive number of false positives that are statistically possible: not a single act of mass terrorism prevented, just tons of fingnernail clippers and mountains of hairspray confiscated to "protect America." No one knows how many people have died or suffered serious health consequences from the stress and anxiety of airport screening. One study showed that increased driving rather than flying after 9/11 may have killed more people in auto accidents than died in the twin towers.
Safety, prevention and responsibility are complicated issues. Bringing geologists to trial isn't likely to solve anything.
LarryW - the statement you made in your post #23 is most profound: "Willful ignorance is a disease which no scientist can address." And, I concur with your thoughts in your post #20 when you said that "Scientists can only state probabilities; not certainties - and then, it is up to the individual to take precautions based upon their own tolerance for risk." Well-said, old chap! It is an outrageous and dangerous path the prosecutors are heading down. To me, it reeks of them needing a fall-guy - and the Scientists were the handiest ones available ..... this trial being a smoke-screen for something that must be hidden; at all costs. I'm just surprised it didn't take place in America; considering the lack of integrity in our current judicial system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest to some of those who wrote comments to read (again) the letter sent to Nature on May 25, 2011 (messages 11-13): NOBODY was indicted by the Italian prosecutors in L'Aquila for "not having predicted the earthquake", but for having let people believe that there was no danger. This may be checked (maybe using a dictionary)by reading the indictment act, which is fully available in Internet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood and creative title for this story!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMonita - kindly clarify your comment - I can't see it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is good about the title, and what is creative about it?
This stinks of the Italian government looking for a scape goat, so no one points the finger at them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf they're going to put anyone on trial for failures, why not the Italian government for allowing people to live in an earthquake zone, without ensuring the housing in that area is built to standards neccesary for surviving an earthquake?
Putting scientists on trial for this is only going to make people fear facing legal consequences for applying themselves to an uncertain field of science, thus frightening future generations away from science. How does this help anyone?
Apparently the only thing that has changed in Italy, in 400 years, is shifting the persecution of science from the religious to the secular authorities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf failing to predict the future is a crime, then Geithner, Paulson, and Benenke should be tried for failing to predict their looting of the economy. Oh, and we need to charge the Leman Brothers too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for the spelling. You still can see what it was that I meant.
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Too many people write comments without knowing the facts and even without reading the remarks of those who know these facts (have they been in L’Aquila? Have they talked to the people there? Do they know what was done and said there, prior and after the earthquake?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this