Jail time for incompetent Italian scientists

[OmCheeto]

Italy Orders Jail Terms for 7 Who Didn’t Warn of Deadly Earthquake
October 22, 2012
Seven prominent Italian earthquake experts were convicted of manslaughter on Monday and sentenced to six years in prison for failing to give adequate warning to the residents of a seismically active area in the months preceding an earthquake that killed more than 300 people.

Note to self. Do not become a scientist in Italy. But if I should, be sure and cry wolf every time something might happen.

Meteorologist: "It's going to rain heavily. There might be a flood. Everyone move to higher ground".

Quantum Physicist: "There is no uncertainty about the uncertainty principle, and everyone should therefore jump back in bed and hide under the covers".

 

[Len M]

The survivors view:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/27/laquila-earthquake-battle-science-politics

On a sun-drenched autumn day in L'Aquila, Vincenzo Vittorini peered into the huge hole in the ground where his house once stood and recalled the night his wife and nine-year-old daughter were crushed to death.

Scared by the scores of tremors that had shaken L'Aquila for four months, the Vittorinis were huddled together in bed in their top-floor apartment that night, 5 April 2009. When the earthquake struck at 3.32am, all three plummeted three storeys as the building folded like paper.

Miraculously Vittorini, 49, was unscathed, never lost consciousness and was dug out at 9am by a neighbour. His family were less fortunate. "My wife and daughter did not die immediately," he said, his voice trailing off. Did he hear voices as he lay trapped? "I heard everything, unfortunately."

Like many local people, Vittorini had decided to stay at home that night, having been reassured by a meeting of Italy's leading earthquake experts five days earlier, on 31 March. Just before attending the meeting, the deputy head of Italy's civil protection agency, Bernardo De Bernardinis, promised the tremors were helping the Earth release pent-up energy and called the situation "favourable".

 

[rootX]

It was never a matter of blaming scientists for wrong predictions, it was about their involvement in misleading public and telling things that were not factually correct.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Did they make a mistake either in their reading of the data or in deciding whether or not the risk warranted a warning? If so to either of those then I can see how this would at least constitute criminal negligence.

 

[Borek]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=646127