There's a few jobs that, if done wrong, can lead to the death of others: pilot, surgeon, policeman, nuclear plant safety manager. Oh, and let's add seismologist to that list.
In Italy, where poor decisions are not a surprise (see: Benedict, Pope) and misleading logic prevails (see: WWII / Mussolini), six seismologists and a government official are being charged with manslaughter case. Like you, I was completely unaware there were any places that had laws on the books making it a crime if you didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of an earthquake - it's kinda unknowable. The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake killed close to around 300 people.
The witch hunt came after those seismologists, all members of a committee tasked with determining the risk of an earthquake in the area of, "should've seen it coming", due to a swarm of earthquakes that occurred days before the big one struck. Of course, everywhere around the world places get swarms of earthquakes without a big shaker afterwards, with nothing to suggest a bigger one. Try telling that to the same country who demonized Galileo Galilei.
Others in the scientific community are shocked and offended that their colleagues are essentially being railroaded for not being psychic. "One problem is we don't know how much stress it takes to break a fault," said John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist. "Second we still don't know how much stress is down there. All we can do is measure how the ground is deforming. Not knowing either of these factors makes it pretty tough to figure out when stresses will get to the point of a rupture."
In order to attempt measurements of the actual stresses, researchers would need to drill miles beneath the surface (which is pretty difficult - this isn't The Core). They'd only be able to drill a couple places to put sensors along the fault, but the L'Aquila fault system is considered complex, with several so-called faults moving mostly vertically, instead of the horizontal strike-slip faults (like California's San Andreas), so those methods may not yield the intended results.
Clearly, the Italians don't full grasp the scope of science, or why there's "Act Of God" clauses in contracts, but maybe something good can come out of criminal charges for those who fail to be clairvoyant guess correctly. I'm all for the punishment of weathermen who couldn't call the afternoon's climate change to save their freedom, or locking up every designer who's stylistic abortions are too ugly to wear beyond the runway.
In Italy, where poor decisions are not a surprise (see: Benedict, Pope) and misleading logic prevails (see: WWII / Mussolini), six seismologists and a government official are being charged with manslaughter case. Like you, I was completely unaware there were any places that had laws on the books making it a crime if you didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of an earthquake - it's kinda unknowable. The 2009 L'Aquila earthquake killed close to around 300 people.
The witch hunt came after those seismologists, all members of a committee tasked with determining the risk of an earthquake in the area of, "should've seen it coming", due to a swarm of earthquakes that occurred days before the big one struck. Of course, everywhere around the world places get swarms of earthquakes without a big shaker afterwards, with nothing to suggest a bigger one. Try telling that to the same country who demonized Galileo Galilei.
Others in the scientific community are shocked and offended that their colleagues are essentially being railroaded for not being psychic. "One problem is we don't know how much stress it takes to break a fault," said John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist. "Second we still don't know how much stress is down there. All we can do is measure how the ground is deforming. Not knowing either of these factors makes it pretty tough to figure out when stresses will get to the point of a rupture."
In order to attempt measurements of the actual stresses, researchers would need to drill miles beneath the surface (which is pretty difficult - this isn't The Core). They'd only be able to drill a couple places to put sensors along the fault, but the L'Aquila fault system is considered complex, with several so-called faults moving mostly vertically, instead of the horizontal strike-slip faults (like California's San Andreas), so those methods may not yield the intended results.
Clearly, the Italians don't full grasp the scope of science, or why there's "Act Of God" clauses in contracts, but maybe something good can come out of criminal charges for those who fail to be clairvoyant guess correctly. I'm all for the punishment of weathermen who couldn't call the afternoon's climate change to save their freedom, or locking up every designer who's stylistic abortions are too ugly to wear beyond the runway.
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