Geologists to be charged for failing to predict earthquake

[pokerfan]

:wtf:

http://www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/354-7da-6-f

Seriously. :wtf:

[midnight]

1. I love this part:

So if I get this right, they’re saying the seismologists should have predicted the earthquake, told people to evacuate and kept them out until a major earthquake struck. And because they didn’t, they should be held liable. Are you kidding? Wonder what they’ll do about the geologist who did predict the earthquake, who they initially silenced?

God help us if this is the new standard.

[struggle4progress]

8. The Giampaolo Giuliani case isn't clear to me:

Translation of interview with Giampaolo Giuliani
April 7, 2009 by italianopinionist
This is the english translation of the YouTube video interview with Giampaolo Giuliani ... http://italianopinionist.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/translation-of-interview-with-giampaolo-giuliani/

April 6, 2009, 8:48 am
Earthquake Warning Was Removed From Internet
... 9. April 6, 2009 10:50 am
The YouTube video of Giampaolo Giuliani that comes with your link by no means predicts the earthquake; it explains his system measuring radon and reassures people that the tremors being felt are normal for this part of the year. Perhaps he made his predictions later or in another video, but not this one.
<Thanks Bill. We've adjusted the description of the video to reflect that the interview was about methodology. -- RM, Lede Blog>
10. April 6, 2009 10:51 am
Yes, that guy predicted an earthquake on a different date, at a different location. Not only, he took it in his hands to warn people about it. Of course he should be reprimanded. A forecast would have been a more educated guess, but it still would not have been up to him to say ... http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/earthquake-warning-was-removed-from-internet/

[struggle4progress]

2. EarthMagazine is picking up a story that's two weeks old, about

comments made by the public prosecutor in L'Aquila, a town of perhaps 75K

I can't get much detail from the press a few weeks back

I suppose a small town prosecutor could be ignorant enough to believe seismologists could predict with unerring accuracy whether or not a quake was immanent, though it seems very unlikely to me that the Italians could be ignorant enough as a group to allow a prosecution to go forward on the simple theory of the inerrancy of seismology: it is, after all, the country that produced Marconi and Fermi

Or it might be the case that the prosecutor's comments were based, not on an incorrect on some alleged actual dereliction of an official duty, such as failure to carry out a required analysis timely -- which could provoke some outrage when people subsequently died

I guess the story's worth following, but I wouldn't expect a manslaughter prosecution

[maxsolomon]

4. Italy convicted Amanda Knox without a motive or a witness

and circumstantial DNA evidence. and she still rots in a jail in Perugia.

a small town prosecutor in Italy is enough of a hysteric to say this in public, and the Italian media and hysteric enough to repeat it without ridicule. i'm not even surprised as the planet slides into Idiocracy.

stuff like this convinces me that Germany regrets the EU more and more every day.

[struggle4progress]

5. Argument, that the Italian justice system is insane, requires rather more than the Knox case:

Knox told multiple inconsistent stories to the authorities, attempted to frame a man with a water-tight alibi, and behaved bizarrely

I have no actual opinion on the verdict, but there's no obvious reason to think that a prosecutor here, facing the same facts, would have failed to reach a guilty jury verdict under the American system

[Posteritatis]

9. Italy's also got things like "people who wear jeans cannot be raped" rulings

They're not quite Japan, but I wouldn't want to be near their justice system.

[maxsolomon]

10. "behaved bizarrely"

means she did yoga to relieve her anxiety while waiting to be interrogated. in italy that's super wierd. in seattle, that's an obvious thing to do.

her "multiple inconsistent stories", including the accusation against lumumba, were extracted under duress during those interrogations, conducted in italian which she barely spoke.

my point about italy is this: they do not use 'facts' and 'reason' in their justice system in a way we would recognize.

[pokerfan]

6. I don't know if he has a right to a jury trial

I don't know if he would want one. :shrug:

Suffice to say, this could set a nasty precedent for scientists in Italy. But as Italy’s conviction of four Google executives over a bullying video uploaded to YouTube with which they had nothing to do shows, the country does not have the best record for assigning legal liability particularly fairly, so long as someone takes the fall.

What’s worse: Last year, Italian prosecutors threatened to jail a geologist days before the quake because he predicted (correctly) that there was an earthquake coming, calling him an “imbecile” who “enjoy spreading false news.”

http://www.geekosystem.com/italy-earthquake-scientists-charged-manslaughter

[struggle4progress]

7. The Italian Google conviction may simply reflect the unsettled state of law on cyber-bullying

The American law is also unsettled: Lori Drew was convicted, but the conviction was overturned, for cyber-bullying of 13-year-old Megan Meier, who committed suicide

In the Italian Google case, the cyber-bullying video wasn't removed for several months


... But the Google case will drag on in appeals for years and it’s not clear it will be anything more than a legal anomaly ... None of those convicted will likely ever serve their six months of jail time, in no small part since they all live outside of Italy ... http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/02/italy-google-analysis/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Neither of which should be absolutely necessary to secure a conviction.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Something has gone wrong with human brains.

All over the world.

All at once.

:wtf: indeed!