The Hewitt Times

6’5″ with a knife 

6’1″ bodybuilder with boxing gloves 

Oblivious scientist 

All photographs above credited to Wikimedia Commons.

Up until now, checking just the first three boxes above might have sufficed. But a recent case in Italy has led some to believe that a lack of knowledge is just as good of a murder weapon as a gun is.

This October, an Italian court convicted six scientists and a government official of manslaughter for failing to sufficiently warn residents of the risk before an earthquake struck Italy, killing more than 300 people.

The L’Aquila earthquake shook the ground more than three years ago on Monday, April 6, 2009. Just before the quake struck, the scientists were asked to approximate an earthquake’s probability, given that residents had been experiencing a series of tremors over the month leading up to that Monday. When the experts replied by saying the probability was low, L’Aquila inhabitants stayed inside as opposed to evacuating. The result was 309 people dead.

On the surface, sentencing these experts to six years in prison might seem reasonable. The scientists did, in fact, give out incorrect information that jeopardized lives. But at the core of this case and with more background information, this court-ruled decision seems increasingly unjust.

First, we have to further examine the reason behind the court’s decision and why some think highly of it. Right after the sentence was made, people were reportedly not overwhelmed with emotions you might expect. In general, people’s joy did not come from triumph over the imprisonment of these ‘murderers,’ but rather from a hope of progress. The people of L’Aquila outside the court were happy because it was as if a message were being sent to those scientists: “Look, you have to do a better job. You have to find a way to tell us what’s going on.”

This is where it starts to seem unfair. These scientists did not have enough information to even given an accurate prediction. They were asked a question, and they put forth their best guess, but even now we still lack the science needed to track an earthquake. According to the US Geological Survey, scientists have only been measuring earthquakes for the last 100 years or so. While scientists today have the technology to predict the path and strength of a storm before it happens, the same is not yet possible with quakes.

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Peeranan Towashiraporn, head of the disaster assessment and monitoring department at the ADPC in Bangkok, provided some more information on the science of earthquake prediction: “We follow proven methodologies and quality data, but this science is still immature… and not advanced enough to understand everything occurring underground. We talk about earthquake risks as a probability and chance – it’s [just] a projection.”

But questions still remain. How does it makes sense that these scientists were convicted of manslaughter based off of something they didn’t know? Does this mean if scientists get things wrong, even in inexact cases, and consequences prevail, that they will all end up in court? The situation itself seems ironic, for the only other time we see a court’s decision ruled based off of a lack of something is an acquittal. It would have been a completely different situation if it were a case of scientific obscurantism or if the scientists simply lied about what they knew, but the fact is that they did not know anything. Geology expert Enzo Boschi, who was one of the seven found guilty of manslaughter, said it himself: “I am dejected, desperate. I thought I would have been acquitted. I still don’t understand what I was convicted of.”

This point of view is prominent within the scientific community. USC Professor Thomas Jordan, who was in charge of a commission that created a set of recommendations right after the L’Aquila earthquake, said, “It’s pretty incredible that scientists would be convicted of criminal manslaughter for basically doing their job. We now have to worry about putting scientists in a situation where they refuse to provide that kind of information.” Seismologist Susan Hough concurred, “It’s a sad day for science. It’s unsettling.”

I think this incident should serve as a general incentive to do more research within the field of seismology so that we can prevent these scenarios from happening in the first place. However, this does not lie within the responsibilities of the six scientists and one government official who will live the next six years of their lives in a small prison cell wondering just what is was that they did wrong.

What do you think?

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