On Trial For Manslaughter For Failing to Predict Earthquake

No, I think you're being ridiculous, and I want you to stop talking.

 

Right, now go back and re-read what I actually said, Bells:

You're going to illustrate what part of that statement suggests that he isn't a committee member, because I don't see it.

Actually, the media reported him as making that statement, there's a very subtle, but very important difference. What we lack here, among other things, is the context that the statement was framed within.

No, they should not. They may not have picked up on it at the time, for any number of reasons. They may not even have realized that he mis-spoke until after the earthquake.

Are you suggesting, Bells, that a member of a committee can not at the same time speak as a representative of a committee?

Right, and what do you think, precisely, that means within the wider context of living in a seismically active region, Bells?

Do you think it literally means that there is precisely zero risk, or do you think it means that there is no more risk than usual - business as usual, so to speak.

In the context of an ongoing seismic sequence, I would probably process the statement as meaning "no elevated chance of an earthquake" and not think about it any further until after the large earthquake, and people started complaining that it wasn't supposed to happen.

I don't think it would make a lick of difference one way or the other, because I have seen, with my own eyes, that when a scientist says that a large earthquake is unlikely, or probably not going to happen, it gets reported in the media as "So and so said it's not going to happen", and when it does happen, the public reacts as if the scientist said it didn't happen, and question why the scientist said it couldn't happen, even though the public record clearly states it is unlikely.

Omniscient?

But, you're right on one thing at least - I would not have made the statement, but that doesn't mean as much as you might want to think at first - I don't (generally) talk in absolutes, in fact I generally eschew them, and it is one thing that I have regularly critisized for in my work that has been peer reviewed is my use of excessively cautious language

This, right here, is one of the things that gets my blood boiling about the whole scenario.

Does this physician live in a cave, that he can reasonably claim not to know that the public assurances had been challenged?

And I'd be willing to bet that the challenges would have been to the effect of much the same as what I have already said here. That there may have been a slight elevation of risk because of the ways that quake motion alters the stress fields around faults, and that there is always, at least, a 'background level' of risk.

Irrespective of their intent, the charges amount to a witch-hunt.

Right - he implied that it was business as usual, that there was no elevated risk - to take him to task over saying that there is no risk is an argument of semantics and pedantism. And once again we come back to the question of what he actually said to the press versus what the press recorded him saying.

Being scienbtificaly neutral does not imply accuracy or correctness, Bells.

No, you are thoroughly wrong here, I am precisely accounting for it.

Sure.

No it wouldn't, this fails as an analogy - see my comments above.

No, I do not think their silence neccessarily makes them culpable.

I probably wouldn't have spoken out either. Talking to the media is above my pay-grade, I'm not going to put my job on the line over a matter of semantics and pedantism that I would expect any reasonable person to understand. I would, however have done something along the lines of filing a memo, and presenting it to the person in question.

See, there in lies the thing, Bells, do you think a reasonable person, living in a tectonically active area that is at risk of a large earthquake should ever take that reassurance literaly? Or would you expect them to understand the message as "business as usual".

Probably because he was a politician, who thought he understood what he was told, and didn't neccessarily expect to be taken literaly, which is what the charges require, because even to a layperson, the literal interpretation should be patently absurd.

Sure. I think he should have been more careful with his language. But then I generally think all scientists should use cautious language, and I often cringe when scientists start talking in absolutes.

I also, as I have stated repeatedly, would not expect any reasonable person to interpret his words literaly, which is what is required.

That is what he is reported by the media as having said, again, it's an important but subtle difference. I'll accept it as what he said when I see transcripts of the full conference reliably translated into english, that present the statements in their full context - including any caveats that may or may not have come before or after the statement.

Yes, that is precisely what one of my points is.

It's a non-issue, there are any number of perfectly reasonable explanations for not saying anything publicaly - something else that needs to be kept in mind, just because the press was unaware of anything having been said, doesn't neccessarily imply nothing was said, that's an absence of proof fallacy.

 

The reason why I made the comment was because your analogy fell so far short of what I was actually saying, or suggesting, or any reasonable interpretation of anything I have said that I seriously considered reporting it as trolling.

Incidentally, do you know what I have spent my last two days doing?

Risk analysis.

Computing the combined risk for certain levels being exceeded by a combination of events over a 100year period. I was that paranoid about getting it wrong that I verified with people that I regard as equally or more knoweledgable than myself that I had done my calculations correctly.

And I've recently been asked to do 13 more.

I have carried out risk analyses that have been used as evidence in court cases, so...

Your assertion is without merit (to put it politely).

 

Here is why your analogy thoroughly fails to address what I have actually said.

Can you reasonably expect that a Lay-person might be aware of a risk of a medical procedure? No.

Can you reasonably expect that a Lay-person living in a tectonicaly active area might be aware of the risk of a large event? Yes.

 

See, now you're just waisting both of our time.

I understand the principles of informed consent, I've worked in the health sector as a care giver, thankyou.

It's not that I don't understand the argument you're presenting, it's that I disagree with it.

Clearly, I don't think that this is the same situation. Equally clearly - based on my understanding of the science of the situation, I don't think they're even remotely comparable.

 

It seemed to me that you saw him as a representative and not a member of the committee itself.

And what you are doing is relying solely on the title of a few sensationalist story headlines and not looking at the actual picture.

ON MARCH 31st 2009 Bernardo De Bernardinis, then deputy chief of Italy’s Civil Protection Department, told people in and around the medieval Italian city of L’Aquila that a series of tremors which had been felt in the area over the past four months posed “no danger”. Speaking to a journalist from a local television station, he said that “the scientific community continues to confirm to me that in fact it is a favourable situation, that is to say a continuous discharge of energy.” Six days later L’Aquila and several surrounding villages lay in ruins. An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 had destroyed thousands of buildings and killed 308 people.

Dr De Bernardinis, an expert on floods, made his comments just before a meeting held in L’Aquila in which he and six other scientists and engineers were called upon to analyse the risk posed by the ongoing swarm of tremors. The seven, a mixture of full and acting members of the Civil Protection Department’s national commission for the forecast and prevention of major risks, have since been indicted for manslaughter and their trial starts on September 20th. The prosecution contends that Dr De Bernardinis’s comments and others made by Franco Barberi, a volcanologist who is the commission’s vice-president, at a press conference immediately following the meeting gave undue reassurance to the public that a major quake was not on its way and that, as a result, some people who would otherwise have left their homes following two tremors on the night between April 5th and 6th remained indoors and perished.

Fabio Picuti, the public prosecutor, stresses that the charge is not about whether the experts, who included Enzo Boschi, then president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), should have predicted exactly when, where and with what force the earthquake would have struck. He recognises that is something which remains beyond the bounds of science. Instead, he says, the seven are guilty of negligence because they did not take the risk of a big quake seriously enough. He argues that their discussions, as recorded in the official minutes of the meeting of March 31st, were too generic and completely failed to address the risk at hand.

Gian Michele Calvi, an expert in earthquake engineering who is one of the indicted seven, says the commission recognised that L’Aquila is in a highly seismic zone, and that a powerful earthquake could therefore happen at any time. But he says that, based on the evaluations of the committee’s seismologists, they considered the probability of a major quake to be “essentially the same with or without the seismic sequence”, and that as a result they did not discuss the possibility of emergency action.

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However, this assessment appears at odds with what seismologists have known for at least 20 years—that small earthquakes increase the likelihood that a powerful event will happen in the near future, even if the absolute probability of such an event remains low. Indeed, Warner Marzocchi and Anna Maria Lombardi of the INGV showed that a few hours before the earthquake actually struck modelling would have suggested the chance that a powerful quake would occur within 10 kilometres of L’Aquila within three days rose from one in 200,000 (the background level) to about one in 1,000.


(Source)
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So those seismologists are completely wrong?

But here is where it gets interesting when one speaks of "context"..

Dr Jordan argues that a focus on prediction rather than forecasting held sway in Italy in the days before the quake at L’Aquila. He says that the seven members of the commission concentrated on refuting the predictions made by Gioacchino Giuliani, a laboratory technician at the nearby National Institute of Nuclear Physics, who claims to have developed a method for predicting earthquakes that involves measuring emissions of radon. His public pronouncements reportedly caused panic in the nearby city of Sulmona two days before the meeting of the commission (no big earthquake followed on that occasion). The members of the commission therefore, according to Dr Jordan, “got trapped into a conversation with a yes/no answer”. The result, he says, was that the commission gave the impression that there would be no quake.

Gaetano De Luca, who is in charge of looking after the INGV’s seismographs in the Abruzzo region, of which L’Aquila is the capital, agrees that the commission got sidetracked by Mr Giuliani. But he says this cannot be used as an excuse. He claims that the increased danger in the run-up to the quake was clear, maintaining that a swarm of comparable duration, intensity and geographical concentration had not been witnessed in the area for at least 50 years. As a result, he argues, simple precautions, such as checking the buildings most at risk, should have been taken.

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So in trying to take attention away from someone they disagreed with, they told the public that there would be no quake. When such a prediction could never be made. As someone who has studied geology, you should know that you cannot predict if there will be an earthquake or not. You even admitted yourself that you would have never made such a statement. Yet they did and their actions and words resulted in a level of complacency and the result of that is over 300 people dead. They did not err on the side of caution. They came out and said there would be none..

They were apparently present at the press conference.

I guess they were all spaced out and did not hear him say that they had apparently advised him that there would be no earthquake?

So as a representative of the committee, only he should be charged and those he is representing should get off scott free?

Don't you get it yet?

He came out and said in the press conference that the scientists on the committee told him there was no risk of an earthquake.

Those very scientists heard and said nothing. In fact, in a meeting where they were supposed to discuss the risk of an earthquake in the seismically active area, they failed to even discuss or address the risks or what emergency actions needed to be considered. In other words, the meeting was convened to discuss the risk and they failed to discuss it or what actions should be taken as a preventative measure (ie. building inspections).. Instead, they were too intent on discounting another scientists instead of doing their job, which was to assess the risk.. which they did not do.

"People started complaining"? Over 300 people died. You don't think their families and the survivors have a right to complain that the authorities employed to assess the risk posed to them as a community did not even discuss the risk and instead were too busy discounting another scientist?

A member of that committee came out and told them to go home and have some wine and virtually told them that the scientists had assured him there was not chance of an earthquake. Within a few days, over 300 people were dead because they were made to return to homes and buildings that were not safe and had not been inspected based on that committee's findings. And you think "they are just complaining that it wasn't supposed to happen"?

Do you think scientists tasked with assessing a risk should assess the risk instead of ignoring it entirely or not take it seriously enough?

Context..

They should have assessed the risk. They failed to do so.

I'll put it this way.. The area is active. As such a committee, they had no real idea or ability to say that there would not be an earthquake. Just as they could not say there would have been one. As a committee tasked with assessing risks, they should have recognised that in such a seismic active area, that the recommendation should have been to ensure building codes are up to scratch regardless. Instead, they came out and said there would be no earthquake when they had no idea if there would or would not be one. Their statement to the public were absolute. One could hope that they hoped to advise that the risk was no greater when living in such an active area. What they did instead was say that there would be no earthquake. As one writer for "All Geo" states:

The message the seismologists probably wanted to convey (and, admittedly, failed to) was that there was no immediate danger – beyond the normal risks associated with living in a tectonically active region. ​

Do you understand what I am saying now?

I don't think they (the scientists) should be charged either, because they are being charged with remaining silent and not correcting their fellow member. But that does not mean they were right.

His comments were quoted in full.

Are you saying those quotes were wrong?

But he did not adhere to neutral territory, did he? As a committee member adn a senior Government staff member, he came out and said there would be no earthquake. I do not view that as being "neutral territory".. Quite the contrary.

I beg to differ.

Thus far, you seem to be swaying between how you would not make such an absolute statement as made by this committee to this...

It is exactly as if such a risk committee existed in NZ and they came out and said there won't be an earthquake. We all know there is no ability to make such a prediction and that it is dangerous to make such a statement.

Do you think the public should ignore advice given to them by committees set up specifically to analyse risks to the public?

That meeting of the committee, experts in their field, was convened specifically to assess the risk involved in the area. They came out of the meeting and said there was no risk of an earthquake and the people are at fault for believing them?

He is a politician and also a "representative" of a committee made up of scientific experts who made an incorrect and "patently absurd" statement that was taken literally and the committee of scientists remained silent..

In effect, you are blaming the public for believing them.

Why?

If I was to use your standards in this discussion, it's not as if I should believe you either.

Why should your words and opinions be taken more seriously or literally compared to these scientists and politicians of that committee?

It is pretty much agreed that instead of saying the risk is the same as living in such a zone, they came out and said there was no risk. There is a vast difference between the two. Now, you can sway back and forth, at the end of the day, that is effectively what they did and people believed them. And those people died. The seismologist on the committee did comment on his comments after the earthquake and viewed them as being incorrect.

The people were not given information about risks. They were told that there was no risk as there would be no earthquake. And that, in my opinion is wrong.

 

Then you misunderstood the point that I was making.

A flawed, and wrong, assumption.

I don't recall suggesting that, in fact, I recall suggesting that that would be exactly the grounds of the objections to the released statement:

And? I find that unsurprising, having seen similar mechanisms in play here in New Zealand around the predictions of a guy by the name of Ken Ring. The Media, and the public, like straight forward yes - no answers, but scientists can't generally give straight forward yes-no answers, especially when it comes to something like this, it's mor elike, maybe - maybe not.

No, their representative said there would be none.

Remember this statement from the nature article?

:roll eyes:

So as a representative of the committee, only he should be charged and those he is representing should get off scott free?

I get it. Do you? Has the significance of that line sunk in?

You're certainly doing a good job of misunderstanding my comments, Bells.

As I have suggested, several times now - business as usual.

As one writer for "All Geo" states:

Is this not what I have just gone done saying?

Do you want me to go back through this discussion and quote the number of times I have said those words, or words to those effect? I don't know whether to laugh or cry, just at the moment - in arguing against me, you've wound up saying the same thing that I have said right from the beginning - the only difference, because of my understanding of the science, and because of statements such as this:

I'm inclined to blame the spokesman, rather than the scientists.

Do you understand what I am saying now?

I don't think they (the scientists) should be charged either, because they are being charged with remaining silent and not correcting their fellow member. But that does not mean they were right.

No Bells, that's not what I am saying. THIS:

Is what I am saying.

Your opinion, I disagree.

You can beg all you want.

This is neither what I have said, nor what I have suggested.

No Bells, that is not what I am doing in any way shape or form. The most I have said is that the statement should have been interpreted as business as usual, and that may have been the intent of the statement. Remember my comparison with Armstrong's gaff? There is only one words difference between "There is no risk" and "There is no elevated risk". just like there is only one word difference between "One small step for man" and "One small step for a man" but in both cases, the missing words completely changes the meaning of the sentence.

This is the most the I'm implying - that some scientists who may have been there on the day, did not at the time hear what was actually said, but what they were expecting hear. It's not different to the thing with "Once upon a a time" or any one of dozens of other examples.

Now you're being absurd, Bells.

In amongst all of this moralizing is the implicit assumption that if the spokesman had said "There is no elevated risk" rather than "There is no risk", that people would have reacted any differently.

Would you react differently, Bells, if someone told you that there was no more risk of something happening than was normally there?

 

Neither have I, my comments are based on what's been reported - comemnts like "We're not suing them for failing to predict the quake, we're suing them for failing to predict the risk of the quake" is kind of like saying "We're not suing them for growing capsicums, we're suing them for growing bell peppers".

I disagree, I think it is relevant to the merit of the indictment.

Right, but what I'm saying is don't think the indictment is reasonable.

Whether or not that's the intention, I don't see that as where this is going.

Again, I disagree, I see a manslaughter trial as a witch-hunt, and as one person I know elsewhere has suggested, it smacks of a political stunt to distract Italians from the world of shit their economy is in at the moment.

Bells has commented on this - there were a number of seismologists who questioned the assertions after they were made. Given that there were only six days between the conference and the quake, I'm not sure of the exact timeline, so to speak.

No idea - but the way the media is reporting it there were none.

I'm not in the habit of making stuff up, although I have from time to time gotten the wrong end of the stick, or simply been mistaken in my recollection.

Most of what I've had to say, I've said on the basis of my experience working for the government (environmental law enforcement, if you're wondering), on the basis of my experiences trying to convince politicians of anything, dealing with scientists within my organization, and seeing some of the... Confused (I'll be polite) reporting that's gone on in the wake of the Feb 22nd aftershock in Christchurch. I've also seen, first hand, what happens when well meaning people, , be it the press, or people I would otherwise regard as being my peers, leave out one or two words that completely change the meaning of a statement.

I keep coming back to this statement, among other things:

The statement, as it was read, it would seem, is not the statement that was agreed upon by the committee. So if the statement read by an individual was not the statement agreed upon by the committee, where, precisely does that leave us?

 

Consider statements like this, from the BBC article in the OP:

We're not prosecuting them for failing to predict the earthquake.
We're not prosecuting them for selling capsicums.

We're prosecuting them because we don't think they weighed up all the risks.
But what was the risk that they don't think the commission weighed up properly? The likelyhood of a large earthquake.
What's the tool used for weighing up the likelyhood of a large earthquake?
An earthquke forecast - which is the prediction of the likelyhoods of certain areas experiencing certain ground accelerations or shaking.

In other words - they're being prosecuted for inaccurately assessing the likelyhood of a large earthquake, but not for failing to predict the earthquake.
We're prosecuting them for selling bell peppers.

Again, I disagree. It's like living in Los Angeles and not expecting to experience a moderate earthquake.

And maybe you're right. I hope I am, I hope I'm wrong :shrug:. This is one of those occasions that I actually look forwards to be proven wrong. I've even gone as far as outlining reasons why I might be predisposed towards reacting in the manner I have, and certainly it isn't the first time I've been vocal on this forum about defending the science and scientists, and condeming the way their work has been used by politicians, lawyers, and bean counters.

However, I have concerns because of the potential consequences that I can see.

No, there is no question. If they had of said that there was going to be an earthquake, people would have died anyway.

Consider the eruption of Mt St Helens, or, for that matter, the one success story in earthquake prediction - the Haicheng Earthquake in 1975, that was successfully predicted, and still 1,328 people were killed.

No, see above.

Based on what has been said in public, I can infer a set of reasonable circumstances that fits the (available) facts, some of which I have outlined in previous posts.

In New Zealand, we have the Coroners Inquest to determine liabilities and if criminal charges are appropriate.

In fact, I believe we have two going on at the moment, one related to the Feb 22nd aftershock in Christchurch, and one related to the Pike River coal mine explosion.

Given that it seems to be a feature of European Common Law, I would expect Italy to have something similar. Where's the problem in letting them determine whether or not there is a case to be answered, rather than pursuing civil action?

Hence, unreasonable.