On Trial For Manslaughter For Failing to Predict Earthquake

I'm asserting the same thing that the seismologists are asserting - that the forecast is a prediction.
I'm asserting that in the context of the current state of the science, that prosecuting them for failing to correctly anticipate the risk is the same thing as failing to predict the earthquake, in that the prediction is, in this case "There is a high chance of an earthquake on this fault over the next X days."

Just the same way that a weather forecast is a prediction.

The prediction was made in 1998 that the area was at high risk for a large event.
The prediction was made in 2005 that any large event would cause an exaggerated amount of damage because of the soil under the city.

Those predictions went unheeded by policy makers, and were fulfilled in April 2009.

 

Incidentally, one thing I have managed to ascertain is that it was a Journalist who made the "go home and have a glass of wine" comment, and the director of civil defense that agreed with it.

According to the source I saw, essentially what happened was that a Journalist asked "So what you're saying then is that we should all go home and have a glass of wine" and the director of Italian Civil Defense said "Yes."

 

I'm also going to point out that although modeling done after the event shows that there was an increase in risk of a large event in the hours before the event, they did not neccessarily have this information on March 31.

To whit.

One of the things that I have come across, that I no longer have a link to (because I kicked the plug for my work station which is slightly dodgy and lost it) is the results of an a prosteriori analysis. The results suggest that there is only a very weak foreshock signal in the majority of the data - most of the 'three months of fore shocks' that people talk about. It's only in the ten days before the main shock that a strong signal emerges, however, even if they were using the most up to date information available for modelling, they would have had two or three days of this information available to them, which isn't neccessarily enough to attribute any significance to the data.

 

There is, I suppose, an element of that to it all.

 

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Laugh all you want, Pete.

But it's not just my interpretation - or are you ignoring that? Remember? I provided a quote from a seismologist - specifically, one of the accused seismologists, saying that it was contradictory.

Predicting the risk of the earthquake is predicting the earthquake. That is the state of earthquake prediction today, no ifs, ands, buts or maybes. To claim that they're not being prosecuted for predicting the earthquake, and then turn around and say that they're being prosecuted for not correctly predicting the risk of the earthquake is contradictory.

Addendum:
Meanwhile, you're serving to illustrate the rest of my point - that being that the reasons why they're the same thing is not neccessarily intuitive to someone from outside the field.

 

This article is very indepth into what happened and yes, Trippy, I think you should read it.


One of the main issues is that they failed to actually do their job. Not in predicting whether there would be or not be an earthquake. But by failing to even educate the public about what they should do in the event of an earthquake and then by also dismissing and almost ridiculing the threat of a possible earthquake in the region.

It is a fairly lengthy read, but well worth it to be honest. Here is a portion of it:

The now-famous commission meeting convened on the evening of 31 March in a local government office in L'Aquila. Boschi, who had travelled by car to the city with two other scientists, later called the circumstances "completely out of the ordinary". Commission sessions are usually closed, so Boschi was surprised to see nearly a dozen local government officials and other non-scientists attending the brief, one-hour meeting, in which the six scientists assessed the swarms of tremors that had rattled the local population. When asked during the meeting if the current seismic swarm could be a precursor to a major quake like the one that levelled L'Aquila in 1703, Boschi said, according to the meeting minutes: "It is unlikely that an earthquake like the one in 1703 could occur in the short term, but the possibility cannot be totally excluded." The scientific message conveyed at the meeting was anything but reassuring, according to Selvaggi. "If you live in L'Aquila, even if there's no swarm," he says, "you can never say, 'No problem.' You can never say that in a high-risk region." But there was minimal discussion of the vulnerability of local buildings, say prosecutors, or of what specific advice should be given to residents about what to do in the event of a major quake. Boschi himself, in a 2009 letter to civil-protection officials published in the Italian weekly news magazine L'Espresso, said: "actions to be undertaken were not even minimally discussed".

Many people in L'Aquila now view the meeting as essentially a public-relations event held to discredit the idea of reliable earthquake prediction (and, by implication, Giuliani) and thereby reassure local residents. Christian Del Pinto, a seismologist with the civil-protection department for the neighbouring region of Molise, sat in on part of the meeting and later told prosecutors in L'Aquila that the commission proceedings struck him as a "grotesque pantomine". Even Boschi now says that "the point of the meeting was to calm the population. We [scientists] didn't understand that until later on."

What happened outside the meeting room may haunt the scientists, and perhaps the world of risk assessment, for many years. Two members of the commission, Barberi and De Bernardinis, along with mayor Cialente and an official from Abruzzo's civil-protection department, held a press conference to discuss the findings of the meeting. In press interviews before and after the meeting that were broadcast on Italian television, immortalized on YouTube and form detailed parts of the prosecution case, De Bernardinis said that the seismic situation in L'Aquila was "certainly normal" and posed "no danger", adding that "the scientific community continues to assure me that, to the contrary, it's a favourable situation because of the continuous discharge of energy". When prompted by a journalist who said, "So we should have a nice glass of wine," De Bernardinis replied "Absolutely", and urged locals to have a glass of Montepulciano.

The suggestion that repeated tremors were favourable because they 'unload', or discharge, seismic stress and reduce the probability of a major quake seems to be scientifically incorrect. Two of the committee members — Selvaggi and Eva — later told prosecutors that they "strongly dissented" from such an assertion, and Jordan later characterized it as "not a correct view of things". (De Bernardinis declined a request for an interview through his lawyer, Dinacci, who insisted that De Bernardinis's public comments reflected only what the commission scientists had told him. There is no mention of the discharge idea in the official minutes, Picuti says, and several of the indicted scientists point out that De Bernardinis made these remarks before the actual meeting.)

That message, whatever its source, seems to have resonated deeply with the local population. "You could almost hear a sigh of relief go through the town," says Simona Giannangeli, a lawyer who represents some of the families of the eight University of L'Aquila students who died when a dormitory collapsed. "It was repeated almost like a mantra: the more tremors, the less danger." "That phrase," in the opinion of one L'Aquila resident, "was deadly for a lot of people here."

The press conference and interviews, prosecutors argue, carried special weight because they were the only public comments to emerge immediately after the meeting. The commission did not issue its usual formal statement, and the minutes of the meeting were not even prepared, says Boschi, until after the earthquake had occurred. Moreover, it did not issue any specific recommendations for community preparedness, according to Picuti, thereby failing in its legal obligation "to avoid death, injury and damage, or at least to minimize them".

Picuti argues that the fragility of local housing should have been a central component in the commission's risk assessment. "This isn't Tokyo, where the buildings are anti-seismic," he says. "This is a medieval city, and that raises the risk." In 1999, Barberi himself had compiled a massive census of every seismically vulnerable public building in southern Italy; the survey, according to the prosecution brief, indicated that more than 550 masonry buildings in L'Aquila were at medium–high risk of collapsing in the event of a major earthquake.

The failure to remind residents of earthquake preparedness procedures in the face of such risks is one of the reasons that John Mutter, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, declined to sign the open letter circulated to support the Italian scientists. Mutter says that in his opinion, "these guys shouldn't go to jail, but they should be fined or censured because they should have said something other than what they said. To say 'don't worry' — that sort of thing just isn't helpful. You need to remind people of their earthquake drills: if they feel the house moving, get out of the building if you can, or get under a table or a door frame if you can't. Do all the things that we know save lives."

As part of the prosecution's case, Picuti argues in his brief that local residents made fateful decisions on the night of the earthquake on the basis of statements made by public officials outside the meeting. Maurizio Cora, a lawyer who lived not far from Vittorini, told prosecutors that after the 30 March shock, he and his family retreated to the grounds of L'Aquila's sixteenth-century castle; after the 11 p.m. foreshock on 5 April, he said his family "rationally" discussed the situation and, recalling the reassurances of government officials that the tremors would not exceed those already experienced, decided to remain at home, "changing our usual habit of leaving the house when we felt a shock". Cora's wife and two daughters died when their house collapsed.

"That night, all the old people in L'Aquila, after the first shock, went outside and stayed outside for the rest of the night," Vittorini says. "Those of us who are used to using the Internet, television, science — we stayed inside."

[Source]
​

As I have said, I don't think they should go to jail, but they should face some sanctions for failing to do what they are paid to do (ie. educate the public about what to do in the event of an earthquake and also ensure that the local Government is up to scratch with building codes, etc).

I think those who should be jailed are the politicians who failed to ensure that buildings were up to building codes, they were not. But that committee should at least be fined or sanctioned for, what one member commented:

Boschi himself, in a 2009 letter to civil-protection officials published in the Italian weekly news magazine L'Espresso, said: "actions to be undertaken were not even minimally discussed".​

They did not discuss the risk of a larger quake in the region or what to do or how to educate the public or how to ensure building safety. That was their job. Instead, they came out and reassured the public that a) there would be no big quake and b) that the small quakes were good as it meant it reduced the chances of a bigger quake. The result of their comments and advice meant that instead of leaving their homes when it struck, people stayed inside thinking the shocks were good as it reduced the chances of a larger quake. It is inconceivable to me that seismologists and scientists could give such advice. Yet they did and those who were there and did not speak at the conference did not correct their "representative" of his misinformation.

They admit themselves that they failed to assess or even discuss what actions should be taken in the event of an earthquake.

It needs to be said, the public trusted them. We can dispute whether they heard the comments or not. At the end of the day, the public listened to them and took their advice. To remind you Trippy, 309 people died, because they thought that kind of false reassurance from that committee. This is the result of that trust..

Vittorini, a 48-year-old surgeon who has lived in L'Aquila all his life, will never forgive himself for breaking with that tradition on the night of 5 April 2009. After hundreds of low-level tremors over several months, L'Aquila shook with a strong, magnitude-3.9 tremor shortly before 11 p.m. on that Palm Sunday evening. Vittorini debated with his wife Claudia and his terrified nine-year-old daughter Fabrizia whether to spend the rest of the night outside. Swayed by what he describes as "anaesthetizing" public assurances by government officials that there was no imminent danger, and recalling scientific statements claiming that each shock diminished the potential for a major earthquake, he persuaded his family to remain in their apartment on Via Luigi Sturzo. All three of them were huddled together in the master bed when, at 3:32 a.m. on 6 April, a devastating magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck the city.

"It was like being in a blender," Vittorini recalls. "It wasn't a roar, it was a gigantic noise. And then darkness." The apartment building, a structure of reinforced concrete constructed in 1962, instantly collapsed, and their third-floor apartment ended up in a jumble of wreckage several feet off the ground. Seven people were killed in the collapse of the building, including Vittorini's wife and daughter; he was pulled from the rubble, injured but alive, six hours later.​

I understand what you are saying Trippy. But you are applying that logic from a standpoint based on and supported by an education in geology. What the public were told by that committee (and yes, a representative of a committee was speaking on behalf of said committee) that the quakes were good and to not worry. That the quakes reduced the chance of a bigger earthquake. The scientists on that committee came out and disputed it after the earthquake. But some of those comments were made before the meeting when the "representative" arrived in the same car as some of those scientists. It is not inconceivable that the public who attended the meeting and conference after their official meeting would assume it had been discussed. It is not for them, at that time, to know that the representative may have been pulling something out of his anal orifice. They would have had no knowledge of that.

What the scientists and the rest of the committee should have done was to discuss the risks involved and educate the public about what to do in the event of a large earthquake. Review the list of buildings they had on hand that posed a risk if there was a large quake. They did none of that. Instead, as one seismologists from the neighbouring region who was there for a portion of it in the audience commented that it was like a "pantomine", because they were so intent on pacifying the public that there was no risk. Boschi even admits that the meeting was to calm the population when the public assumed it would have educated them about the risks involved.. since that is what the committee is supposed to do.

These people were told by the committee that the shocks they were getting would not get stronger than what they already had. The tragedy is that the public listened to them and over 300 died as a result.

 

Their job which was what again?

Oh yeah - to predict the likelyhood of a large quake. The difference here is that you and Pete take predicting an earthquake to mean "An earthquake of this magnitude will occur in this place at this time" but which I, and as far as I am aware, every seismologist take to mean the same thing.

We've been over this, haven't we Bells?

I mean this, from your quoted portion alone:

And this, Bells:

And this part, Bells, is incredibly important:

Actually, it's sometimes correct, there's even a phenomenom could aseismic creep, which is a good thing to have happen.

Pay attention to this part, Bells:

This reflects a lack of general education amongst the population, a problem with central government, not the committee.

It did not issue any special instructions, because it did not assess the risk as being substantially above background levels, indeed, according to your own sources (and peer reviewed literature poublished before any charges were bought AFAIK) at the tiome of the meeting that was what the available information suggested.

Something that should have been dealt with, by central government, especially after the prediction in 1998 that the area was at high risk of another large event, and especially especially after 2005 when it was predicted that the soil structure under L'aquilla would amplify the shaking.

Yes, but the statement was made by a committee member, was not agreed upon by the committee - as evidenced by its absence from the minutes, and was contrary to what had actually been discussed at the committee, which could best be represented by "Business as usual", and may have been made before the committee meeting was actually held.

This, right here, is the problem with this whole farce:

The scientists, whom are facing charges, explicitly stated that the risk of a large earthquake could not be discounted. They did their job, and they did their job correctly.

What was it that was said earlier Bells?

Local government officials, and other non-scientists - people with agendas, and people who do not like spending money unless they absolutely have to. I've been in closed meetings, and I've been in open meetings, and my experience is generally that closed meetings go smoother than open meetings.

They assessed the risk of a large earthquake as not being elevated. There was, as far as they knew, no unusual risk, therefore what unusual measures, precisely, do you think they should have reccomended? The seismologists did their job, and I imagine they got rapidly frustrated by the meeting getting sidetracked by off topic discussion, and people that weren't supposed to be there.

No, Bells, the Scientists did not give that advice, but thankyou for illustrating why I think this is a bad idea. The advice was given by an individual, and the advice that individual gave was not sanctioned or agreed upon by the committee, and was contrary to what was discussed or said at the committee.

No, Bells, 309 people died.

Why do you think I bought up the Christchurch earthquake, Bells?

New Zealand has the building codes in place, People were being warned that there was a 25% chance of a Magnitude 6+ after shock, people had been experiencing hundreds of after shocks each day, people knew exatly what to do, and still 189 people died.

Do you know why people died? Not because they didn't know what to do, not because they hadn't been warned, none of that. They died because the earthquake, like the L'aquilla one, was a shallow one, and christchurch, like L'aquilla, is built on sediment that amplifies the shaking.

And there in lies the point that has so far laid unaknowledged, and seemingly not understood.

I'm not convinced of that.

NO, Bells. I'm speaking as someone who lives in a seismicaly active area. I'm speaking as someone who has the worlds longest natural straight line running through his back yard. I speak as someone who has a 50% chance of experiencing a M8+ earthquake in the next 50 years - that's a fucking coin toss Bells. I'm speaking as someone who can't get through a week without being reminded to be prepared for an earthquake, or other natural disaster.

No. He spoke as an individual. The statement he made was not one that was agreed upon by the committee.

Precisely.

They did, just not to the extent that you think they should have, remember:

Fancy that, a committee meeting meeting, that included members not of the committee, without technical expertise, and with strong local interests, getting side tracked from the technical issues, onto local issues.

It's unprecedented I tell you! UNPRECENDENTED!!

No. They were told by an individual whom they assumed represented the committee that made counter factual statements before the committe meeting, that were contradicted in the committee meeting.

 

This is for Bells (and Pete, if he's managed to stop laughing yet).

University of Canterbury geological science lecturer Mark Quigley said the ''holy grail'', a way for scientists to predict the specific location, depth, time and magnitude of an earthquake did not exist.

''One could say that the chance of a major earthquake may increase during a seismic swarm, [but] history dictates that more often than not major earthquakes do not follow these events, and [the] probability of delivering a 'false alarm' and causing undue panic would have been quite high,'' he said.

Earthquake statistician David Rhoades said... ...Giving any kind of warning, or advice to the public of what to do in the light of such information, is the proper responsibility of government authorities, and not of their scientific advisors.
Source

Oh, and this one to:
According to the commission's memo issued one week before the big quake the experts concluded that it was "improbable" that there would be a major quake though it added that one could not be excluded.

Commission members also gave largely reassuring interviews to local media after the meeting which "persuaded the victims to stay at home," the indictment said.
Source (emphasis mine)

Which goes to emphasize a point I have made several times that has been either ignored, not understood, or simply disregarded.

The Commission issued the statement that a large quake could not be ruled out.
A member of commission made the statement that there was no risk.

So who didn't do their jobs again Bells? The Commission? Or a member of that commission, making a statement he had not discussed with that commission?

 

And again..

The public were not to know that Trippy. You know, the public who died.

This committee is a Government committee. Their role is to assess the risks and advise the public. As far as the public was aware at the time, the committee told them that there would be no earthquake and each tremor was good as it reduced the risk of a larger earthquake and they were then told to stay at home. The members of the public were not to know that he had pulled it out of his arse. He was a member of that committee, and stated that the scientists had assured him of this.

At no time did any other member of that committee come out and say he was wrong or to correct him. As far as the public were aware, what he said was true and correct and they listened to him. It is this that you are not understanding.

The earthquake did not occur the next day but 6 nights later. The comments made before and after the meeting were plastered in the media, because as was commented, it was highly unusual as they held the meeting in the region and not in Rome. One of the scientists himself commented later on that they did not even discuss the risk of an earthquake in that region and were instead more focused on calming the population (ie. telling them there would be no earthquake). A seismologist who was there found it ridiculous because they weren't doing what they were meant to do and were instead just telling the population not to worry.

You keep saying "the committee did not say that but one member of the committee did".. That one member was acting, as you admitted, as a "representative" of that committee. It was not for the public to know that he was factually incorrect. As far as they were told, that committee had come to that conclusion. That is what they believed. Remember, some of the comments were made before and after the meeting. They did not even discuss the risks or assess what risk there was for that region. In other words, they failed to do their job (which was to assess the risk and advise the public).

Their job was not to predict if there would be a large earthquake. Their job was to assess the risk if a large earthquake occured. What they did (yes, at the time their representative made those comments as their representative) was to tell the public that the small earthquakes were good as they reduced the chance of a large earthquake and that the tremors would not get higher or stronger... They even admit they did not even discuss what risk there was if there was to be an earthquake in the region. Which was what they were brought there to do.

Now, about the conference and the comments that were made outside. Two members of the committee faced the media, along with some of the local politicians. One was the non-scientists who made the comments and the other was Barberi, one of "Italy's most respected geophysicists" of the University of 'Rome Tre'. You are telling me that Barberi had no knowledge that the comments made by the "representative" De Bernardinis were incorrect and not factual at all?

This committee is a Government committee. It is their job to discuss the risks and advise. They admit themselves they did not do that but instead tried to 'pacify' the local public by telling them there was nothing to worry about. From that article:

[But] there was minimal discussion of the vulnerability of local buildings, say prosecutors, or of what specific advice should be given to residents about what to do in the event of a major quake. Boschi himself, in a 2009 letter to civil-protection officials published in the Italian weekly news magazine L'Espresso, said: "actions to be undertaken were not even minimally discussed".​

Now, keep in mind what the meeting was convened for:

The goal, according to a press release from the Department of Civil Protection, was to furnish citizens in the Abruzzo region "with all the information available to the scientific community about the seismic activity of recent weeks". ​

And as one scientists member of the committee commented:

"actions to be undertaken were not even minimally discussed".​

What were they told instead? "Don't worry".. And that each tremor meant a reduced chance of a larger earthquake and that there would be no bigger earthquake.

As "Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and chair of the International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting (ICEF)" states:

"The public expects authoritative, transparently available information," he says, "and we need to say what we know in an explicit way."

In Jordan's view, "It has to be done right, and it was not in L'Aquila." ​

The public who listened remained at home, because they were told that the tremors would not get worse and that each tremor reduced the risk of a big earthquake and the result is that more people died.. Because they stayed inside their homes, many of which were not up to building codes, and that committee had a list of which buildings would not be able to survive a bigger earthquake and they didn't even discuss it. They also failed to do their job and advise the public of what to in the event of a larger earthquake. And that is why they were charged.

 

The committee is a Government Committee. Those scientists were part of that committee, not advisers to one politician.

What part of that do you not quite understand Trippy?

Two members of that committee faced the press, one was a geophysicist and the other was at the time, vice-director of the Department of Civil Protection. Both of whom attended the meeting, since you know, they are hired by the Government to sit on the Committee.

Are you telling me the scientist who faced the media next to his fellow committee member did not know or failed to notice what his fellow member was saying was not discussed and was not correct?

I mean I guess that could be correct if he was stupid.

You keep flapping about the committee and what their "representative" told the media. Remember, one of those "representatives" was also a geophysicist and both of them attended that meeting as committee members..

 

Wait.. So I guess Japan should not worry since they have small tremors all the time.. Oh wait..

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What wasn't their job? Giving correct information to the public and assessing the risks and providing correct and accurate information on such risks to the public? Which is kind of beside the point of the whole committee, isn't it?

I mean the Government is paying these scientists to assess the risk to the public and regions and instead they just tell people not to worry and go home.. That there will be no earthquake..

One of the scientists faced the media as those comments were made to the media and the public. You are telling me his job was not to provide correct information? You are telling me that the correct information is to tell people in such an active area that there can be no earthquake because there are tremors?

Really?

That's what you are going with?

Wait..

So they should not assess risk but should instead tell people not to worry and go home.. One of the scientists charged had a list of the properties that were not up to code as he had devised the list himself.

In 1999, Barberi himself had compiled a massive census of every seismically vulnerable public building in southern Italy; the survey, according to the prosecution brief, indicated that more than 550 masonry buildings in L'Aquila were at medium–high risk of collapsing in the event of a major earthquake.​

He failed to discuss or even bring it up. He is also the scientist who faced the media as those comments were made.

Because god forbid people are actually warned that their properties may be unsafe or not up to code...

 

Yes Bells, I get it, believe me, you've done that angle to death. I'm not having trouble understanding anything you're saying, but in saying it you're missing a crucial point.

The Committee stated, in a memo, that a major earthquake could not be exlcluded.
De Bernardini was speaking, without consulting the committee, but presumed to be speaking on behalf of the committee by the press and the public in general, gave out wrong advice.

Do you understand why that distinction is so important to understand?

Do you understand how heirachy works within government departments? Or within Government committees? There's some important things that seem to be missing from your side of the conversation, ranging from these sorts of things to a basic understanding of Homo sapiens.

Two members faced the press, but only one of them spoke, Bells.

Now you're being stupid, Bells.

I mean come on take a moment to think about it.

You're forcing me to rehash points that I have made several times before, and that you have thus far ignored or simply not understood. Do you have any concept of how humans communicate, for example? Because you're certainly not acting like it, and frankly it's beginning to irritate me.

The first, and most important question is this - did the geophysicist have the authority to address the media? My money on this answer is no. I mean, after all, it's a government committee, who's going to have that authority, a scientist, or a government offical?

If the Geophysicist had given De Bernardini the advice that "A large quake was unlikely, but could not be excluded" - the advice that was contained within the memo, would he have been expecting De Bernardini to then turn around and say "There will be no large quake"? The answer to this one is pretty obvious isn't it? Of course not. And what would a persons reaction to that? Surprise, shock, and disbelief. What generally happens when people are surprised and shocked in this way? Generally brain freeze. Presumably you're familiar with phrases such as 'Words fail me' right? They're not just cliches. It's a common tactic in debating, do something to catch your opponent off guard by shocking them or surprising them to try and halt their presentation and loose them points.

Then we come back to a point that I have made, repeatedly, that you have ignored repeatedly (or am I to understand that by remaining silent you agree with and accept the poinnt). I've mentioned several times now Neil Amrstrongs famous gaff, he was supposed to say "That's one small step for a man" instead he said "That's one small step for man" which completely alters the meaning of the sentence. You somewhat flippantly dimissed this with some comment about a slip of the tongue, I've made, a couple of times the comment, the comment about the "Once upon a a time" thing. Well, here's the thing about that. >99% of the population, when asked to read it out loud will read it as "Once upon a time" completely missing the 'a' most of them, when you say to them "That's not what that says" will argue with you and insist that they're right until you point out to them the existence of the second 'a'.

Why do I think that's important? The reason it's important in relation to this farce, and why it is something that I am acutely aware of is because it relates back to a hearing problem I have - Central Auditory Nerve Processing Deficency. The thing is, our brain tells our ear what to hear as much as our ear tells our brain what it's hearing. This is proven fact, peer reviewed, done and dusted. What that means is that if you put 100 geologists in a room, especially a noisey one, add some stress to that, in a situation where they're expecting you to say "There is no elevated risk" or "There is no great risk" and you say instead "There is no risk" the majority of them won't pick up on it until you either point it out to them, or they start discussing it amongst themselves. It's not because they're stupid, as you have asserted, it's because they're humans, and prone to the same foibles as every other human being on the planet.

Now, add to that the context that I also keep flapping my gums about. The fact that previously Italian seismologists have had legal action taken against them, and the fact that one of the reasons why they were there was to counter the fear that was being generated by Giuliani's predictions or a major earthquake (he was out by something like 50 miles and a week), then how is it in anyway unreasonable for a scientist to do anything other than follow the proper channels, which they did (remember, the memo which contradicted De Bernardinis claims. Perhaps if the earthquake had happened a few days later, the out come would have been different.

I can assure you, the only flapping is yours, and I would really appreciate it if you could leave the whole condescending attitude that comes across from your posts out of the conversation. If you can't hold a rational discussion on an emotive topic, you're wasting my time.