I thought this was the Onion, but alas, no. Italy’s head seismologist and five other politicians (and a government official) are actually being criminally charged because they failed to predict a deadly earthquake. From the Fox News story:
Italian government officials have accused the country’s top seismologist of manslaughter, after failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009, a massive devastating earthquake that killed 308 people. A shocked spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) likened the accusations to a witch hunt. “It has a medieval flavor to it — like witches are being put on trial,” the stunned spokesman told FoxNews.com. Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), will face trial along with six other scientists and technicians, after failing to predict the future and the impending disaster…
Judge Giuseppe Romano Gargarella said that the seven defendants had supplied “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information,” in a press conference following a meeting held by the committee 6 days before the quake, reported the Italian daily Corriere della Sera In doing so, they “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public,” the judge said.
UPI’s coverage adds this wrinkle:
The seven were on a committee gauging the risk associated with recent increases in seismic activity in the area, and a week before the quake, some members of the group publicly declared there was no danger, an article in Nature magazine reported. In the aftermath of the quake, in which 309 people died, many residents claimed the public announcement was the reason they did not take precautionary measures in advance of the magnitude-6.3 quake. As a consequence, the public prosecutor of L’Aquila brought manslaughter charges, saying the committee’s risk assessment resulted in “incomplete, imprecise and contradictory public information.”
Everyone should object loudly to this unjust and reprehensible scapegoating of scientists for a natural disaster. But this shows us, if nothing else, that today anything that can be imagined can happen in our hyper-emotion-driven world. And even things that can’t: Who could have ever even imagined this?
But this isn’t a “Galileo moment,” as the US scientist quoted in the Fox News story implied. Indeed, quite the opposite. Why might the judge, prosecutors, and injured people blame scientists for not warning them about an earthquake, which they clearly didn’t see coming? Scientism’s success in capturing the public’s imagination.
Think about the pervasive role of scientism in modern political and scientific advocacy. Are we not told that science has the answers to everything, not just the explaining of physical or natural phenomena, but to deciding right values, philosophy, and issues of right versus wrong? Indeed, think about how often we hear the equivalent of, “The scientists said it, I believe it, that settles it,” coming out of the mouths of some of our most famous public intellectuals (and non intellectuals), media personalities, and politicians? Apparently the Italians believed the hype and felt criminally betrayed when reality bit.
These charges are very dangerous to the scientific enterprise–not to mention ruinous of the lives of those being prosecuted and persecuted. The chilling effect on scientists will be horrendous. There needs to be an international outcry in the hope of getting the charges dropped and all former positions restored.
But before the purveyors of scientism cluck-cluck too loudly, they should look in a mirror. They are harming the very enterprise for which they claim to advocate. I think this ridiculous prosecution is a direct consequence.
May 27th, 2011 | 9:02 pm
The solution is not to punish scientists for being wrong (or for not being right).
The correct solution is to adopt a more realistic attitude toward science – understanding that it cannot produce anything but “facts” – not “truth”, not “salvation”, no miracles here, just individual facts that can be very useful, but still must be interpreted and strung together logically to form conclusions.
The legitimate role of scientist as producer of facts has become confused with a role whereby the scientist can magically take these facts and produce magic – from divination to miracle cures to penetrating the very mysteries of life.
But, then, I guess that is what people mean when they complain about ‘scientism’…..
HistoryWriter Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 5:31 am
@Blake,
“[S]cannot produce anything but ‘facts’ – not ‘truth’ …”
Gee, I’ve never seen an “untrue fact.” Maybe you can give an example. Quid est veritas?
HW
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Troll.
David Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 9:54 am
@Blake, not correct
Science also allows for predictions to be made. Using physics we can predict where and when a satellite will be in space, using chemistry we can predict the outcome of a chemical reaction, using biology we can predict what a gene will code for, etc, etc.
This is not magic or religious mythology. It’s reality.
Blake Reply:
May 29th, 2011 at 7:39 am
@David,
Science also allows for predictions to be made. Using physics we can predict where and when a satellite will be in space, using chemistry we can predict the outcome of a chemical reaction, using biology we can predict what a gene will code for, etc, etc.
If you make predictions, then you have an obligation to be correct, and you are responsible for any harm done by errors.
You can’t have it both ways. Which way do you want it? The days when you could have all that lovely authority and influence and telling people what to do and playing games with their lives – without any of that nasty responsibility that goes with it – are drawing to a close.
May 27th, 2011 | 9:22 pm
[...] NewsSeismologists face manslaughter charges for not predicting quakeCNETUPI.com -First Things (blog) -Neon Tommyall 324 news [...]
May 27th, 2011 | 10:28 pm
First of all these individuals are being (unjustly) prosecuted not because they failed to predict the earthquake but because they are accused of falsely reassuring the public.
Residents had been alarmed by the increasing seismic activity in the area and by the fact that a certain Giampaolo Giuliani (a researcher at the Laboratori dell’Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare at Gran Sasso) had “been driving around the town in a van with loudspeakers telling people to evacuate their homes”. A scientific committee convened to assess the risk of a major seismic event concluded that “a major earthquake in the area is unlikely” but then crucially added that such a catastrophe could not be ruled out. A government official then announced at a press conference, “the scientists tell us there is no danger”, clearly misrepresenting the committee’s findings. Giuliani was labelled a hysterical alarmist and “an imbecile who enjoys spreading false news”.
I hardly think we can blame “scientism” for this. The president of the local victim’s association himself admitted: “We all know that the earthquake could not be predicted, and that evacuation was not an option. All we wanted was clearer information on risks in order to make our choices.”
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Same thing. False assurances that there was no earthquake coming. Scientism is the problem in a wide array of areas. I think that it underlies this ridiculous prosecution, that is, it presumes (even if subliminally) that science could have stopped the deaths and injuries. Of course, that isn’t the statutory offense. But it is an emotional basis for the scapegoating, at least that’s how I see it.
HistoryWriter Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 5:27 am
@Wesley J. Smith,
“Scientism” is the principle that scientific methods can and should be applied in ALL fields of investigation. I can see some reason in supposing that scientific methods are inapplicable to theology — but to geology?
As for the prosecution of scientists, it seems to have resulted more from their giving false assurances than from reaching false scientific conclusions. Besides, the Italian justice system is noted for being — well, strange.
HW
May 28th, 2011 | 1:31 am
Wes,
I think you may have jumped the gun on this one by relying just on these two reports by Fox and UPI. They both strike me as incomplete, at least the excerpts you cite. I can imagine any number of ways that an American news service could have botched this report about an Italian criminal case, and in this case I think the details, both factual and legal, matter.
The UPI report states that a group of some of the scientists “publicly declared that there was no danger.” If, and it’s a big if, the UPI description is accurate, wouldn’t those scientists have been guilty of a form of scientism themselves? How could they have presumed to say there was “no danger”? At most, they should have been able to say that they found no evidence of any imminent threat of an earthquake. If they did in fact make a statement as definitive as the one attributed to them by the UPI, then they would have been reinforcing a false impression that they could even have arrived at such a certain conclusion. They would have been providing false assurances which could have been at the very least grounds for some kind of professional ethical reprimand.
The first sentence of the Fox report contains the phrase “after failing to predict a natural disaster”. This is Fox’s paraphrase. Nowhere does this report say that the charges themselves are based on an actual failure to predict.
If, and again it’s a big if, the scientists did in fact say “there is no danger”, based on evidence that could never have been so certain, and if, as the UPI article implies, they made that statement on behalf of a committee appointed by the government, then I think there may have been grounds to charge them with a breach of duty (or its Italian equivalent) for making an unsupportable statement. If, in reliance on that statement, the Italian public or public officials let down their guard and failed to take preventative measures which, had they taken them, could have resulted in fewer deaths , then maybe the charge of manslaughter, which does not require intent, may not be too far fetched.
I don’t think you’ve met your own burden of proof as a reporter and analyst in this case. Before you accuse the prosecutors and the judge of scientism, you need to obtain more complete information than you have provided us, both about the precise charges and the surrounding facts. If you engage in a rush to judgement about this case, then you risk undermining your arguments about scientism itself.
May 28th, 2011 | 2:36 am
Wes (and Raven Chukwu),
I just read Raven Chukwu’s comment, along with your reply, which you posted while I was writing my previous statement.
Raven Chukwu’s report, and the report to which he provides a link, provides more nuanced information than yours did and comes much closer to what I suspected was the case. I think the information he provides largely validates your accusations of scientism and scapegoating, but that does not get you off the hook for being pretty sloppy on this one.
Your reply was to Raven Chukwu was inadequate too. In this case, a charge of giving false assurances is not the same thing as a charge of failure to predict. If, as apparently they did not, the scientists themselves had made the statement of “no danger”, they would not have been quite the blameless victims of persecution that you describe in your original post here.
As the author of this blog you have a duty to assess the reliability and completeness of your sources of information. You, especially as a former trial attorney, should have recognized the flaws and the likelihood of incompleteness or inaccuracy of the FOX and UPI reports. Therefore, you should have done more research before writing your piece. I’m not saying you had to search out the original trial documents in Italian, but you needed better evidence than you provided to support your both accusations and your call to arms. If that would have meant waiting a few more hours or one more day before posting your piece, so what?
To put this another way, your original piece did not inspire me to contact the Italian government and tell them to drop the charges. If I do contact them, it will be on the basis of the information that Raven Chukwu provided in his response. That should not be the case.
May 28th, 2011 | 4:22 am
There are several different senses in which the term “scientism” is used (some perjorative and others not) but I assumed we were using the word as you have consistently done in your previous posts:
The term may be legitimately used when writers such as Sam Harris claim that science can answer moral questions; when some justify revenge, adultery, or rape based on their misinterpretation of evolutionary biology; or even when, to pick a recent example, a blogger cites the American Academy of Pediatrics as an authority while debating the ethics of circumcision. It however seems unjustified to invoke “scientism” when an expert’s pronouncements about something within his area of expertise are believed by members of the lay public.
Would it be scientism to believe a volcanologist who assures you that Mount St Helens will not erupt tomorrow? Would it be irrational to seek compensation if, acting on his prediction, you suffer personal injury?
The citizen’s of L’Aquila allege that the seismologists failed at a technical task which was well within their purview. They claim that these scientists, or at least the government official who announced their findings, presented a conclusion for which there was no scientific evidence – and as a result of this failure, the death toll was higher than it might have been otherwise. According to the journal Nature, many of the earthquake’s victims had been planning to leave their homes — but had changed their minds after the committee’s statements.
I agree that the prosecution is unjustified and that there is a degree of “scapegoating” involved but I do not feel that the government official at the centre of this is entirely without blame. He made a scientifically unsupportable statement and lives were (allegedly) lost as a result. (The scientific committee, by contrast, remarked that “because L’Aquila is in a high-risk zone it is impossible to say with certainty that there will be no large earthquake” and further urged that “buildings in the area be monitored urgently, to assess their capacity to sustain a major shock”.)
May 28th, 2011 | 9:06 am
[...] face manslaughterCBS NewsEarthquake statement leads to chargesUPI.comCNET -Neon Tommy -First Things (blog)all 325 news [...]
May 28th, 2011 | 7:04 pm
The wrong questions are being asked here.
I’m not aware of any earthquake predicting model, yet. Perhaps one day we will be able to make this prediction, today we cannot.
I blame scientific illiteracy – Italians thinking scientists can predict earthquakes in the same way that, say, Einstein’s theory predicted the Earth’s rotation would warp space-time (a prediction recently validated by NASA’s Gravity Probe B mission).
So, the real question to ask is, “if we could predict earthquakes, under which circumstances, if any, would these Italian scientists be guilty of negligence?”
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
May 28th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
I don’t think we want people put in that position at all as a matter of public policy, David. Who would ever become a seismologist?
Blake Reply:
May 29th, 2011 at 7:42 am
@David,
I blame scientific illiteracy – Italians thinking scientists can predict earthquakes in the same way that, say, Einstein’s theory predicted the Earth’s rotation would warp space-time (a prediction recently validated by NASA’s Gravity Probe B mission).
Gee, I wonder where people would get the idea that scientists can “predict” things, as if they were experts not only at coming up with raw facts, but at stringing those facts together into interpretations that are capable of minimizing – reducing – risk in the real world?
May 29th, 2011 | 6:32 am
“… media personalities, and politicians”
You already said non-intellectuals. Why repeat yourself?
June 5th, 2011 | 10:16 pm
[...] Click Here [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact