Italian experts convicted of manslaughter over deadly 2009 quake

L'AQUILA, Italy -- Defying assertions that earthquakes cannot be predicted, an Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter Monday for failing to adequately warn residents before a temblor struck central Italy in 2009 and killed more than 300 people.

The court in L'Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years each in prison. All are members of the national Great Risks Commission, and several are prominent scientists or geological and disaster experts.

One has to wonder why the Judiciary in Italy thinks that scientists are magicians or palm readers. Perhaps we should convict meteorologists for missing the exact temperature each day as well.[/url]

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Perhaps we should convict meteorologists for missing the exact temperature each day as well.

Add the global warming catastrophe crew to the list and it sounds like a plan.

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The Italians have a long tradition of persecuting scientists, probably predating Galileo.

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So... living in Italy and in a known earthquake zone would cause one to think, "hmmm... with all this modern technology maybe I should somehow earthquake proof my home....Naahhhh why bother Earthquakes only happen once in a while and only last a few seconds." Much like the story of fixing a leaky roof that only leaks on rainy days. It's not a problem until its a problem.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I think they should now prosecute & jail Berlusconi

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I would of thought such a thing could only happen in the US...


...just sayin'

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#resist

I would of thought such a thing could only happen in the US...


...just sayin'

I say we vote to banish the phrase "just sayin'" from these fora. Also, henceforth, "my bad" shall return to "my faux pas" so we can sound classy again,

still why would anyone want to have a position that attempts to negate damage and prevent harm to others be tried and even convicted on a flimsy premise.

I'll ask again. Isn't the persons responsibility to make ones own home safe. To make it as earthquake proof as possible. What happened to personal responsibility

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

No Dave, in the US they would not have been convicted for not predicting an earthquake, they'd have been convicted for being scientists. The time has come for us to elect more Luddites.

I would of thought such a thing could only happen in the US...


...just sayin'

still why would anyone want to have a position that attempts to negate damage and prevent harm to others be tried and even convicted on a flimsy premise.

I'll ask again. Isn't the persons responsibility to make ones own home safe. To make it as earthquake proof as possible. What happened to personal responsibility

I think we have a case of reverse-Romneyism?

Italy disaster head Luciano Maiani quits over L'Aquila

The head of Italy's disaster body, Luciano Maiani, has resigned in protest at prison sentences passed on seven colleagues over the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila.

"While the seven men involved are appealing against their convictions - and remain free while they do so - all are facing the prospect of being barred from ever holding public office again."

So if they lose their appeals & end up serving their sentence, it'll set a precedent for which civil servants & politicians should be very wary of!

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Unbelievable scapegoating... Is there some corruption behind such a crazy conviction?...


Then again, certain parts of various industries and politics deliberately ignore science when inconvenient for their short term profits... Meanwhile, the rest of the world be damned...


All on our only world,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Unbelievable scapegoating... Is there some corruption behind such a crazy conviction?...


Then again, certain parts of various industries and politics deliberately ignore science when inconvenient for their short term profits... Meanwhile, the rest of the world be damned...


All on our only world,
Martin

The Italian legal system seems to be corrupt, look at the Amanda Knox murder case.

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I dont recall a seismologist ever saying that they can predict, with any precision, an earthquake. They do know how frequent certain faults move and can say with a certain about of accuracy(within years or decades) a quake may occur.

On this same line of thought. What about the Indonesian quake that took out 250k people?

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Earthquakes is one of several natural events which is being subject to scientific scrutiny which generally are not predictable in advance.

One of the reasons for this being such may be as follows.

Science are dealing with two main fields where the specific subject areas withing each such field either are exact sciences, or inexact sciences. The reason for possible inexactness may be because of either lack of relevant numbers, or the opposite, namely too many numbers (or factors) to deal with.

Mathematics is assumed to be an exact science. But 0.3333... + 0.3333... + 0.3333 is supposed to not be 1 (or 1.000....). Here floating point calculations or operations are needed.

When dealing with millions of such numbers (operations or instructions when it comes to computerized processing), such inexactness ultimately becomes visible when such calculations are being performed. In the end you are getting a wrong result or a result which is deemed undesirable or incorrect.