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New Scientist defends Italy against Earthquake FUD | 555 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
New Scientist defends Italy against Earthquake FUD
Authored by: PJ on Saturday, October 27 2012 @ 07:48 AM EDT
Then prosecute the non scientist, if he's the
one responsible for garbling the message. And
frankly, that's stupid too. People are human,
and nobody can know for certain if there will or
will not be an earthquake on a certain day.

And prosecute the people who didn't investigate
for themselves and figure out whether it was
wise to listen to a non scientist. I know. That's
stupid too.

Now, if there was evidence of deliberate lying,
because the government wanted to avoid
panic and whatever, that's a different story. I
mean, to me the government advice in place to give
to the NE in the case of a nuclear attack in NYC
is absolutely culpable. They say to stay where
you are, because they know there is no escape,
when there are so many people tightly packed into
such a small area, and if they all try to leave
at once, not only will they not make it due to
congestion, but then the bombing will spread
to a larger area.

Should we sue them? Or should people living
there think about that report and make their
own plan, whether moving away now or forming
a plan of escape while others are staying put
because the guy on the TV said it's safe?

The bottom line is, it's like prosecuting
the weather man because
he said it wouldn't rain and it did. You
might listen to the weather report, but if
it's critical that you not get wet, you
do need to figure out your own contingencies.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

What New Scientist actually said
Authored by: ailuromancy on Saturday, October 27 2012 @ 09:05 AM EDT
The prosecution made it crystal clear all along that their case was about poor risk communication; it was built on an accusation of giving out "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information".
the seismologists got the science right, but left the job of public communication to a civil protection official with no specialist knowledge of seismology. His statement to the press was, to put it mildly, a grossly inaccurate reflection of the situation: "The scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is an ongoing discharge of energy. The situation looks favourable." At this point, the seismologists should have stepped in. But they did not, and the message stuck.

The civil protection engineer's statement does not contradict itself, but the prosecution said "contradictory". Clearly someone stood up and said the opposite. When faced with contradictory we at Groklaw look for the source material: Here it is. L'Aquila is roughly in the middle of the map (published in 2006), in the top part of the purple area.

This cannot continue. Scientists valued for their expertise should speak for themselves rather than letting others speak for them. Lives are at stake.

One scientist working alone can speak for himself. A scientist who is part of a team should point at a report that has been agreed upon by the team. If a bunch of scientists each talk individually, the press will take one short sound bite from each and the results will be "inexact, incomplete and contradictory", which is apparently a crime in Italy.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

New Scientist defends Italy against Earthquake FUD
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, October 27 2012 @ 09:07 AM EDT
The article says the prosecution 'was built on an accusation of giving out "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information".'

Like failing to give an exact and complete prediction of when an earthquake would happen?
So in what way do you think the English press reports are incorrect?

These guys are researchers trying to gain a better understanding of earthquakes, at least in part because they want to save lives in the future. Well, if they want to continue trying to save lives that way once they are released from jail, I guess they had better do it in some other country. And maybe join all the other ex-Italian researchers into subjects that could possibly help save lives one day.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

New Scientist defends Italy against Earthquake FUD
Authored by: yacc on Thursday, November 01 2012 @ 08:32 AM EDT
Because fact checking is hard work. Especially if these
dorks don't speak American. You might need to use Google
Translate, engage your brain, potentially try to locate an
Italian speaking buddy to make sense of it.

Considering that many "journalists" nowadays don't even
check English-language data/sources for plausibility, that's
not really anything to wonder about, is it? (E.g. I
personally liked most in the last week or so the "Spec-only"
comparisons of the 7" tablets, where the iPad mini had the
advantage of the best screen, which was slightly contrary to
the specs table just on top of that paragraph.)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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