Like failing to give an exact and complete prediction of when an earthquake
would happen?
This is exactly the FUD that I was talking about in the original
article. In almost every article I have seen.
To quote the New
Scientist
That is the rallying cry, but failure to predict the
quake is not, in fact, what the seven men have been convicted of (see
"Seismologists found guilty of manslaughter").
Please read
through the original sources, try to track back as far as possible. It seems
very likely that the scientists deliberately put forward a misinformed
non-scientist
They have been convicted of falsely reassuring the
residents of the town of L'Aquila that a major earthquake was not going to
happen.
In other words; they didn't know whether an earthquake
would happen, however they stated that they knew it would not happen. The did
this by sending up an official to whom they gave misinformation, who then pushed
that information forward and then failing to correct that misinformation.
The statement
inexact, incomplete and contradictory
information
is nothing to do with the prediction or not of the
earthquake.
- Inexact: - they claimed there was no raised risk of an
earthquake when in fact they knew that the minor tremors in the previous days
raised the risk 100 fold; still unlikely, but a noticeable
increase
- Incomplete: - the buildings in the area were not according to
Italian building codes, over 500 of them were a known risk; they did not mention
this even though it was in their report
- contradictory: - individual
scientists when asked gave one set of answers; when asked as a group through
their elected representative they gave a completely different answers. They
new about these contradictions and failed to correct the situation.
Lets be clear; these may well be innocent men. What we read in the
press are messages from the prosecution, and their defence so we cannot trust
either directly. However, what they are accused of; deliberately misleading the
public in a way which endangered them; is a crime and if they actually did it
they should be punished.
The FUD is in claiming that they were convicted
for failing to predict an earthquake when that is clearly not true. They were
convicted of misleading the public when they were responsible to
protect them. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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