Risk and reward: what if we were all held accountable for the consequences of our truthiness? Our public lies for the public good? This is a fascinating story because it ultimately concerns the risks and uncertainty of scientific forecasting.
The seven - all members of the National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks - were accused of having provided "inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory" information about the danger of the tremors felt ahead of 6 April 2009 quake, Italian media report. (see link for entire story)
Risk and uncertainty always lead to probabilities of events, not certainty. And yet, should scientists and politicians issue calming statements in the face of an eminent disaster?
From the information provided in the article, I don't think these scientists are guilty of anything. It seems like they were just doing their job, and made a prediction that turned out to be wrong. I'd understand the conviction if they had withheld information or knowingly provided false information. From the article, I don't see any evidence of that, it looks like they were just doing their job.
ReplyDeleteFrom this article, I understand that what was predicted was wrong, but in all honesty, when it comes to science, things are never for sure and even less when you are trying to predict the weather or natural disasters. These are things that can change in a matter of seconds. The forecast in Kalamazoo can say 70 degrees, sunny and 10% chance of rain but five minutes later its 60 degrees and pouring; I know this is nothing compared to an earthquake but it just shows that nothing can be for sure in these fields. Mistakes can easily be made with faulty machines as well and that doesn't mean that the scientists do not know how to do their job. I am sorry for the many loses, but they can't blame the scientist. It is also a personal responsibility, if people knew there were going to be earthquakes, they should've have taken at least some precautions, regardless of the predictions. I'm not saying it is the victims fault either; these are just situations that happen and sometimes there is little control over them.
ReplyDeleteWow this is an alarming article to read. Never before have I ever thought that one day people could be held responsible for not forecasting natural events well enough. I mean it just seems like there are way too many variables, especially in nature, that can change without real concrete explanation, and to hold human beings accountable for this is unbelievable. Whatever happened to human error? Obviously there are certain circumstances in which, if wrong, a professional's opinion needs to be evaluated and possible punishment needs to be dished out. But to put these scientists in jail for 6 years is just mind blowing. To me that would be like putting the weatherman in jail everytime the weather ends up being different than what he says on the 6 o'clock news. There has to be a recognition that not everyone is perfect, no matter how smart or how many scientific degrees they have. The deaths of those people in Italy are surely tragic, do not get me wrong, but the work of nature is often unpredictable and it does not seem fair to place blame on these individuals.
ReplyDeleteInstead of being able to provide definite evidence and information to the people of Italy, these scientists are simply making an educated guess at what they believe will happen. It seems quite ridiculous that a person can be convicted of a crime that depends on the actions of mother nature. If there was more to this story that is not being provided through this article such as a lack of providing certain information that was relevant and helpful to the public then my opinion could be altered. However, with what is given here, I feel extremely bad for these people and the possible repercussions they could face for their forecasting.
ReplyDeleteThis conviction is completely ridiculous, seismic events are typically predictable only to geologic timescales (ie thousands of years) and even to that extent it is simply a probability, nothing can be fully predicted in the natural world, and it is a travesty that these men have had much of their future taken from them because they tried to reassure the country using information that was to the best of their knowledge, accurate. This case sounds like someone who was actually liable trying to deflect some attention, and the variability and uncertainty of science makes a convenient scapegoat. The author of this article is completely right to say that "If the scientific community is to be penalised for making predictions that turn out to be incorrect, or for not accurately predicting an event that subsequently occurs, then scientific endeavour will be restricted to certainties only and the benefits that are associated with findings from medicine to physics will be stalled."
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