Italian Scientists Given Prison Sentences for Not Being Able to Make Psychic Predictions
The USA under Obama isn’t the only place where authoritarian statism is getting out of hand. In Italy, scientists are being thrown in jail for failing to do the impossible regarding earthquake prediction:
[Yesterday] a court in the central Italian city of L’Aquila … sentenced six scientists and a government bureaucrat to six years in jail on manslaughter charges for their failure to predict a 2009 earthquake that left more than 300 people dead. …
The seven, all members of the “National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks,” were convicted after an apparently emotional trial in which the testimony of people who had lost loved ones was allowed, as if it was relevant to the question of whether current science can predict earthquakes. No grief, no matter how great, can answer that question (which is a resounding “no,” by the way).
Who cares whether reliably predicting earthquakes is possible or not? Are you not moved by the tears of grieving children?!?!?
This is the same nefarious tactic trial lawyers exploit to win $zillion settlements from blameless doctors, and bleeding heart Democrats employ to win elections.
Next they will be throwing the weatherman in jail for getting the forecast wrong. Good thing courts are run by liberals, or Al Gore would be in big trouble, having established himself as the world’s worst forecaster.
On a tip from Jimbo.
Time for a career change sounds like.
Next,I guess,jailing economists.
Too bad they don’t imprison so-called scientists here, like the ones who sell their “scientific opinions” to whomever provides the largest grants. (like global warming, 2nd hand smoke, etc.)
That would be a good idea for Ben Bernanke and that Tool Bag Geithner.
Good luck predicting earthquakes from a prison cell.
Will they ever jail politicians who make wrongheaded laws that end up leaving MORE people vulnerable to earthquakes ?
Given those sentences, Gore, Mann, and Hansen should get The Needle.
During WW2 the Germans were evil but the Italians were just stupid.
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@oldguy:
le plus ça change..
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Eppure si muove!!
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I actually, truly thought that the most insane judicial systems possible were those based on sharia and the American system of out-of-control, leftist activist dictator-judges. Italy has added a third leg to this insanity.
They didn’t get sentenced for failure to predict. They were sentenced for having all the signs of an imminant earthquake and telling people to not panic and stay in their homes. If this government board did not exist, the people would ordinarily have left their homes during the ight tremors before the main quake and there would have been fewer deaths. It was bad government advice that killed people, not failure to predict. This is only unusual because government bureaucrats are never held accountable or their bad advice no matter how much it costs in blood.
Update: Some of their colleagues have resigned over these convictions:
“ROME (AP) — Four top Italian disaster experts quit their posts Tuesday, saying the manslaughter convictions of former colleagues for failing to adequately warn of a deadly 2009 earthquake means they can’t effectively perform their duties.”
http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/Italy-disaster-experts-quit-over-quake-trial-3974582.php
Prof Hale
Of course, smaller earthquakes – tremors – do often precede major ones, and can be useful indicators that major trouble is heading down the pike. Or not. Sometimes you can have a series of tremors and no major quake. Or a major quake that doesn’t appear to be preceded by any unusual activity at all. What do geologists do when asked what a series of tremors means? Use their best judgment.
That’s what the Italian scientists were convicted of today: exercising judgment in a murky area, getting it wrong, and being severely punished for it. If the verdict is upheld, that sends a message to scientists that they’d better keep their mouths shut when asked for their opinion in Italy.
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Six scientists and one bureaucrat
This sounds more like Italian government at the higher levels protecting their own hineys
“I’m not crazy,” Picuti says. “I know they can’t predict earthquakes. The basis of the charges is not that they didn’t predict the earthquake. As functionaries of the state, they had certain duties imposed by law: to evaluate and characterize the risks that were present in L’Aquila.”
Jodie…you in houston?
Hi wingmann,
No, I’m in the beautiful state of Arizona. I have been to Houston once though, and loved it!
Who is John Galt?
Good luck Italy, good luck getting anyone to ever issue so much as a thunderstorm warning in your benighted socialist country again.
The only thing the court got wrong was the charge. It should’ve been fraud.
People willing to take taxpayer money to spend a career pretending to do something they know cannot be done deserve imprisonment.