SEVEN scientists and experts are standing trial in Italy for failing to deliver sufficient warning of an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in 2009.
The seven are accused of manslaughter for giving “inexact, incomplete and contradictory information” about whether tremors felt by the residents of the historic town of L’Aquila, in the Abruzzo area of central Italy, were the precursor of a major quake, which hit on 6 April.(The Scotsman)
This is just bizarre in the extreme,and I personally think it is largely the blame of global warming alarmists who have given the impression that science can be “settled” and that scientists are not only right to make predictions based on no real science but should be compelled.
This is going back to the soothsayers of old. Their politicians no doubt insisted they gave predictions, so there would be predictions like: “a great empire will fall” at the battle tomorrow, which could be explained by a victory of either side (Greeks & Persians) or even some noble dying, or even something nebulous like a philosophy. Even an arrow hitting a lion could be interpreted as another “king dying” etc. The art was not making an accurate prediction, but making a prediction that could be explained afterwards … or at give the soothsayer long enough to get away!
Unless there is genuinely bad science. That e.g. someone just didn’t bother to give out the information and/or a political decision was made to repress evidence (where have we heard that before?), then scientists must be free NOT TO BE ALARMIST.
I personally think is largely the blame of global warming alarmists
Well, quite apart from it being ungrammatical I have to say In think that is just about the daftest statement I have seen on this blog to date. What are you going to blame the warmists for next, tooth decay?
Thanks for the point about grammar.
But that’s an interesting response.
The point is that seismic experts are constantly trying to predict earthquakes and they know how difficult it is, so they are naturally cautious. The problem with those looking at the climate is that whilst they are all too ready to make predictions, these either have not been tested or where they have been tested, they have singularly failed to learn the lesson as in global cooling in the 1970s.
Those predicting Global warming are making it very hard for others who try to honestly predict the behaviour of the world. Global warmers have been able to get away with ludicrous statements like: “the science is settled”, “90% confidence”, “97% of climate scientist agree in doomsday warming”, giving the impression that science can be run like this and that it is possible to have 90% confident based on …. predictions that don’t e.g. predict the recent lack of warming.
That is why so many scientists are coming out against global warming. It’s got nothing to do with the prediction that CO2 warms, it’s just that climate “science” is falsely giving the impression that science can be certain, that it is possible to predict complex chaotic events, and this is the inevitable result when public expectations of science (stoked up by global warming alarmism) far exceeds the ability of science to deliver.
Vesuvius is decades overdue an eruption. About 5 million people live in Naples, little further away than Pompei was.
If I were an Italian earthquake expert I would be working abroad or in another line of work. If you are going to sacrifice somebody to appease the earthquake gods it would do society less harm to sacrifice a virgin.
That’s a serious point.
The response is bound to be a huge increase in alarmism: continual warning of the worst possible outcome.
Something very similar happened to the UK terrorist threat level. If it was too low, they would have been slaughtered if anything happened (hindsight is lovely!), but no one complained when it remained high for no apparent reason. The result: over the six months I looked at it (with a view to putting it on a website), it remained at “very serious” which was just one below the maximum ( imminent destruction of planet earth by global warming concerned aliens?)
As soon as people get penalised for not being alarmist enough, the result is going to be an awful lot more alarmism, because anyone who tries to be rational will find that WHEN something goes wrong, they will be victimised for not having been part of the “consensus”.
May I suggest a new traffic light system:
1. No threat
2. Very unlikely
3. Possible
4. Serious threat that should be taken VERY seriously, because we are being serious that there is a serious threat (see terms and conditions from our legal team)
5. It is erupting
Of course, there’s no need even to put a bulb in 1,2 or 3, because it will always sit at 4 until after it erupts … a perfect prediction … which is totally absolutely useless and will kill millions who might have been saved if there had been a real warning system.
I agree there has been some sort of fundamental shift in perception, at least among the general public, that science has advanced to the point that nearly all events are predictable and/or preventable.
The more ‘creative’ AGW advocates have been suggesting for years now that the melting of glaciers is causing earthquakes. It’s really not much of stretch from there to assume one should be able to precisely predict earthquakes based on the volume of glacier melt in an area. Or something like that.
And it’s no stretch at all to suggest even high-level ‘officials’ are susceptible to such beliefs; Al Gore himself, former VP of the USA, demonstrates this every time he opens his mouth.
How surreal this whole situation must seem to those poor seismologists.
It’s all very simple, really. In Europe one is assumed guilty until they prove themself innocent. The Euro’s only defeated Napolean on the battlefield and poisoned him (with a ‘little’ help from the UK); otherwise, in all respects important, the Little Guy still rules with an Iron Hand. There just must be something in the water that gets into the grapes.