Black day for science as geologists go on trial

L'Aquila (credit: Dede90)

Today is a black day for sciences as 6 geologists go on trial in Italy for failing to predict the earthquake that devastated the city of L’Aquila and killed 309 people. The scientists are being charged with manslaughter because they failed to predict a major earthquake.

This is a worrying situation. Modern earth sciences is a relatively new scientific discipline. Plate tectonics – the theory of moving continental plates on the Earth’s surface – was only widely accepted as recently as 1965. Our move away from the idea of continental drift is less than 50 years old.

Our understanding of earth science and processes is still relatively new and immature.

Our understanding of the forces and processes that affect the planet is still at kindergarten stage. Science does not yet have the ability to predict when or where a major earthquake will happen with any degree of certainty. To put scientists on trial for manslaughter because they failed to predict the quake is a consequence of expecting too much from science.

Earth scientists charged with manslaughter.

In addition to the scientist a government official is also being prosecuted for manslaughter.

The list of the defendants is:

Franco Barberi, head of Serious Risks Commission
Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics
Giulio Selvaggi, director of the National Earthquake Centre
Gian Michele Calvi, director of European Centre for Earthquake Engineering
Claudio Eva, physicist
Mauro Dolce, director of the the Civil Protection Agency’s earthquake risk office
Bernardo De Bernardinis, former vice-president of the Civil Protection Agency’s technical department

If found guilty the scientists could receive prison terms of up to 15 years and also be subject to civil compensation claims.

Scientists asked to produce a risk assessment of ongoing tremors.

In the months leading up to the major earthquake the region suffered a series of small tremors. The scientists were asked to provide a risk assessment over whether these tremors could be a prelude to a major quake.

A week before the quake occurred the scientists concluded that they could not predict if there were signs of a major earthquake but that a series of small tremors did not mean that a big quake was on the way. They also recommended stricter enforcement of earthquake planning and counter measures such as enforcement of building codes.

Claims of negligence and imprudence.

Because the scientists failed to predict the earthquake the prosecutors are claiming that the defendants were… ”negligence and imprudence… of having provided an approximative, generic and ineffective assessment of seismic activity risks as well as incomplete, imprecise and contradictory information.”

Many of the worlds leading scientist have given their support to the defendants including writing an open letter condemning the actions of the prosecutors. They made clear that the current level of understanding of earthquakes and earth sciences do not permit accurate predictions of events to be made.

Lack of knowledge and understanding is not criminal.

It’s a dangerous situation when you make scientists criminally responsible for conclusions that they come to that end up being wrong – especially when there is so many unkowns still to be discovered that will allow accurate forecasts and predictions to be made.

There’s many different areas in our lives where risk assessments are made by scientist and those decisions affect our lives. Many of those risk assessments are based on relatively new and limited understanding of processes. When things go wrong or the science changes then the consequences can range from the tragic loss of life as in this instance to mere inconvenience.

It may be that the scientists should have played safe and warned people that a big quake could be on the way – though at no time did they say there definitely was not a big quake on the way. But that series of minor tremors occurred over months. How many people would be prepared to live outside or move away for months on end. would they have started to ignore the warnings after a few weeks or months of no big quake happening and returned back to normal life.

In the past volcano warnings and earthquake warnings have been issued and nothing happened. Would too overcautious scientists lead to a cry wolf situation whereby warnings are ignored because the event does not occur?

We must not ignore the tragic loss of life but undertaking risk assessments is all about trying weight up the likelihood of things happening and our earth science knowledge is not yet at a level to make predictions about earthquakes in the short or medium timespan. Criminalising the weakness of our knowledge and criminalising scientists will not lead to any greater or quicker advancement in our understanding or ability to predict geological events.