Another Italian view regarding the recent events of L'Aquila ( with links in English)
From: "E. Gatti" <eg322@xxxxxxxxx>
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Dear colleagues,
Following the e- mail by Prof. De Vivo I would like to add some links in English, that provide a less biased view of the recent Italian facts. Please, read them and make an informed decision before signing petitions or sending letters. The six scientists have NOT being condemned because they failed to predict the earthquake. This is simply not true. They have been condemned because they failed in their role of decision- makers, although they had all the instruments and data to take an informed decision and alert the population (and this part has gone missing in the majority of the articles and letters I red this week).
Justifying their actions with the fact that they are well known scientists and they have been presidents of this or that geological society is also disputable. Nobody judged, and will judge, their scientific skills. They have been condemned in their role of decision- makers, role that should include, together with the scientific knowledge of the subject on which they are deliberating, other skills such as civil responsibility, and, well, yes, ability to actually take decisions and act consequentially with plans. Saying that they cannot be guilty because they are eminent scientists is like saying that an X president of a nation is good as president because he is very good in his own private business. History teaches that the two things do not overlap.
All this debate is also moving the attention from what should be the real shocking news for the international community: that in a country like Italy, seismically active as much as Japan and California, no houses are built with anti-seismic criteria, there are no serious risk assessments conditional to the states of the structures, the population is not even superficially informed about what to do in the case of a severe earthquake, and the method they use to protect themselves is to sleep in their cars. This is what should move the scientific community to write letters of complaints.
Here the links:
http://tremblingearth.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/conviction-of-italian-seismologists-a-nuanced-warning/
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110914/full/477264a.html
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/10/22/the-laquila-verdict-a-judgment-not-against-science-but-against-a-failure-of-science-communication/
http://www.seismosoc.org/italy/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/10/22/the-laquila-verdict-a-judgment-not-against-science-but-against-a-failure-of-science-communication/
http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/2012/01/18/news/il_terremoto_negato-28369392/index.html?ref=HRER3-1 (in Italian but very interesting. Find a friend and ask him or her to translate the shocking phone call)
Emma Gatti
PhD student in volcanology
University of Cambridge, UK
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