Italy's war on science

Despite all of our advanced technology, earthquake prediction is still impossible. Nevertheless, seven Italian scientists face criminal charges for failing to predict an earthquake.

The public prosecutor, Fabio Picuti, says that the media has misrepresented the case. "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." Part of that risk assessment, he says, should have included the density of the urban population and the known fragility of many ancient buildings in the city centre. "They were obligated to evaluate the degree of risk given all these factors," he says, "and they did not."

"This isn't a trial against science," insists earthquake victim Vincenzo Vittorini, who is a civil party to the suit. But he says that a persistent message from authorities of "Be calm, don't worry", and a lack of specific advice, deprived him and others of an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do on the night of the earthquake. "That's why I feel betrayed by science," he says. "Either they didn't know certain things, which is a problem, or they didn't know how to communicate what they did know, which is also a problem."

Personally, I think that this puts scientists in an impossible position. If they had shouted from the rooftops that an earthquake is imminent, and then one failed to materialize, the scientists would be blamed for all of the enormous economic costs associated with evacuating the city. And if the prosecutor's case is successful, this will scare off a generation of Italian students from entering the field of seismology. And in a geologically active place like Italy, they need more seismologists, not fewer.

At first blush it appears that the suit is more about the scientist's failure to evaluate the risk of various sizes of earthquakes to a densely packed populace living in fragile structures, than their ability to predict any earthquake. The victims are complaining that the scientist's reassurances caused them to not take protective action. They trusted that the scientist's would warn them if a temblor was going to cause their house to fall down, and I think the scientists would have, if they had known how weak the structures were.