Skepticblog

Back on 2011, I blogged about the earthquake that occurred on April 6, 2009. It was a Richter magnitude 5.8 (moment magnitude = 6.3) quake that struck the province of Abruzzo in central Italy. It killed 308 people, injured 1173 more, and 65,000 were made homeless. The quake damaged almost 11,000 buildings in the medieval city of L’Aquila, and caused about $16 billion worth of damage over the region. This was the deadliest earthquake to hit Italy since the 1980 Irpina quake, a Richter magnitude 6.9 event in southern Italy, which killed 2914 people, injured over 10,000, and left 300,000 homeless. The L’Aquila event was preceded by hundreds of foreshocks, which caused much of the population to flee the city and seek shelter before the main quake. There were also hundreds of aftershocks, some of which were over 5.3 in Richter magnitude.

Naturally, people were upset, and wanted someone to blame. In the case of most natural disasters, people usually regard such events as “acts of God” and  try to get on with their lives as best they can. No human cause is responsible for great earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, hurricanes, or floods. But in the bizarre world of the Italian legal system, six seismologists and a public official have been charged and now convicted of manslaughter for NOT predicting the quake! My colleagues in the earth science community were incredulous and staggered at this news. Seismologists and geologists have been saying for decades (at least since the 1970s) that short-term earthquake prediction (within minutes to hours of the event) is impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying. As Charles Richter himself said, “Only fools, liars, and charlatans predict earthquakes.” How could anyone then go to court and sue seismologists for following proper scientific procedures?

What’s going on here? As I reported in 2011, there’s more to the story than the short news clips mention. An Italian lab technician (not a seismologist) named Giampaolo Giuliani made a prediction about a month before the quake, based on elevated levels of radon gas. However, seismologists have known for a long time that radon levels, like any other “magic bullet” precursor, are unreliable because no two quakes are alike, and no two quakes give the same precursors. Nevertheless, his prediction caused a furor before the quake actually happened. The Director of the Civil Defence, Guido Bertolaso, forced him to remove his findings from the Internet (old versions are still on line). Giuliani was also reported to the police for “causing fear” with his predictions about a quake near Sulmona, which was far from where the quake actually struck. Enzo Boschi, the head of the Italian National Geophysics Institute declared: “Every time there is an earthquake there are people who claim to have predicted it. As far as I know nobody predicted this earthquake with precision. It is not possible to predict earthquakes.” Most of the geological and geophysical organizations around the world made similar statements in support of the proper scientific procedures adopted by the Italian geophysical community. They condemned Giuliani for scaring people using a method that has not shown to be reliable.

Sadly, most the of press coverage I have read (including many cited above) took the sensationalist approach, and cast Guiliani as the little “David” fighting against the “Goliath” of “Big Science”. Apparently, none of the reporters bothered to do any real background research, or consult with any other legitimate seismologist who would confirm that there is no reliable way to predict earthquakes in the short term and Giuliani is misleading people when he says so. Giulian’s “prediction” was sheer luck, and if he had failed, no one would have mentioned it again. Even though he believes in his method, he ignores the huge body of evidence that shows radon gas is no more reliable than any other “predictor”. In this regard, he is much like other quack “scientists” who get free news coverage “predicting” earthquakes—and then the press never bothers to challenge their credibility, or ask the quack “what happened?” when his prediction proves false. People want to believe that “solitary geniuses” are better than the hundreds of scientists who have established a large body of evidence and research, and that his treatment was due to his “success”, not to his crying “wolf”. That is probably why the entire sordid affair ended up in the courts.

So it came as a shock when, on October 22, 2012, the Italian courts convicted six scientists of manslaughter for failing to predict the earthquake. (Their case is now under appeal, so hopefully sanity will be restored in the next round).  Seismologists around the world were stunned that scientists were demonized for doing their jobs properly, even though the defense had offered numerous witnesses from the international seismological community who testified that short-term quake predictions are impossible. I’ve read through all the accounts I can find, but it seems that the testimony of the international seismologists was completely ignored. Instead, the trial focused on the efforts of the scientific officials to prevent widespread panic by asserting that Giuliani’s prediction had no scientific basis (which is true), and that there was no strong evidence of a major earthquake coming soon (also true). The courts seemed to be punishing scientists for their efforts to prevent panic, and for realistically stating that the probability of Giuliani’s prediction of a quake were very low. Unfortunately, when the quake did happen, people tried to find someone to blame, and scientists were a convenient scapegoat.

As USC seismologist Tom Jordan wrote:

The Italian scientists were trapped by a simple yes-or-no question: “Will we be hit by a damaging earthquake?” This was not surprising given Giuliani’s alarms, but it was not one they could answer conclusively. From what they knew a week before the earthquake, a big shock was not very likely: the probability of a false alarm (if an alarm were raised) exceeded the probability of a failure-to-predict (if an alarm were not cast) by a factor of more than 100. Even so, seismic activity had increased the probability of a large earthquake by a significant factor, perhaps as much as 100-fold, above the long-term average. Distracted by Giuliani’s predictions, the authorities did not emphasise this increase in hazard, nor did they focus on advising the people of L’Aquila about preparatory measures warranted by the seismic crisis. Instead, they made reassuring statements that were widely interpreted to be categorical.

This raises another question: what does this imply for scientists who are working in a field that might have predictive power? In a litigious society like Italy or the U.S., this is a serious question. If a reputable seismologist does make a prediction and fails, he’s liable, because people will panic and make foolish decisions and then blame the seismologist for their losses. Now the Italian courts are saying that (despite world scientific consensus) seismologists are liable if they don’t predict quakes. They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Already, a number of prominent Italian scientists have resigned their posts in protest, and most of the rest will simply stop doing any kind of research that could get them sued.  In some societies where seismologists work hard at prediction and preparation (such as China and Japan), there is no precedent for suing scientists for doing their jobs properly, and the society and court system does not encourage people to file frivolous suits. But in litigious societies, the system is counterproductive, and stifles research that we would like to see developed. What seismologist would want to work on earthquake prediction if they can be sued? I know of many earth scientists with brilliant ideas not only about earthquake prediction but even ways to defuse earthquakes, slow down global warming, or many other incredible but risky brainstorms—but they dare not propose the idea seriously or begin to implement it for fear of being sued.

This state of affairs sure isn’t good for science—or for society. But until the more litigious countries find some way to address it, the potential advances that scientists could make to improve our lives are unnecessarily held back.