Yes they were. It is being reported that a scientist "predicted" Monday's earthquake but was quashed by the authorities. The scientist, Giampaolo Giuliani, grew alarmed at high radon levels (a legitimate avenue of earthquake prediction research) that accompanied a series of small quakes, but then took it upon himself to have vans with loudspeakers drive around, urging people to leave their homes. It should be noted that he did this a month before Monday's earthquake. The authorities, led by the mayor, had Giuliani remove his warning from the Internet.
The trouble with Giuliani's behavior is that it was completely irresponsible toward several different sets of people.
- Science-fiction movies to the contrary, it was irresponsible toward the authorities for Giuliani to act over their heads. He was lucky not to be jailed for causing panic. As it was, his action forced the authorities to deal with this unwelcome controversy on top of the widespread destruction.
- It was irresponsible toward other scientists for Giuliani to act on the basis of a method that is not trusted by the scientific community. In fact, no method of earthquake prediction is trusted. Contrary to the movies, there are no lone geniuses with unique powers of deduction. This convenient fiction is exploited by antiscience activists such as global-warming deniers with the slogan "science does not work by consensus." But where science informs policy, consensus is mandatory. By wrapping himself in the mantle of science, Giuliani irresponsibly damaged its authority.
- It was irresponsible toward himself for Giuliani to put himself and his institution at grave risk. Remember, he was urging people to abandon their homes weeks before any earthquake actually occurred. It would take only one family whose abandoned home had been looted to sue him into lifelong poverty—even assuming his forecast was well grounded, which it was not. And as we all know from the movies, a mob of angry villagers can be a deadly threat outside the law.
- It was irresponsible toward the people to alarm them without a full explanation of his method, his reasoning and his uncertainties. Sparing this essential information is not a kindness, but a dangerous expression of contempt for the public's intelligence.
Kim Hannula, as always, is informative too on what Giuliani did wrong.
Comments
I will be critical of your opinion, in order.
1st, the warnings were accurate. It’s never “irresponsible” to speak against authority. Here, in my country, Freedom of Speech protects most over comments against “those in authority”. Nor is it not responsible to comment on that “not trusted by science” – how do advances become trusted and by whom??
I’m not sure if it is ever wrong to warn and urge action. In this case it could have saved lives, by the hundreds.
Perhaps most importantly, to have allowed further “science” might have been led to the 1st time prediction, and allowed science to advance.
Budie
First, the warnings were definitely not accurate. He missed the timing by a week and the location by 30km. That’s nowhere near accurate enough to justify evacuating large numbers of people. As far as I’m aware this guy has shown no evidence that his method has ever successfully predicted and earthquake.
Also, freedom of speech doesn’t (and shouldn’t) protect you when your speech can result in panic and people getting hurt (like calling “fire!” in a crowded theater). You have the freedom to express your ideas without legal repurcussions, you don’t have the freedom to cause harm to people using that speech.
Every earth scientist is for warnings and action, but that means things like public awareness of hazard, having an earthquake kit in your house, and educating people so they know what to do in an emergency, not calling for cities to be evacuated based on terrible evidence.
Finally, this particular branch of seismology has received plenty of study. In the last 50 years no one has had any success in using methods like this to predict earthquakes with enough accuracy to be useful in making evacuation decisions.
You pour scorn on the sceptical views of those who question AGW. It is a scientists job to be sceptical! Especially when the political consequences are so dire. Climate Change has been around for 4.6 Ba and will continue. Prof Richard Lindzen has said ‘There may be human input into climate change but I have failed to find it as it is lost in the noise of measurement’. But I suppost you would consider him a nutter in spite of his position at MIT.
If you cannot even look at the science of climate change then you are no better that the alarmists who refuse to discuss the subject ‘because it has been proved’ so no discussion is necessary. What arrogance! And what stupidity to think that the alteration of output of a trace but vital atmospheric gas will change climate. Please look up to the sky if you wish to see what really changes climate, it is that orange thing that rises every morning and sets every evening.
John, thanks for another good example of the “lone genius” argument; also the argument from authority (“he’s an MIT professor”). On Twitter, the counterpart is that “Giuliani is no slouch, he’s a staff scientist at Gran Sasso.” Both of those exceptionalist arguments are anti-science.
As for the “alteration of a trace element” argument, may I introduce to you the concept of compound interest? I’d also like to point out that your favorite explanation, the sun, affects the atmospheric heat balance the same way as CO2: gradually and slowly. You can’t reject one without the other.
What about the other 9000+ lone genii who signed, among 21000+ scientists who all think that AGW is a myth. Kind os puts you in the minority. When you come to discuss the data instead of name calling then perhaps we ‘realists’ will consider your argument.
John, help me out here. How do 21,000 signatures (taking your larger number) constitute a majority of scientists? This looks like a textbook example of another typical antiscience tactic: making stuff up.
It would have been more appropriate to discuss the matter with the officials. If conditions were seriously different a day or two before the quake, action on the matter could have been taken by the government.
In retrospect, a “Whistle-blower” warning of Thalidomide, for example, would have been preferred. I’m uncomfortable when government agencies decide anything on my behalf when they consider only “need to know” versus “panic potential”.
I agree with the “need to know” and advancement of science. But suppose for a moment that people were convinced to evacuate in an “orderly fashion” and nothing happened for a week! Wouldn’t they be impatient to return home to business as usual, when suddenly the real one struck? What would guarantee a safe and orderly evacuation? Where would thousands of people relocate and for how long?
Are there any practical answers?
An NPR report said that (a) comparable radon emissions can be caused by many things, most of them essentially harmless and (b) a large proportion of earthquakes are not preceded by comparable radon emissions. Are these assertions true? If so, the emissions do not justify a blunt earthquake alarm. They COULD justify a nuanced alarm if they precede some significant percentage of damaging earthquakes and if some significant percentage of such emissions are associated with damaging earthquakes. When a tropical storm is a few days away, providing the information that encourages people to take added precautions to protect lives and property is certainly justified, even though the ultimate strength of the storm and location of its landfall are uncertain indeed.
Joan, what NPR said is true. Predicting earthquakes on the basis of radon alone is like predicting the Dow Industrial Index from the behavior of IBM.