Italians have one of the world's great civilizations, but even civilized people are prone to irrational eruptions. The idea that scientists can see the future but are withholding their knowledge from the public is a classic trope in the paranoid anti-science worldview. Thousands of scientists and other friends of science (including me) have already signed an open letter to the Italian president reminding him of the earthquake community's best advice (preparation, maps, building codes etc.) and urging that the police dogs of L'Aquila be called off.
Earth Magazine's Megan Sever weighs in on her Hazardous Living blog with a crisp summary, while Kevin Drum of Mother Jones points out the chilling effect on scientists considering public service in his post "Shooting the Messengers." But Joseph Calamia posted the news on Discover magazine's blog a week ago, a week after Lifeinitaly.com broke the story on June 3. The Web isn't as fast as they say.
Related:
Basics of earthquake prediction
Quake prediction: a bogeyman
Saving lives through well-built schools
Civic madness in 1906
Comments
This one tops the 1999 special meeting of the Izmut, Turkey city council following the earthquake that extensively damaged their city. They voted to demand the Turkish geological survey relocate the fault line transversing their city.
Saying that a physical event, such as an earthquake, is unpredictable is a creationist concept. What shall be reviewed is the consistency of the half century hypothetical model of plate tectonics, which depends a lot in wishfull thinking…
Earth cannot be a singularity in Universe.
I think…
If you take the job, you inherit the RESPONSIBILITY.
In the position they hold, inaction is not an option.
At least give a news release detailing the findings and give some folks time to gather water, food and other emergency preparations. If people choose to ignore the information, too bad for them. But doing nothing is as bad as telling a lie.
Donny, seismologists “job” is studying earthquakes, not predicting them. In the case of predictions, doing nothing is telling the truth.
And Mr. Flecha, I don’t understand what you mean.
Ah! Voi Americani! Non capite niente della mente italiana!
I encourage everyone to sign the letter to the Italian president. I did, too. AEG has also sent this around, and is rather horrified by the implications.
What’s really bad is that the people involved are with the Italian Institute on Geophysics and Vulcanology. If one person gets killed in an earthquake associated with an eruption or the eruption itself, does that make them liable under Italian law for not predicting the eruption?
Stay tuned.
this is silly, the study of earthquakes is not an exact science. It is open for interpetation.