Risk, Responsibility and Reality: Science Confronts the Italian Earthquake Verdict

Galileo must be shaking his head at how little has changed.

500 years ago the eminent Italian scientist was tried by the Catholic Church for insisting that the earth rotated around the sun.

In a trial resonating with similar themes, an Italian judge convicted seven geo-scientists of manslaughter for what amounts to not having predicted an earthquake that killed 300 people.

As absurd as that sounds to contemporary ears, it gets to heart of the social and economic debate about risk and responsibility. There are many in the US who are still outraged that no one has yet been tried, let alone convicted, for the 2008 financial crisis. There are others attempting to assign blame for a variety of mistakes and the resultant outcomes which caused economic or physical harm.

In an increasingly global and technologically driven society, the reasons for things are often hard to pin down. Which creates frustration because humans need closure and in some cases they want financial restitution. But there are larger issues at stake. We live in an inherently unpredictable and sometimes dangerous world. If we choose to locate in an area prone to wild-fire or hurricanes or earthquakes, is it really someone else's fault when they happen and we are harmed? Similarly, when we invest in the capital markets and we discover, to our horror, that they go down as well as up, should we find someone to blame?

There are always going to be cases of fraud and intentional malfeasance. And those should be prosecuted. But there is also a lingering question about why we find it so difficult to take responsibility for our own choices. The chilling conclusion of the Italian earthquake trial is that it sends a message of shifting accountability. That society is saying anyone who speaks publicly on these issues had better be right. A similar outcome in the US as a result of the financial meltdown would probably end with former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan in prison.

In times of uncertainty and dislocation, the human instinct is to look for protection - both before and after the fact. But without the freedom to explore, expound, experiment and exchange ideas, we limit the very protection we seek because we penalize those who seek answers. JL

Eric Klemetti comments in Wired:

By this time, many of you have seen the verdict for the people on trial over the 2009 l’Aquila earthquake. Judge Marco Billi sentenced the seven scientists, engineers and officials to 6 years in prison – 2 years more than the prosecution suggested – over the manslaughter charges stemming from the earthquake that killed over 300 people. The trial has been a flashpoint for geoscientists as many have seen it as a trial over the idea that geologist should be to “predict” earthquakes. This is somewhat misleading as the prosecution was actually claiming the seven on trial were accused of “having carried out a superficial analysis of seismic risk and of having provided false reassurances to the public.” This doesn’t mean they got a “prediction” wrong, but rather that they didn’t fully understand the risk for l’Aquila, thus put people’s lives in danger. However, this whole trial, in its misguided attempt to find someone to blame for a blameless geologic event, sends the wrong message about how to deal with hazard assessment and mitigation.

Now, I’m not going to rehash the whole trial – you can see some excellent summaries in Nature News and The New York Times. However, let’s get this straight. Say what you will about whether the seven adequately did their job in mitigating against the disaster, but convicting them of manslaughter? That is what makes this case so egregious. If you look up a definition of manslaughter (and it varies from country to country), this likely falls under the criminally negligent variety, where “a defendant intentionally puts himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable.” This suggests that the seven on trial caused the 308 deaths from the l’Aquila earthquake by ignoring the facts presented. People who survived the earthquake and the prosecution claim that the scientists should have known a large earthquake was coming because there had been many small earthquakes that preceded it (so-called “foreshocks“, which have not been proven to be predictive of a larger earthquake). However, the scientists and officials instead said that the earthquakes were releasing energy on local faults, reducing the threat of an earthquake. Chris Rowan does a great job explaining why both of these positions are wrong. It all boils down to the idea of what could actually be deduced from the facts in hand. Should government officials and scientists proclaimed that an earthquake would occur in days when no data existed that confirmed this? (And no, saying that the earthquake did occur is not evidence – that is hindsight.)

So, we’re back in the same quandry we often find ourselves when it comes to geologic hazard mitigation – prediction versus probability. Indeed, the city of l’Aquila does lie in a region of high seismic hazard for Italy. This was not a fact that was hidden from the public by government officials – in fact, most people who live in Italy should know that earthquakes are not uncommon across the country. However, even with swarms of small earthquakes, there is no way that any seismologist could say that yes, a large earthquake will happen within a week*. That is the realm of prediction. Alternatively, they should not rule out the possibility that a large earthquake could occur in a region of high seismic hazard. So, the answer is, yes, at some point, a large earthquake will occur here. It isn’t satisfying, but it is what the data will bear. However, that isn’t what people want to hear. They want to know “should I leave my house tomorrow? Tuesday?” Without such an imposed deadline, many times the perceived threat just fades into the background of everyday life, like car accidents or fires.

Why did this trial occur if the science really says there wasn’t anything that could be done? I think it is clearly so that people can have someone to blame. The 7 on trial did say something that can be perceived as reassuring mere days before the tragedy, so clearly, they are the reason those 308 people died. Have a big, flashy show trial and charge them with some frightful. Now, that’ll get people’s attention and solve this problem … forever! Of course it won’t – in fact, it might make proper hazard assessment and discussion even more difficult in Italy because people will be afraid that if they get it wrong, they too will go to prison. It might lead to more “false positives” that erode the public’s confidence in the ability to judge the hazard risk in areas around the country. You’ve create a situation where hazard geoscientists are caught between a literal rock and a hard place – don’t emphasize enough and something happens, you go to prison; overemphasize and cause panic, you lose the public’s trust. I hope this doesn’t lead to a culture of “geologic malpractice”, where any discussion of hazards and mitigation are scrutinized after the fact so that lawyers can go after whomever they want to place the blame. Even more startling, there are threats that the Italian government will cut the positions of many scientists in the INGV who are monitoring active volcanoes and other hazards, leaving the country even more vulnerable. It is a perfect recipe for an epic tragedy to occur.

If you do live in a region of high geologic hazard, then you should be prepared for such eventualities, and if you can’t make the preparations, then you should be making sure your government does. By that I mean infrastructure improvements, emergency planning and response, evacuation plans – all the things that you, personally, can’t tackle. You can prepare your home and family as much as you can, but there has to be buy-in across all levels. However, when it comes down to it, a lot of the responsibility falls on the public to be better educated about the hazards they face. Some of that needs to come from the officials and scientists in charge – better outreach, clearer statements, more research – but some of this needs to come from the grassroots where children learn science and hazards. I do know one thing: Witch hunts to find someone to blame for a tragedy has never brought anyone back.

* It is sad that this case also involves the charlatans who claim to be able to “predict” earthquakes. If Giampaolo Giuliani hadn’t bandied about his unsubstantiated claims about radon being used to predict the earthquake – which caused undue panic and uncertainty that the government tried to quell – would these seven be potentially headed to jail.