L'Aquila Revisted

Split Rock

Conflation of Blathers
Nov 3, 2003
17,607
730
North Dakota
✟22,466.00
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Single
One of our resident creationists likes to bring up the convictions of six Italian scientists for manslaughter, for failing to adequately warn the residents of L'Aquila of the risk of an earthquake following a "seismic swarm" of small quakes in the region two years ago. This despite the fact that occurrence of such quakes does not predict a major earthquake will follow. The prosecutor claimed they were guilty of "failing to adequately assessing the risk of an earthquake," and asked for four year sentences. The judge gave them six years.

So, recently, an Italian appeals court overturned the convictions of all six scientists. There is an article in the current issue (July 2015) of Smithsonian on the topic (Aftershock, by Elizabeth Kolbert, p 36). Once again, the medieval wheels of Italian Justice slowly turned to the correct conclusion.