Little-Acorn
Well-Known Member
I'm still not sure this isn't a joke. I checked, and it isn't from The Onion, though it should be.
But just in case they're serious... when can we sue Al Gore for 3rd degree murder, for not predicting the tornado that hit Joplin, MO last week?
When can we sue the parole board as accomplices to murder, who didn't monitor John Gardner before he stalked and killed at least two girls in southern California in the last year?
This is so classic "big-govt"-ese. Big-govt advocates constantly assume that "officials in charge" can see all, know all, and do all. And they promise us wonderful benefits if only we would put their programs into place.
Sure, the benefits would be huge if we would cure criminals in prison, so that they would not want to commit crimes any more...if we knew how to do it. It would be great to reward merit instead of rewarding results...if we knew how to do it.
These people are blithely assuming the scientists knew how to predict earthquakes... despite all evidence that they don't. And now they are charging those scientists with manslaughter, for failing to do what nobody can do.
Only in America. Except, this time it's in Italy.
This time.
--------------------------------------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...riedformanslaughterfornotpredictingearthquake
Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predicting Earthquake
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor,
LiveScience.com
Thu May 26, 5:55 pm ET
Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.
The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But most scientists would agree it's not their fault they couldn't predict the wrath of Mother Nature.
"We're not able to predict earthquakes very well at all," John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist and professor at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.
Even though advances have been made, the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California, said this month regarding the prediction of the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
The decision to try the six members of a committee tasked with determining the risk of an earthquake in the area (along with a government official) was announced on Wednesday (May 25) by Judge Giuseppe Romano, according to a news article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Some people said the committee should've seen it coming, because of the earthquake swarms that occurred days before the big one struck, Vidale said.
"We get swarms of earthquakes all the time without a big earthquake. There was nothing strange about this swarm to suggest a big earthquake," Vidale said in a telephone interview.
Regarding the charges against the Italian seismologists, Vidale said "we're offended" that they are being charged with a crime "for telling the truth." That truth is, he added, there was nothing to say that the level of danger was enough to warrant any public action.
"One problem is we don't know how much stress it takes to break a fault," Vidale said. "Second we still don't know how much stress is down there. All we can do is measure how the ground is deforming." Not knowing either of these factors makes it pretty tough to figure out when stresses will get to the point of a rupture, and an earth-shaking quake, he explained.
But just in case they're serious... when can we sue Al Gore for 3rd degree murder, for not predicting the tornado that hit Joplin, MO last week?
When can we sue the parole board as accomplices to murder, who didn't monitor John Gardner before he stalked and killed at least two girls in southern California in the last year?
This is so classic "big-govt"-ese. Big-govt advocates constantly assume that "officials in charge" can see all, know all, and do all. And they promise us wonderful benefits if only we would put their programs into place.
Sure, the benefits would be huge if we would cure criminals in prison, so that they would not want to commit crimes any more...if we knew how to do it. It would be great to reward merit instead of rewarding results...if we knew how to do it.
These people are blithely assuming the scientists knew how to predict earthquakes... despite all evidence that they don't. And now they are charging those scientists with manslaughter, for failing to do what nobody can do.
Only in America. Except, this time it's in Italy.
This time.
--------------------------------------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience...riedformanslaughterfornotpredictingearthquake
Seismologists Tried for Manslaughter for Not Predicting Earthquake
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor,
LiveScience.com
Thu May 26, 5:55 pm ET
Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.
The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But most scientists would agree it's not their fault they couldn't predict the wrath of Mother Nature.
"We're not able to predict earthquakes very well at all," John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist and professor at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.
Even though advances have been made, the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California, said this month regarding the prediction of the March 11 earthquake in Japan.
The decision to try the six members of a committee tasked with determining the risk of an earthquake in the area (along with a government official) was announced on Wednesday (May 25) by Judge Giuseppe Romano, according to a news article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Some people said the committee should've seen it coming, because of the earthquake swarms that occurred days before the big one struck, Vidale said.
"We get swarms of earthquakes all the time without a big earthquake. There was nothing strange about this swarm to suggest a big earthquake," Vidale said in a telephone interview.
Regarding the charges against the Italian seismologists, Vidale said "we're offended" that they are being charged with a crime "for telling the truth." That truth is, he added, there was nothing to say that the level of danger was enough to warrant any public action.
"One problem is we don't know how much stress it takes to break a fault," Vidale said. "Second we still don't know how much stress is down there. All we can do is measure how the ground is deforming." Not knowing either of these factors makes it pretty tough to figure out when stresses will get to the point of a rupture, and an earth-shaking quake, he explained.
