Don't be a geologist in Italy (scientist)

[chilaili]

BBC News - L'Aquila quake: Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter

[jtur88]

This is why the trolls come on line immediately and warn us of everything. They don't want to be sent to prison for remaining silent.

[Tek_Freek]

I predict what remains of science in Italy being dragged into a state of inertia.

[thecoalman]

I'd like to see what they were announcing in their predictions. Was it a release along the lines of "there is no possibility of a major earthquake" or was it "there is little possibility of a major earthquake".

If I recall there was an Italian scientist that gained a lot of notoriety for accurately predicting an earthquake a few years back. There is a lot of competition of amongst scientists for their own self interests and perhaps that is what the courts were looking at here. If they are confidentially predicting there will be no major earthquake and there is no earthquake then everyone thinks they are they are greatest thing since slice bread.

[harry chickpea]

Now to arrest the government leaders for not predicting the banking crisis.

[eskercurve]

I wonder if what thecoalman said is right and there was a little cottage industry of scientists making bogus predictions and it finally came back to bite them.

If that were the case though, I would much rather have "fraud" be the charge rather than manslaughter.

Though if they were just innocent scientists then yes, this is an appalling case of ignorance of the masses. I hope it gets thrown out in a higher court.