Scientists On Trial

In 2009 there was a 6.2 magnitude earthquake in L'Aquila Italy that killed over 300 people. The scientists studying the tremors before the earthquake did not make an official earthquake warning. The scientist also had interviews with the local media before the earthquake and reassured people that they didn't have to evacuate. The scientist argue that it was not there fault because it is impossible to really predict an earthquake and that the chances of them being hit was very improbable. The tremors that were felt before the earthquake were not uncommon in the area and most of the building that clasped were not up to the standards for earthquake prone areas. The verdict on whether the scientist are guilty will come in tomorrow. 

http://www.weather.com/news/italy-earthquake-trial-20121021

The scientist shouldn't be on trial for not accurately predicting an earthquake and stating to the media what they believed to be true. I can think of multiple times when I have check the weather and it has said it would be sunny and instead it's raining or the times when we are only expected to get a little bit of snow and instead there is a blizzard. Are we going to accuse all weathermen for giving us false information? Where do we draw the line? I understand the families being upset but accusing the scientist of manslaughter when they made their best assessment of the situation based on the probability of an earthquake occurring and other scientific knowledge isn't justice. If they had ignored the tremors completely or knew a warning should have been place but it didn't get done for whatever reason then yes the scientist would be at fault. If the verdict comes in that they are guilty, I can't help but wonder what that means for the scientific community. Science isn't exact, there is still a lot that can't be explained or predicted and with so many different variables in nature it's impossible for scientist to know exactly what will happen. If scientist are prosecuted for bad predictions then they will be afraid to make any predictions if there is a slight chance of them being wrong. This could extend to more than just the weather and there wouldn't be a lot of advances in science and technology if the entire science community is afraid of being prosecuted for things they couldn't have predicted.