Presented by : Kingkamon , Gizem and Arshi

Presented by : Kingkamon, Gizem and Arshi

L’Aquila quake : Italy scientists guilty of manslaughter

Introduction

The defendants were accused in the indictment of giving

“ inexact, incomplete and contradictory information ”

about whether small tremors felt by L’Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

“It raises all sorts of questions about the nature of uncertainty, about the accuracy of models and the responsibilities of scientists.”

“You will then be more likely to make no pronouncement rather than the wrong

pronouncement,”

“My life from tomorrow will change”

"unfair and naive"

“Betrayed by science”

“I consider myself innocent before God and men”

“I am dejected, desperate. I still don’t understand what I was convicted of.”

“Incomplete, Imprecise, and Contradictory information"

"This isn't a trial against science,"

It was right to punish the scientists:

• Inaccurate, incomplete and contradictory information sloppy work?

• Prosecutors said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake, while the defense maintained there was no way to predict major quakes. Why reassure people? “On other occasions they would have fled but that night, with my father, they repeated to themselves what the risk commission had said. And they stayed.”

• Vincenzo Vittorini, a doctor who founded the 309 Martyrs association after losing his wife and daughter in the disaster, said: "No-one expected to be told the exact time of the quake. We just wanted to be warned that we were sitting on a bomb.”

• Someone has to be blamed for the deaths (?).What about the construction companies that built the apartments?

It was not right to punish the scientist´s:

It was wrong to punish the scientists:

- "If the scientific community is to be penalized for making predictions that turn out to be incorrect, or for not accurately predicting an event that subsequently occurs, then scientific endeavor will be restricted to certainties only and the benefits that are associated with findings from medicine to physics will be stalled.”

- The verdicts will come as a shock to all researchers in Italy whose expertise lies in the field of assessing natural hazards. Their pronouncements will be scrutinized as never before, and their fear will be that they too could find themselves embroiled in legal action over statements that are inherently uncertain.

- A week before the quake, they issued a reassuring statement, while also saying that it was not possible to predict whether a stronger quake would occur. They also recommended stricter enforcement of anti-seismic measures, particularly in building construction.

- "This is a trial which opens on very shaky foundations. You cannot put science on trial."

How to avoid ethical problems at work ?

1. Team work, multiple relationships

2. Realise your responsibilities

3. Document everything

4. Earn trust and do not do blind trust

5. Cross check and validate

6. Communicate, discuss

7. Do things in which you have expertise

8. Evidence speaks more than anything else !

9. Keep your team informed of work

10. Be nice, polite and smart to tackle things

Thank you for your kind attention