Should Scientists Be Held Legally Responsible for Their Results? - Polidicks

[QUOTE]On March 31, 2009, a panel of scientists and civil servants met to assess the risk presented by a recent series of tremors in the Abruzzo region of Italy. They concluded that a major seismic event was unlikely. Soon thereafter, Bernardo De Bernardinis, the vice-director of Italy’s Department of Civil Protection, the organization that put together the panel, told reporters that citizens should not worry, and even agreed with a journalist who suggested that people should relax with a glass of wine. Six days later, a major earthquake struck L’Aquila, a city in Abruzzo, killing more than 300 people. Soon after, citizens requested an investigation into the panelists’ findings, and the public prosecutor obliged. De Bernardinis and the panelists were charged with manslaughter and now face up to 15 years in prison. The L’Aquila judge who determined that the case could go to court said the defendants provided “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information” and effectively “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.” Many seismologists around the world say that criminalizing the Italian panel’s assessments will have a chilling effect on science. Sheila Jasanoff, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government who studies the role of science and expertise in politics and the law, told me that, though the Italian trial is an extreme example, public scrutiny of how scientists convey low-probability, high-danger situations is not in itself unreasonable. Nor is it unprecedented. Jasanoff said the trial in L’Aquila called to mind the fallout caused by research about bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, in the U.K. In 1989 a scientific advisory group reported that it was unlikely that BSE could be transmitted to humans. Through the early 1990s, government ministries reassured the public that it was safe to eat homegrown beef. As it happened, BSE was transmissible to humans. After dozens died from BSE, the British government launched an inquiry, rather than prosecute, Italian-style. The inquiry’s report, released in 2000, criticized scientists and civil servants alike for not adequately communicating that what’s unlikely is not impossible—for failing to admit openly that they could not rule out the risk of transmission. Just as scientists in Britain did not yet know whether BSE would jump to humans, seismologists in Italy could not predict whether a major earthquake would occur. The through-line from mad cow to the Italian earthquake is not science—good, bad, or otherwise; it is the decision to placate the public by tempering scientific findings with (in hindsight, misplaced) reassurances. If months from now, a court finds the scientists guilty, that would be unfair for them and set a dangerous precedent for panelists on future advisory committees, who might feel reluctant to offer any opinion at all. The ongoing trial should draw researchers’ attention to the benefits of declaiming their own uncertainty, and it should remind the rest of us of the chasm between factual evidence and practical advice. [/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-01/should-scientists-be-held-legally-responsible-their-results[/url]

Unless it was some conspiracy, hell no. You don't simply make someone responsible because they failed to predict the future. One thing we should've learned by now is that any future predicting science is never 100% accurate.

It's not like the poor sod could've done much if the data presented to him was solid and didn't seem to be flawed.

Weathermen would be jailed so fast

Unless they lie about their results or otherwise falsify them, absolutely not. If the science is carried out impartially and to the best of their abilities, what is done with the results is not their fault.

I can see it as a damned if you do, damned if you don't, if they predict one and it doesnt come, they get done with causing panic, if they don't predict one they get done with not predicting it.

[quote]De Bernardinis and the panelists were charged with manslaughter and now face up to 15 years in prison.[/quote]Yeah, for not foreshadowing an earthquake.

What kind of question is that? That's like asking if we should punish someone who builds a building, only to have completely unrelated people start murdering the tenants. You deal with offenders instead you chucklefucks.

I said this before, the authorities in Italy should be put to blame because at no point it crossed their mind to reinforce their already crumbling buildings. The status of most of those buildings wouldv'e made them collapse even with a much less significant quake. So you could say that had the scientists predicted this possibility, the authorities wouldv'e reinforced and repaired the buildings, but you can't just do it over the span of a month or less, and you can't predict earthquakes years before they happen. And regardless of who is to blame, the seismologists are certainly not it. It's not like they failed to read their data properly or delivered false data, based on knowledge they had at that time (and still today) the readings they had come up with a low (or no) chance to have a major earthquake.

Proof that no matter what, assholes in charge will find someone to put the blame on.

If being incompetent kills people yes. They should check if his conclusions are true. If so nothing could be done about it and he gets off free. If he was incompetent or like they said provided: “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information” and effectively “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.” he should get punished. If an engineer designs an unsafe building he is to blame if it collapses, same goes for this.

Wow, the same story again: Something bad happened. Someone has to be blamed and punished.... Seriously, there do exist situations you can't control. Get over it.

When I read the title I thought it was about whether or not scientists should be held responsible for experiments that go wrong and cause damage. Sensationalist news indeed. Anyways in this case no, I don't think they should be held legally responsible. They had to predict and make a choice of action, and they chose wrong. They probably already feel guilty as is.

[QUOTE=aVoN;34482402]Wow, the same story again: Something bad happened. Someone has to be blamed and punished.... Seriously, there do exist situations you can't control. Get over it.[/QUOTE] They said it was his incompetence that caused this outcome. Read the post above yours.

By definition, you don't hold scientists accountable for observations because [I]they're observations not assertions of fact.[/I]

Only in the case of negligence or malevolence should erroneous statements cause liability on the part of the person who made them

If you threaten scientists with jail because they make an honest to god mistake then you'll have no scientists working for you.

The issue is that people ask for definites, but science (and to a degree engineering) deal with errors, tolerances and probabilities. If a scientist says something is unlikely to happen, that doesn't mean it won't. But people like to treat it as 'that is exactly what is going to happen'.

Hell no they shouldn't in theory they're just doing they're job to the best of they're ability. In regards to the incident in Italy:Hey everybody! welcome to another round of the Blame Game! the game show where nobody actually wins but people who lost feel better about themselves by making some undeserving poor sod miserable!

Do we incarcerate gun manufacturers for murders committed with their weapons? Or wars fought with their ammo? No. Unless a scientist intentionally creates something that could kill, and [B]uses[/B] it to that effect, they are not to be held accountable. Unless their hands committed the crime, why hold them to that charge? The situation described in the OP is what I like to call "a mistake". The scientific process is not a perfect one. Things go wrong. Human error is a bitch. They did not create an Earthquake. They did not infect people with Mad Cow. Yes, they fucked up. But the only thing that they could be convicted of, at worst, is criminal stupidity.

[QUOTE=taipan;34482235]If being incompetent kills people yes. They should check if his conclusions are true. If so nothing could be done about it and he gets off free. If he was incompetent or like they said provided: “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information” and effectively “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.” he should get punished. If an engineer designs an unsafe building he is to blame if it collapses, same goes for this.[/QUOTE] The catch here is that we'd didn't build the earth, so your example is a piss poor one indeed.

Earthquakes are unbelievably unpredictable. For example, the projections for tectonic activity similar (M9) to that in Tohoku last year prior to the event itself placed it somewhere in the next millennium. They involve complex physical interactions on a scale we can barely comprehend. To penalize the committee for doing their job to the best of their ability would set a terrifying precedent for the world of science--one that facilitates stagnancy, not progression.

In certain cases, scientists should be held legally accountable for their results. This is not once of the those, at least as far as I can tell. [quote]the defendants provided “imprecise, incomplete and contradictory information” and effectively “thwarted the activities designed to protect the public.”[/quote] This is concerning, but obviously one would need to review the evidence. It could just be the judge being hyperbolic. The MMR scandal is an example of when scientists should be held accountable.

"You failed to do your job to our expectations, so we're going to charge you with killing a ton of people"