The laws and physics

IN THE eyes of many, a verdict handed out by an appeals court in the Italian city of L'Aquila this week represents a return to sanity on the part of the country's justice system. Two years ago a lower court convicted seven scientists of manslaughter for advice they gave before the earthquake that laid L'Aquila to waste in the early hours of April 6th 2009. Those earlier convictions outraged many inside and outside the world of science, prompting some to compare them, with a touch of hyperbole, to the Church's condemnation of Galileo for having insisted that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.Seismology becomes a political footballThe defendants had taken part in a meeting of an official government committee held on March 31st 2009 to advise the people of L'Aquila about the threat posed by a series of tremors which had been shaking the town for months, and which had increased in magnitude sharply the day before. In the original trial the judge, Marco Billi, ruled that inadequate risk analysis and false reassurances on the part of the experts led 29 people to stay indoors on the fateful night and...Continue reading
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