In April 2009 a devastating earthquake hit the town l'Aquila in Italy. Destroyed buildings leave 308 persons dead and over 22 thousand have to flee to government funded shelters. This as it is, is a tragedy on many levels, but this week the aftermath pushes l'Aquila back into the media and leaves the world wondering about the Italian justice.
The Royal Society¹ and the American Geophysical Union² issued statements, while the European Geophysical Union³ asked the Twittersphere to discuss about the decision in court.

Six Italian scientists have been convicted of manslaughter and are sentenced to six years in prison, reimbursements to the families of the deceased in the range of 130.000 per victim and a ban from official positions. Throughout the trial prosecution tried to make it clear that this case is not about earthquake prediction but about "inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" ⁴.

This verdict is very complicated and I think it is important to try and illuminate all sides to it. Now in general this is a nice idea, but there is already one problem to it, the judge Marco Billi did not yet publish the verdict. However, we might want to start looking at the juridical side.
When I read comments on the sentence there were a couple comments stating that this verdict is a retribution⁵. Now those comments were mainly posted by users from the US, which is not a coincidence. In law theory there are different basic principles these are combined in different ways. One of the main motivations in the US is retribution. Whereas, in Italy they use a principle called "Social Defense".

Social Defense is supposed to provide a form of special and general prevention. Special prevention to encourage the culprit not to repeat the crime and general prevention in the form to prevent others from doing the crime. Retribution (in theory) takes the smaller part in Italian jurisdiction. However, this leaves us with the problem that manslaughter has the prerequisite of intent in any jurisdiction I know. This should eventually lead to the case being dismissed. (Please remember I am no expert on this, I just read up on this matter for this article.) Additionally, we need to keep in mind that the verdict can and will be appealed by the defense.

The damage is done.

The guardian draws an interesting parallel to the Galileo trial in 1633⁶. This also was a trial about communication but had a long-lasting effect on science in Italy for the next hundred years. Although an appeal on the verdict will probably save the scientists from jail, the message is sent out that scientists who do not communicate the risk of certain hazards clear enough will face charges.

Continue reading "The l'Aquila trial: Getting the big picture"

A wonderful TED note on science communication¹²:



You don't need to be a fabulous presenter.
You don't need to publish all your research in Nature.
You don't need to make it perfect.

Go out there, tell people about your fascination. Maybe start with a friend or your family. Their probably not great for for constructive criticism, but they are practice and they will give you confidence. Go out and partake in a competition like a Science Slam or Famelab. Maybe start a blog or send out tweets about your fascination.

This is not just for your audience. As Einstein put it:

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

I absolutely agree with this quote, as it is what I experienced very often, with myself and also with others.

Go out there, share what you know and love!
You know something and that something is beautiful, don't be selfish, share it with your audience.

Das was du liebst, braucht nur 3 Minuten! Damit will ich nicht sagen, dass man nur drei Minuten pro Tag verwenden sollte, um seinen liebsten Dingen nachzugehen. Ich rede von Famelab - Wissenschaft in drei Minuten. Dort versuchen junge Wissenschaftler, die gerade ihre ersten Schritte in dem großen Teich der Naturwissenschaften gewagt haben, das zu erklären, was sie machen. Allein das Zuschauen ist großartig. Nirgends lernt man in kürzester Zeit so viele interessante Themengebiete kennen. Nirgends sieht man die Augen von den verschiedensten Wissenschaftlern so leuchten, wenn Sie durch die Stoppuhr gezwungen werden richtig kreativ zu werden. Nach den Vorträgen im letzten Jahr sagte meine Freundin zu mir:

Das ist das erste Mal, dass ich eigentlich verstanden habe, was du machst.

Sich auf drei Minuten zu beschränken ist hart, doch lässt man dort garantiert überflüssiges Geschwafel weg und konzentriert sich nur auf die stärksten Bilder. Ich gehe sogar so weit zu sagen:

Wer sein Thema nicht in 3 Minuten erklären kann, hat das Thema nicht vollkommen verstanden!

In diesem Jahr habe ich es geschafft Continue reading "Scientists in action"