scientist herethe_physicistOctober 23 2012, 09:07:30 UTC
and i'm going to disagree with all of you.
the scientists are not being punished for what they said in the official minutes of the March 31st meeting. in that, the scientists were clear and don't seem to have made any wrong calls.
they are being punished for something else, namely for statements made outside of that meeting.
let me just throw this quote out there to put this all into more perspective:
director of the nation-wide emergency task-force: "After these afternoon quakes there is nothing to be feared, I can assure you. My fellow colleague and quake researcher can tell you the same", and one of the convicted scientists adds: "Sure, there is nothing to be feared. Indeed, these small earthquakes have released a lot of energy, making a big earthquake impossible".
The scientists thought they could get away with miscommunicating risks to the public. OH, they were perfectly clear on the risk in a meeting that included many experts on the topic and where they could talk to 'non stupid people'.
From one of the articles on this situation we get this response from the scientific community.
earth scientist Thomas Jordan of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "We know that the system for communicating risk before the L'Aquila earthquake was flawed, but this verdict will cast a pall over any attempt to improve it. I'm afraid that many scientists are learning to keep their mouths shut. This won't help those of us who are trying to improve risk communication between scientists and the public.
i disagree.
what the fuck has been improved in the last few decades? NOTHING. scientists have been miscommunicating risks for ever and they are doing real damage to real people with that. sure, they write down the risks correctly in journal papers, report them properly in conferences maybe even, but that is not the communication with the public. in that, they misrepresent risks all the time to detrimental effect.
i think the sentence is steep and it is not fair for a few to be the first to receive such harsh punishments, but all scientists who misrepresents risks because they think the public are too stupid to be talked to properly and informed correctly should not get to hide behind some mantel of "oh, but science is imprecise!"
sure it is, but your communication skills shouldn't be when you are asked to give your professional expert opinion to the public on risks.
Re: scientist heretiger0rangeOctober 24 2012, 14:50:10 UTC
That is just plain stupid shit. So they were wrong. Guess what, that happens all the time in science.
It's morons like you that makes it so hard to make scientific progress. The sensationalistic program was as much to blame. The propaganda push was as much to blame. Get a real understanding of how to listen to scientists. They should never say impossible and if they do, you don't listen to them. They are not government or safety officers. If they are being used as mouthpieces for them, then it's your job not to listen to them. Scientists are allowed like no other people in society to be wrong. It's because they are society's way to explore what is right. Once we are sure of what is right it moves to the domain of engineering or such. You can tell a scientist s/he is wrong. You can discredit him/her if they are grossly wrong. You do not make a scientist the officer of your safety because if the answer was that clear you wouldn't need a scientist.
Re: scientist herethe_physicistOctober 24 2012, 15:15:53 UTC
Scientists are allowed like no other people in society to be wrong.
Guess what? Other people don't get away with nothing if they fuck up in their job and it costs lives. Doctors get sued for malpractice, engineers get sued if they make a building that collapses because they did something wrong.
These scientists accepted the job of advising the general public and they fucked up big time in that job. just like anyone else in such a position they must take responsibility.
eta:
then it's your job not to listen to them.
oh and this? it's the job of the lay person to make themselves experts enough to evaluate whether the experts are worth listening to or not, is it? yeah, no. it's the experts job to do their job properly.
Re: scientist heretiger0rangeOctober 24 2012, 16:44:44 UTC
It's NOT THEIR JOBS to be safety officers. They are advisors at the very worst. We don't blame a mayor's or president's advisors because the buck stops at the president or mayor. It's their job. Not the scientists'.
Re: scientist herethe_physicistOctober 24 2012, 18:07:53 UTC
Do you even understand what they were convicted of? I don't think you do. Did you even read a word of what I wrote?
It's because they are society's way to explore what is right. Once we are sure of what is right it moves to the domain of engineering or such
They were not convicted for incorrect science, but for giving out information that they knew to be incorrect to the public.
You said the public should have known better than to trust the experts. An informed person can be sceptical based on real information, someone who is informed can only make the decision on who to trust or not based on how trustworthy a source is. Scientific experts generally have the public's trust, just as a patient generally trusts the doctors. That trust is eroded when you lie to them, to their face. And then try to say "they're allowed to lie!".
I'd also appreciate if you didn't call me a moron or patronise me by telling me about what it is scientists are there for.
Re: scientist heretiger0rangeOctober 25 2012, 01:51:02 UTC
Look, I don't know you from Adam, so I take it that you really are a physicist. And I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it's some sort of applied physics field and that your lab isn't some computer slaved to a server farm or something playing with glorified math problems.
This is Livejournal, scientists are a dime a dozen in these forums.
I still don't feel that guilty about calling you a moron.
There is a world of difference between a doctor or engineer and a scientist. If someone asked me about how the extracellular environment around a cancer tumor differed from normal, and then used my words to come up with some sort of therapy and then died. It would be stupid to say I allowed him to die. My knowledge is strictly basic science.
The science as it stands currently says that there is an extremely low chance of a large earthquake after a bunch of small ones. It's many times greater chance than if there weren't small ones, but still it's a pretty small chance. This is actually in dispute. Some say that the stats aren't strong enough for this conclusion because if you take a small slice of time against a broad slice, you can bias the math randomly.
There was also outside pressure for the scientists to perform like trained monkeys. Fine, they performed like trained monkeys, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY COMMITTED MANSLAUGHTER. Kick them out of the scientific community for whoring their profession. THEY ARE NOT LEGALLY BOUND TO BE WARDS OF OUR SAFETY. It's not in any scientist's job description. It's not in my contract. It's not in yours.
A doctor contract? It's like line number one. It's even got a name: The Hippocratic Oath. Same for Sheriffs, Mayors, Engineers, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
If the guy was a employee of the earthquake warning system and he was negligent and the system didn't warn people because of his negligence then: a.) He shouldn't be called a scientist, but rather an engineer. b.) He would be at fault.
This guy was giving scientific advice. Scientific advise does not carry any force behind it. It is a soft thing. A physicist could advise me that it is just fine to go 60 mph down a road that has a 50 mph speed limit and it doesn't make one whit of difference in safety. But his testimony won't get me out of a speeding ticket. It's because it's not in his job description to dictate what I should be doing in that situation.
You might say that it's a seismologist's job to predict earthquake. Well guess what, we don't have a good predictive model for earthquakes yet. If you think some guy in an earthquake prone area should not have to be aware of this fact, you are indeed a moron.
Re: scientist herethe_physicistOctober 25 2012, 08:20:42 UTC
You might say that it's a seismologist's job to predict earthquake.
nope. no one is saying that at all. no one is accusing him of sitting at home drinking cocoa instead of warning people either. you aren't reading a word of what i'm saying.
It's not in any scientist's job description. It's not in my contract. It's not in yours.
It certainly would be if I agreed to take on the role they did. And it is part of my job description. What, you think all I do as a scientist is write down vague ass interpretations of data sets and talk about that at conferences? Please. I have responsibilities beyond that. I have responsibilities to students I teach, I have responsibilities with regards to risk and safety toward the PhD students/RAs/post docs etc who I instruct in the use of equipment. Especially equipment I'm in charge of, for which I did the risk assessments - assessments people will take my word on, because I'm the expert in those machines/for those procedures. If i know there is a small risk someone could lose their eyesight while aligning the mirrors in a certain piece of equipment, that there is a risk of dying while doing something else, small as it may be, and I tell them it's impossible that those worse case scenarios could ever happen... yeah, I would have been negligent and it would be manslaughter if a PhD student ends up dead in the lab because of misinformation I gave them. And because I took on the role of a) being on the committee for a big lab in which dangerous shit happens and b) of the people on that committee I also agreed to take on the role to inform, say, a bunch of new PhD students on the risks... yuh. in my job description then. a job has many responsibilities besides airy fairy "let's discover how the world works, yeeeeeaaaah!"
If you take on the role to communicate risks to the public and say incorrect stuff to the public, as a lackey of some ignorant people who don't know what they are talking about, you must take responsibility for that.
If you think the people of that town are to blame for trusting the expert scientific opinion that was given to them because they "should have known better"... based on what should they have known better? Should they never believe a scientific advancement? Should they go with their gut instinct and not use, say, vaccines? An experts opinion is listened to generally, and there's a responsibility that comes with that, especially when communicating to the public.
eta:
i will spell it out in caps for you: THEY WERE NOT CONVICTED OF BAD SCIENCE, GETTING THE SCIENCE 'WRONG', NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. THEY WERE CONVICTED FOR MISLEADING THE PUBLIC ON RISKS THEY KNEW ABOUT, BUT DECIDED TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC ON.
Re: scientist heretiger0rangeOctober 25 2012, 18:11:02 UTC
This discussion is going too far afield of the main point. Even janitors have the kind of responsibilities you are describing. Look, you aren't going to change my mind that science requires a degree of objectivity that precludes advocacy, no matter the topic. Allowing scientists to be used as shields for bad policies sets a dangerous precedent. The scientists should be dismissed and disgraced, but not jailed because this sets scientists up to be future pawns in political maneuvers.
The people who should be jailed are the people who pressured the scientists in the first place.
Re: scientist herethe_physicistOctober 25 2012, 20:58:06 UTC
dude, it's totally on topic and also seems to have make you acknowledge that such a responsibility may actually have been part of their 'job' in that circumstance. now you are only contesting the sentence. and if you read what i actually said, the sentence might not even be something i even agree with. but that they were found guilty for what they were actually charged with - that's what i'm agreeing with.
and please, please explain to me how on earth this "sets a dangerous precedent". how will this lead to more, rather than less scientists being pawns? I think if anything this will highlight to scientists that they actually could face consequences if they agree to be pawns and might, ya know... not let themselves be used in that way. how on earth will it lead to more scientists going: "you know what? i remember what happened to those scientists in Italy! they misrepresented risks to the public! let me do the same...!"
if you meant to say "it will let more politician use scientists as scapegoats"... i think you will find you don't know much about the actual trials in the city. those assholes will land behind bars too. they are not going to get off for their negligence either.
Re: scientist heretiger0rangeOctober 25 2012, 21:45:08 UTC
Okay that reply was so off, I'm thinking you don't even understand what I'm saying.
Read the Nature article. The scientists did not say it was impossible. They said it was unlikely. The Civil Protection Agency gave the more definitive statement. Then they went back and said why didn't the scientists correct them. Well that's just plain stupid.
Look, I worked with BSL 3 organisms. I worked with things that could kill hundreds easily both chemical and biological. I know what society trusts me with and what it doesn't. I work in vaccine development now. If someone asked me my opinion on vaccines and then died taking one. It would NOT be my responsibility it would be the responsibility of the people who marketed the vaccine. That's what keeps the company on track making sure they put something safe out there.
My job is to extend human knowledge. It's not to market or manufacture things for human consumption. It goes with science that I may be wrong . That's why the road from discovery to application is so long and doesn't involve the original scientists for most of it. What we have here is a witch hunt. The Civil Protection Agency is scapegoating the scientists. The truth is that the buck stops with the CPA no matter what advice they were given.
This is a red herring to distract you from the fact that lax building codes were what really caused the high death count.
the scientists are not being punished for what they said in the official minutes of the March 31st meeting. in that, the scientists were clear and don't seem to have made any wrong calls.
they are being punished for something else, namely for statements made outside of that meeting.
let me just throw this quote out there to put this all into more perspective:
director of the nation-wide emergency task-force: "After these afternoon quakes there is nothing to be feared, I can assure you. My fellow colleague and quake researcher can tell you the same", and one of the convicted scientists adds: "Sure, there is nothing to be feared. Indeed, these small earthquakes have released a lot of energy, making a big earthquake impossible".
The scientists thought they could get away with miscommunicating risks to the public. OH, they were perfectly clear on the risk in a meeting that included many experts on the topic and where they could talk to 'non stupid people'.
From one of the articles on this situation we get this response from the scientific community.
earth scientist Thomas Jordan of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. "We know that the system for communicating risk before the L'Aquila earthquake was flawed, but this verdict will cast a pall over any attempt to improve it. I'm afraid that many scientists are learning to keep their mouths shut. This won't help those of us who are trying to improve risk communication between scientists and the public.
i disagree.
what the fuck has been improved in the last few decades? NOTHING. scientists have been miscommunicating risks for ever and they are doing real damage to real people with that. sure, they write down the risks correctly in journal papers, report them properly in conferences maybe even, but that is not the communication with the public. in that, they misrepresent risks all the time to detrimental effect.
i think the sentence is steep and it is not fair for a few to be the first to receive such harsh punishments, but all scientists who misrepresents risks because they think the public are too stupid to be talked to properly and informed correctly should not get to hide behind some mantel of "oh, but science is imprecise!"
sure it is, but your communication skills shouldn't be when you are asked to give your professional expert opinion to the public on risks.
Reply
It's morons like you that makes it so hard to make scientific progress. The sensationalistic program was as much to blame. The propaganda push was as much to blame. Get a real understanding of how to listen to scientists. They should never say impossible and if they do, you don't listen to them. They are not government or safety officers. If they are being used as mouthpieces for them, then it's your job not to listen to them.
Scientists are allowed like no other people in society to be wrong. It's because they are society's way to explore what is right. Once we are sure of what is right it moves to the domain of engineering or such. You can tell a scientist s/he is wrong. You can discredit him/her if they are grossly wrong. You do not make a scientist the officer of your safety because if the answer was that clear you wouldn't need a scientist.
Reply
Guess what? Other people don't get away with nothing if they fuck up in their job and it costs lives. Doctors get sued for malpractice, engineers get sued if they make a building that collapses because they did something wrong.
These scientists accepted the job of advising the general public and they fucked up big time in that job. just like anyone else in such a position they must take responsibility.
eta:
then it's your job not to listen to them.
oh and this? it's the job of the lay person to make themselves experts enough to evaluate whether the experts are worth listening to or not, is it? yeah, no. it's the experts job to do their job properly.
Reply
Reply
It's because they are society's way to explore what is right. Once we are sure of what is right it moves to the domain of engineering or such
They were not convicted for incorrect science, but for giving out information that they knew to be incorrect to the public.
You said the public should have known better than to trust the experts. An informed person can be sceptical based on real information, someone who is informed can only make the decision on who to trust or not based on how trustworthy a source is. Scientific experts generally have the public's trust, just as a patient generally trusts the doctors. That trust is eroded when you lie to them, to their face. And then try to say "they're allowed to lie!".
I'd also appreciate if you didn't call me a moron or patronise me by telling me about what it is scientists are there for.
Reply
This is Livejournal, scientists are a dime a dozen in these forums.
I still don't feel that guilty about calling you a moron.
There is a world of difference between a doctor or engineer and a scientist. If someone asked me about how the extracellular environment around a cancer tumor differed from normal, and then used my words to come up with some sort of therapy and then died. It would be stupid to say I allowed him to die. My knowledge is strictly basic science.
The science as it stands currently says that there is an extremely low chance of a large earthquake after a bunch of small ones. It's many times greater chance than if there weren't small ones, but still it's a pretty small chance. This is actually in dispute. Some say that the stats aren't strong enough for this conclusion because if you take a small slice of time against a broad slice, you can bias the math randomly.
There was also outside pressure for the scientists to perform like trained monkeys. Fine, they performed like trained monkeys, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THEY COMMITTED MANSLAUGHTER. Kick them out of the scientific community for whoring their profession. THEY ARE NOT LEGALLY BOUND TO BE WARDS OF OUR SAFETY. It's not in any scientist's job description. It's not in my contract. It's not in yours.
A doctor contract? It's like line number one. It's even got a name: The Hippocratic Oath.
Same for Sheriffs, Mayors, Engineers, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
If the guy was a employee of the earthquake warning system and he was negligent and the system didn't warn people because of his negligence then:
a.) He shouldn't be called a scientist, but rather an engineer.
b.) He would be at fault.
This guy was giving scientific advice. Scientific advise does not carry any force behind it. It is a soft thing. A physicist could advise me that it is just fine to go 60 mph down a road that has a 50 mph speed limit and it doesn't make one whit of difference in safety. But his testimony won't get me out of a speeding ticket. It's because it's not in his job description to dictate what I should be doing in that situation.
You might say that it's a seismologist's job to predict earthquake. Well guess what, we don't have a good predictive model for earthquakes yet. If you think some guy in an earthquake prone area should not have to be aware of this fact, you are indeed a moron.
Reply
nope. no one is saying that at all. no one is accusing him of sitting at home drinking cocoa instead of warning people either. you aren't reading a word of what i'm saying.
It's not in any scientist's job description. It's not in my contract. It's not in yours.
It certainly would be if I agreed to take on the role they did. And it is part of my job description. What, you think all I do as a scientist is write down vague ass interpretations of data sets and talk about that at conferences? Please. I have responsibilities beyond that. I have responsibilities to students I teach, I have responsibilities with regards to risk and safety toward the PhD students/RAs/post docs etc who I instruct in the use of equipment. Especially equipment I'm in charge of, for which I did the risk assessments - assessments people will take my word on, because I'm the expert in those machines/for those procedures. If i know there is a small risk someone could lose their eyesight while aligning the mirrors in a certain piece of equipment, that there is a risk of dying while doing something else, small as it may be, and I tell them it's impossible that those worse case scenarios could ever happen... yeah, I would have been negligent and it would be manslaughter if a PhD student ends up dead in the lab because of misinformation I gave them. And because I took on the role of a) being on the committee for a big lab in which dangerous shit happens and b) of the people on that committee I also agreed to take on the role to inform, say, a bunch of new PhD students on the risks... yuh. in my job description then. a job has many responsibilities besides airy fairy "let's discover how the world works, yeeeeeaaaah!"
If you take on the role to communicate risks to the public and say incorrect stuff to the public, as a lackey of some ignorant people who don't know what they are talking about, you must take responsibility for that.
If you think the people of that town are to blame for trusting the expert scientific opinion that was given to them because they "should have known better"... based on what should they have known better? Should they never believe a scientific advancement? Should they go with their gut instinct and not use, say, vaccines? An experts opinion is listened to generally, and there's a responsibility that comes with that, especially when communicating to the public.
eta:
i will spell it out in caps for you:
THEY WERE NOT CONVICTED OF BAD SCIENCE, GETTING THE SCIENCE 'WRONG', NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. THEY WERE CONVICTED FOR MISLEADING THE PUBLIC ON RISKS THEY KNEW ABOUT, BUT DECIDED TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC ON.
Reply
The people who should be jailed are the people who pressured the scientists in the first place.
Reply
and please, please explain to me how on earth this "sets a dangerous precedent". how will this lead to more, rather than less scientists being pawns? I think if anything this will highlight to scientists that they actually could face consequences if they agree to be pawns and might, ya know... not let themselves be used in that way. how on earth will it lead to more scientists going: "you know what? i remember what happened to those scientists in Italy! they misrepresented risks to the public! let me do the same...!"
if you meant to say "it will let more politician use scientists as scapegoats"... i think you will find you don't know much about the actual trials in the city. those assholes will land behind bars too. they are not going to get off for their negligence either.
Reply
Read the Nature article. The scientists did not say it was impossible. They said it was unlikely. The Civil Protection Agency gave the more definitive statement. Then they went back and said why didn't the scientists correct them. Well that's just plain stupid.
Look, I worked with BSL 3 organisms. I worked with things that could kill hundreds easily both chemical and biological. I know what society trusts me with and what it doesn't. I work in vaccine development now. If someone asked me my opinion on vaccines and then died taking one. It would NOT be my responsibility it would be the responsibility of the people who marketed the vaccine. That's what keeps the company on track making sure they put something safe out there.
My job is to extend human knowledge. It's not to market or manufacture things for human consumption. It goes with science that I may be wrong . That's why the road from discovery to application is so long and doesn't involve the original scientists for most of it.
What we have here is a witch hunt. The Civil Protection Agency is scapegoating the scientists. The truth is that the buck stops with the CPA no matter what advice they were given.
This is a red herring to distract you from the fact that lax building codes were what really caused the high death count.
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