[S23-1] Geoscience and society I

[S23-1-04] "L'Aquila Trial" is a trial of science?

^○Kazuki Koketsu¹, Satoko Oki², Alessandro Amato³, Andrea Cerase⁴ (1.Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, 2.Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, Kanagawa, Japan, 3.Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy, 4.Universita la Sapienza di Roma, Rome, Italy)

In the article of Stucchi et al. (SRL, 87, 591-596, 2016), the authors wrote: “All the above cannot but lead one to the conclusion that this was indeed also a trial of scientists and that science was purposely brought into the trial." The prosecution against the defendants consists of a matter of science and a matter of communication. In the Reasons for Judgement ("Motivazione") of the first trial, seventy pages are devoted to the matter of science as written in Stucchi et al., whereas 375 pages of its fifth chapter are mostly devoted to the matter of communication. Noting that the title of this chapter is Causal Relationship ("Nesso di Causalita"), therefore, even in the first trial, more emphasis was put to the matter of communication than to the matter of science. In the sentence document of the second trial (388 pages in total), only 2 pages are devoted to the matter of science. In spite of this situation, at the stage of the prosecution, it was complained to the world that science of earthquake was accused and a campaign was carried out against the accusation. However, this campaign made the families of victims furious because the campaign stressed the impossibility of earthquake prediction while the families' fury was focused on bad communication of the defendants, which they believed to be a main cause of victims' deaths and injuries.

In addition, the article did not mention the responsibility of media, except for the TV journalist who made the “glass of wine interview" and broadcasted it without permission. However, a Japanese documentary program for the L'Aquila Trial showed that another TV station and a newspaper reported the content of the interview in the next morning as it was announced by the scientist defendants. These TV stations and newspaper should be the most responsible for the bad communication. The most important lesson learned from the L'Aquila Trial is that scientists must carefully follow reports released by media on their activities.